What The #MoreThanMean Viral Video Didn’t Tell You

We don’t care what you think about our looks, but words matter. The person on the other side of the keyboard matters.

Julie DiCaro
The Cauldron
Published in
6 min readApr 29, 2016

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A fair number of watershed moments in my life have come from responding to questionable emails from complete strangers. That’s how I got my first job at the Chicago Tribune. It’s how I got my first job in radio. And it’s how I wound up taking part in the #MoreThanMean video that has rearranged my life over the last 72 hours.

A few weeks after I inexplicably agreed to be in a video about online harassment — produced by a bunch of guys I’d never met — I found myself standing in a warehouse on Chicago’s West Side. I wasn’t sure what to make of the crew from Just Not Sports; the guys looked like standard bros or standard hipsters, basically.

I was even less sure about what I was about to do, but they had set up a bunch of professional-looking equipment and seemed eager and sincere in their desire to start a conversation about online abuse of women in sports media, so I gave it a shot. The concept — mean tweets devolving into abusive tweets — was a tricky one. It was either going to hit spectacularly or fail miserably.

Almost three million YouTube views later, it’s safe to say the idea was a hit. While ESPN’s Sarah Spain and I have received most of the kudos for the video, the credit really should go to the fantastic men at Just Not Sports. They are responsible for coming up with the idea, setting it in motion, and pushing it out to the world. All I had to do was sit in a chair and try to keep my eye makeup in one place.

By now, Sarah and I have done more media appearances than we can count, and all the questions and answers are starting to blur together. At least for me. My voice has taken on a Kathleen Turner quality from all the talking (I kind of wish that part would stick) and most of this week’s paycheck will go to Uber.

Still, I find myself making a few points repeatedly; the constant questions have forced me to reflect on why I wanted to take part in the video and what I want people to take away from it.

And it I think it’s this: I took part in the video because I could.

Since I wrote about my own rape in 2013 — I wrote more about this in a subsequent piece I wrote for Sports Illustrated — I’ve been called every name in the book. I’ve been threatened with the most vile sexual crimes. I’ve been called ugly, fat, insufferable, a SJW, a feminazi, a piece of shit, a pig, a bitch, a cunt. My head has been photoshopped onto every fat animal there is. There’s nothing left to call me, nothing left to say to me that I haven’t already survived.

Had this happened when I was 22, the harassment probably would have destroyed me. But now? Now I can pick myself up, stand tall, and fight. In that way, I’m free. There’s nothing left, really, for me to lose. In a very twisted way, that’s freeing.

Women in sports media are acutely aware that the segment of the male population that feels we don’t belong. Or rather, they feel we don’t belong if we don’t appeal to their sexual desires. To too many men, the greatest sin a woman can commit is being physically unattractive. But the times have changed. We, the daughters of Title IX, grew up with sports as a centerpiece to our lives, too. We had baseball cards and posters of Michael Jordan on our walls. We have as much right to the arena of sports as men do. And we aren’t going anywhere.

Don’t tell us to find a different career, to get a thicker skin, or to ignore the trolls. You have no idea how much we ignore. We already ignore mountains of garbage, threats and innuendo each and every day. When you see us get upset over a seemingly tame insult, it’s likely because we’ve already been attacked dozens of times that day. That tweet, the one that seems so harmless, was probably just a bridge too far.

The reality is that we wouldn’t be in the industry without an unusually thick skin. The thin-skinned fell by the wayside a long time ago. We didn’t get where we are in the industry by being shrinking violets. For many of us, not standing up to a bully is against our very DNA. We’re fighters. We’ve crawled through mountains of shit to get where we are. We still get shit on every single day. Telling us it’s our duty to absorb the trash people send our way without fighting back is cruel. No one should have to go through what we go through just to do our jobs. We’re the ones that endure it, we don’t need your advice on how to handle it.

As for our male allies, we adore them. But that doesn’t mean we want them to speak for us. Most of us abandoned the idea of white knights long ago. Want to help change the world for the next generation of women in sports media? Scoot over and give us a seat at the table. We’re smart and capable and are perfectly willing to speak for ourselves. We don’t need rescuing. Speaking on our behalf is just another way of silencing us.

Instead, support women’s sports. Read and share women sportswriters. Question why more women, and especially women of color, aren’t actively promoted by their employers. Call out panels at events that don’t include women. Teach your sons and daughters that women have a place in sports equal to men.

Like many of my female colleagues in this industry, I don’t care what you think about the way I look. My sorority days — where life centered around being as thin and attractive as possible — are long over. After a decades of being a serious athlete, my body created and carried two children. Now it gets me where I need to go and gives me the strength to do the things that are important to me. A random stranger’s opinion of it ranks somewhere below the mating habits of blowfish on the list of things I care about. Get over it.

In the end, this conversation needs to be about the need for us — ALL OF US — to be kind to one another. There is nothing more fundamental to peace than the words we use. If you doubt the power of words, watch the #MoreThanMean video again and look in the eyes of the men struggling to say words that contradict everything they believe in. Words matter. The person on the other side of the keyboard matters.

Remember: And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.

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Sports talk radio host at 670 The Score in Chicago. Freelance Sports Writer. Hoosier. Recovering lawyer. Lover of life, hater of red peppers. Well-known tart.