ColumnsLifestyleOpinionNaomi Osaka, the Angry Spectators, And the Cancel Culture Syndrome

Avatar PilotnewsSeptember 6, 2021

The cancellation of the Japanese tennis player, Naomi Osaka, by angry spectators, followed her recent loss to Leylah Fernandez, an 18-year-old Canadian, in the tennis Olympics round held last Friday. This has awoken verbal archers against Naomi as it has been a recurring practice to attack champions in their down moments.

The following YouTube comments are;

examples. @capricornmagic63: ‘Now she’s talking about taking time off from the game and doesn’t know when she’ll play again. Such a drama queen. Just quit. Retire. Go home. The game will go on.’

@T B: ‘Such a sweet and deserving defeat.’ @Dire Wolf: ‘Pride will get you nowhere! Only determination and hard work pay off! I hope Naomi Osaka learns that.’

@Sticky Rice: ‘Osaka didn’t choke, her childish attitude lost her this match, at some points, I thought she was just giving up, way to go, Fernandez, way to whoop her azz.

Recalling Naomi’s win in the 2018 Australian Open tennis tournament, a comment similar to @Sticky Rice’s surfaced against Serena. @imperious Dark Doctor commented:

‘Well Serena got caught and acted like a child. During the interview, the reporters were trying to get Naomi to throw salt at Serena, she didn’t. That was classy. That’s why she would make a good role model, unlike Serena who had a total meltdown and threw in the sexism card.’ Another backlash against Serena from @Jeffrey Spence reads: ‘How dare Serena call the umpire a “THIEF”. The only thievery I saw from this match was Serena stealing the happiness and joy from Naomi’s first grand slam moment of joy.’

In the same breadth of attacking Serena, Naomi has enthroned with praises:

‘My new favorite athlete. Such a refreshing personality.’ ‘She’s so sweet and humble. I think she’s won millions of new fans.’ ‘She is so smooth, deflecting problems left and right.’

Another comment from @Arlene de Castro read:

‘Naomi, because of your classy act and humility, you earned so much respect from people around the world. You are now the darling in the tennis match championship.’

The truism of this comment is embedded in the three small letters ‘now’ in the sentence ‘You are now the darling in the tennis match, the implicature being that the ‘now’ will soon become the former in a matter of time which agrees with the saying that ‘the winner of the race is still a rat’. The winner of the current cheese is the winner until the next cheese surfaces, then, the race begins again.

When a record is broken, the champion of that record is only the champion until another surface and raises the bar to the next big thing and the race is endless.

So, can we ever have enough of the cancel culture? Can our criticisms become more constructive instead of destructive? Can we understand that winning is not constant just as a failure, in the journey of life? There will always be emerging stars but we do not have to cancel the preceding to enthrone the succeeding.

In every game, there must be a winner and a loser but we do not have to make the title of the latter their personality description.

Should mental health issues be used as a blanket for stars to shield their flaws from constructive criticisms? Not at all. Mental health care in itself, entails the training and fostering of mental toughness amid all forms of challenges including the two-edged-sword lips awaiting their next slaughter. But the question remains “How well do we have mental health systems integrated into the different sectors and fields available in every country?”

We just never hesitate to champion the cancel culture attitude at the slightest show of failure. Though we may say or feel, it is the Summer Olympics, if we take a closer look around us, our children’s unwillingness to try, our fears to make attempts in pursuing our dreams, we will discover that they are all products of how ugly and dreadful we have portrayed failure.

If words were medals, would we throw them carelessly or carefully hand them over to our recipients? If words were precious stones, would we fling them or lay them thoughtfully?

We must keep celebrating and cheering on emerging winners but not writing off the ones who lost in contrast. More importantly, mental health care should not be a passing comment, but a priority to be integrated into every sector in our various societies.

♦ Favour Chiagozie Ebubechukwu is an Editorial  Staff Writer and columnist with the WAP

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