On October 1, the Alpha Chi Omega sorority at Arizona State University attended the Arizona Diamondbacks game where the sorority sisters took selfies that were caught on camera by the game’s broadcasters. The next day, the young women ended up making headlines for these now- famous selfies. Selfies. A plethora of selfies being taken by college women sparked numerous rants across the Internet .
The sorority girls spent several minutes taking selfies and showing off their tasty treats to their camera lenses, but it only took seconds for people to voice their opinions on the matter and tear these young ladies down. The Fox Sports announcers covering the game noticed the girls and said things on television like, “Help us, please, somebody help us. Can we do an intervention?”. After the announcers took notice, so did social media where countless hateful comments popped up reacting to the girls, such as “I hate my f****** generation.” The day after the game, headlines across the Internet were all titled similarly to this ABC 7 News article, “Baseball Announcers Poke Fun at Group of Sorority Girls Taking Selfies.”
The girls had every right to take as many pictures as they wanted, as any fan does at a ball game. The Fox Sports announcers’ jobs are to announce scores and stats throughout the baseball game, which does not include making snide comments about fans. The announcers’ attitudes were quite demeaning and came off harsh considering the circumstances.
The fact that headlines emphasized the sorority status of these girls shows that the stories aren’t about how this generation is out of touch with living in the moment., rather these are opportunities to bash sorority sisterhood by making them seem foolish and incompetent. People are always quick to judge sororities and claim that they’re nothing more than looks, but that’s a very naive judgment to make. Of course, the typical features of these girls are their attractiveness, but they’re also smart and ambitious college women. Now is not the time to put these young ladies down, but rather empower them.
After watching the video, I wasn’t filled with disgust or shame for my generation, because I don’t believe that is necessary for anyone taking selfies at a sporting event to be judged. Yes, there was a baseball game happening in front of them, but sometimes capturing the moment can be a nice thing to look back and reflect on. The girls seemed to be having fun and enjoying themselves, therefore it shouldn’t matter if people don’t care for the selfies they took. No other fans were at any risk or harm during the making of these selfies, so it really isn’t worthy of being a news piece splashed across the Internet. If situations such as these are what we’re calling news nowadays, then we have much bigger problems.