Late last night, I was in bed scrolling through twitter and found something that I thought was really interesting. One of my followers retweeted this image from an account called “BaseballBoners” with the caption “Dear Lord, thank you for baseball. Amen.”
But if you’ve ever been to a baseball game or watched a baseball practice, the guys don’t practice or play with their shirts off. The guys that play baseball don’t all have big muscles and six packs. So what does that say about our generation’s interpretation of baseball players? I was surprised at the twitter account itself, not just what the account was posting. I believe many people have inaccurate perceptions of what male athletes are and it takes away from the sport.
It seems girls and young women thrive for baseball players and their butts, which has nothing to do with the actual games. Players started wearing pants as part of the uniform in the 1990s, and one of the reasons wasn’t because it made the players’ butts look nice. So next time you see a female obsessing over baseball, ask yourself whether it’s because she actually likes baseball, or the “hot” baseball players.
Identity in the Age of Digital Reproduction 