EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a weekly column from former sports reporter and editor Mike Bass. Bass will be contributing to The Enquirer by offering advice for sports fans, athletes and youth sports parents and coaches through a weekly Q&A. You can reach him at [email protected] or on Twitter @SportsFanCoach1.
When you serve as a bedside nurse for a dying hospital patient, when you see the pain of loved ones unable to be there amid a pandemic, when this reflects two “terrible” years of an “absolute nightmare,” you tend to look at a Bengals loss a little differently.
“I used to joke, ‘Come hold the iPad while people die and their family cries at the other end of the iPad, and maybe you’ll understand why I am so optimistic about football,’” Jess says at the Bengals Bomb Squad tailgate for the Browns game at Paul Brown Stadium. “This is where I find my happiness, with the Bengals and with football. They provide me with an escape and a few hours a week of joy and love with my friends and everybody else.
“It definitely puts things in perspective.”
Jess is all about perspective.
She fights for it.
Now a cardiothoracic surgery nurse practitioner who lives in Columbus and works in Cincinnati, Jess regularly posts comments and photos on social media about matters heavy and light, which many of us do. As @thewhobae on Twitter and with similar handles on other platforms, she frequently shows support her Bengals, but sometimes calls out insensitive posts about her or other female fans, which do not always go over so well.
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That is why she keeps her surname and employer private.
Jess says people tend to get angrier at each other and say “silly things” after a Bengals loss. After the Jets loss, she openly objected if not blocked some tweeters. There were attacks on a good friend and Bengals fan in Los Angeles, @commissioneryas, about the usual dreck women hear – not being real fans, just trying to attract guys. Jess also took issue with fan posts looking for certain high-profile women in media or on social media.
Was it funny? What if you were on the other side?
“Just because it doesn’t offend one person, doesn’t mean it’s not offensive as a whole,” Jess says. “That’s something I try to stand up for. There are a lot of people who have been victims of abuse and victims of stalking who are kind of triggered by things they hear.”
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This is the kind of thing Jess says she discusses on group chats or on the weekly YouTube show “Tigress Talk” she started this year with three other female Bengals fans. As someone who needed a restraining order against a former boyfriend, Jess understands the sensitivity.
And she knows what it is like to be threatened because of her social-media presence.
That’s when @BengalsCaptain takes over.
It helps to be married to a cybersecurity expert.
* * *
Look, you do not have to agree with everything Jess says.
But why not listen? Why not think about it?
Social media can bring us together or tear us apart as fans. We congregate, we share, we needle, we argue. We also can accuse, attack and forget those are real people behind the handles, comments and photos.
Knowing all that, how do you choose to enter the arena?
Jess wants to use it to post about everything from life to death, to her dog to her Bengals, to her clothes to her TV shows, to the power of females connected to the game to the abuse she sees others facing.
And you?
As a coach, I ask: How do you want to use social media? How do you want to show up? How do you want to treat others and be treated? How would you feel if you were on the other side? How would you act if your job and reputation were at stake with every post?
Because if you think anonymity empowers you, remember that someone like @BengalsCaptain might be watching.
“If there is a picture of you anywhere on the internet,” Jess says, “he can pretty much find out where you live.”
* * *
He goes by Captain because this is safer. He and Jess have been married seven years, and he has learned a lot about what female fans face because of what Jess faces.
It is educational. It is heartbreaking. It is scary.
“There have been times she’s thought about letting me take over the account,” he says, “just because I can’t imagine the emotional toll.”
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Jess calls herself thick-skinned. Captain calls her “tough” and “honest” and “amazing.” He says some see her photos and assume she must not know sports and target her as weak. He sees the woman who has boxed with him, learned Krav Maga and Kung Fu with him, and is “the last person someone wants to mess with.”
“She wants to go on vacation and be in a bikini and post a photo about it, she’s allowed,” he says. “I have no jealousy. I married a beautiful woman. I understand what comes along with that. If I have any issues with anger, it’s when people come after my wife. That’s the only time I can be unreasonable.”
Unreasonable?
“I have acquired certain abilities – as in the movie ‘Taken’ – over the years,” he says, “that make me a difficult person to deal with if you want to try to harass my wife.”
Jess says only one or really concerned her. One guy threatened her. He would get her after work, he told Captain. Bad move.
“My husband found him on Facebook and made mention of his family,” Jess says, “and then he backed right on down.”
Captain says Jess will alert him if she foresees trouble and he has stepped in maybe half a dozen times. If you think an anonymous account will protect you, if you think deleting your account is enough, don’t be so sure. He has skills that make him a nightmare for people like you.
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He tries to resist the urge to go “nuclear” and “shut down everybody’s Twitter” and “delete their email.” Instead, he tries to take a deep breath and assess how far to proceed. Often, they find that blocking people is enough.
All in all, she would rather just post about Bengals football.
Or read. Or knit. Or watch TV. Or go to Bengals games. Or anything to escape the world of COVID-19.
“I wish that everyone could see how fleeting and fragile life is because I think they would live their life a little bit differently,” Jess says. “I think we get caught up in the wrong things. We get so upset about things like football and wins and losses.”
She would rather enjoy it while she has it.
Email Bass at [email protected] or reach out to him @SportsFanCoach1 on Twitter if you want to be included next week. His website is MikeBassCoaching.com.
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