{"id":21406,"date":"2016-07-12T10:06:39","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T14:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=21406"},"modified":"2016-07-15T14:10:14","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T18:10:14","slug":"gender-politics-of-the-gymternet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2016\/07\/12\/gender-politics-of-the-gymternet\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender Politics of the Gymternet"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/usagymnastics.zenfolio.com\/p336439808\/e7473ea2d<\/a><\/p>\n

Every 2 years, Olympic trials provide the rare opportunity to watch people\u2019s huge and impossible dreams coming true. I love the Olympic trials. All of them. I love them so much. If shoe-tying were an Olympic sport, I would be entirely rapt with the selection process. \u00a0However, I am especially enamored by women\u2019s gymnastics (in trials and in The Games)\u2014I trace this back to my own budding gymnastics career cut short at the fragile age of 8 when, upon receiving an invitation to join my gym\u2019s competition team, my mom said Hell-No-Competitive-Gymnastics-Is-Too-Intense and signed me up for basketball.<\/p>\n

So imagine my delight when I discovered and immediately dove gleefully into the podcasts, blogs, and Twitter feeds that make up the gymternet<\/em>\u2014a network of gymnastics enthusiasts who nerd out about the sport and its athletes. \u00a0I had (and still have) so much to learn. \u00a0Jessica O\u2019Beirne\u2019s \u00a0GymCastic<\/a> podcast is like the mother of the gymternet. The podcast goes in depth with gymnasts, coaches, and experts, and is a must-do for many of the big names in the sport (see: McKayla Maroney\u2019s interview<\/a> after deciding to retire). \u00a0In the blogosphere, Lauren Hopkins\u2019 Gymternet blog<\/a> has shot into popularity, and includes gymnastics history lessons, commentary, FAQs and funny memes. Linking around through the contributors at both GymCastic and Gymternet leads to an array of additional fantastic content.<\/p>\n

The gymternet is great because it celebrates the sport and the women who compete, \u00a0but it does more than this. The gymternet is to its roots, political. It insists upon the sport\u2019s relevance and loudly critiques the way popular press ignores, objectifies, and\/or infanticizes women gymnasts. O\u2019Bierne\u2019s bio<\/a> at GymCastic cites gaining legitimacy for women\u2019s gymnastics as her life\u2019s mission. The collective gymternet project is at once promotional, enthusiastic, political, and feminist.<\/p>\n

The gymternet is also quite efficacious. The social media world of gymnastics fandom and commentary has indeed found its way into the public narrative. This year, NBC hired Hopkins as a researcher for the 2016 Rio Games, and mainstream media outlets reportedly follow her Gymternet blog during live competitions<\/a>. In this vein, athletes themselves frequently drop news at GymCastic before ESPN or NBC Sports.<\/p>\n

The effect of gymternet networks upon the media landscape is far from novel\u2014one of the key ways social media has changed public life is through a proliferation of counter discourses that, when reaching a critical mass, refuse to be ignored (see: \u201cending systemic racism\u201d as part of mainstream political platforms). For a technology theorist\/writer, it\u2019s no longer interesting to point out that social media content informs traditional media content and public conversation. The flow of social media content into newspapers, newscasts, and popular culture products is a well-established truism that arguably, doesn\u2019t need to be written about as much as it still is.<\/p>\n

Instead, it\u2019s surprising when, in today\u2019s media environment, talking heads go along like nothing has changed, ignoring content and conversations on the web. Apparent dismissal of prominent web content is strange, confusing, and was egregiously present among the NBC commentators during the Women\u2019s Gymnastics Rio trials that ended on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the trials, NBC commentators used words like adorable and fun to describe both the gymnasts and their routines. They debated who was more \u201chyper,\u201d Laurie Hernandez<\/a> or Simone Biles<\/a>. One broadcaster asserted that Madison Kocian<\/a> would be perfect as the lead in a gymnastics movie. Apparently, the athletes\u2019 short statures also required frequent comment, usually accompanied by a warmly paternal chuckle (I’m pretty sure Ragan\u00a0Smith’s<\/a> first name isn’t really “Little,” but one might make that mistake\u00a0by listening to the NBC broadcast team). I also watched the Men’s trials, in which commentators noted strength, precision, and focus\u00a0among the athletes–things of relevance in an Olympic competition–while managing to avoid the\u00a0cutesy adjectives.\u00a0Remember, these commentators work at the network that hired the <\/em>Gymternet blogger as a researcher!!<\/p>\n

The NBC sportscaster\u2019s language and sensibility during the 2016 trials would have made \u00a0sense during the 2012 trials for London\u2014they weren\u2019t okay, but they made sense\u2014because four years ago, the gymternet was still budding (GymCastic launched just after the 2012 Games). Today, they are distractingly baffling. How do professional commentators proceed without regard for, or even seeming awareness of, an entire opposition rising up against their commentary? Given the contributions of the gymternet, how can commentators refer to athletes as tiny while ignoring the reason for gymnasts\u2019 short stature: they have overdeveloped their muscles to the effect of stunted growth. That\u2019s not cute, that\u2019s tough as hell.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that commentators don\u2019t \u201cget\u201d social media. On the contrary, the programming was peppered with content from the athletes\u2019 Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a> feeds. For instance, Aly Raisman\u2019s tweet<\/a> about water proof makeup served as a running joke throughout Sunday night\u2019s broadcast.<\/p>\n

The NBC commentators also didn\u2019t seem to be actively opposing the gymternet agenda. There was nothing aggressive about the paternalism aimed at the \u201cadorable\u201d and \u201ctiny\u201d athletes, nor anything antagonistic in pondering, along with the Twitterverse, over the conspicuous absence of Gabby Douglas\u2019s smile<\/a>. Instead, the commentators feminized the sport and the athletes as if it were the most natural thing in the world. They went along as they have gone along, perhaps vaguely aware of some chatterings, but from somewhere far away, from a place that they needn\u2019t really <\/em>go, with a message they needn\u2019t really <\/em>address.<\/p>\n

It was a good reminder that although social media do push society in a political direction, counter discourses, on the web and otherwise, always have to push against<\/em>. A counter discourse is, by definition, an alternate perspective, one that challenges the status quo. In the case of gymnastics commentary, that status quo is sexism that surrounds women in sport. \u00a0To be sure, the gymternet argument has made strides. While previously the gymternet argument lived through isolated tirades and passionate screen yelling, it is now on NPR<\/a> and in The New Republic<\/a>. \u00a0But the status quo is big and the internet is a lot of smalls. The gymternet has changed the conversation, a little. Perhaps by 2020, the broadcast sportscasters will be wise enough to speak the gymternet language.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jenny Davis is on Twitter @Jenny_L_Davis<\/a><\/p>\n

Headline pic via: USAGymnastics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every 2 years, Olympic trials provide the rare opportunity to watch people\u2019s huge and impossible dreams coming true. I love the Olympic trials. All of them. I love them so much. If shoe-tying were an Olympic sport, I would be entirely rapt with the selection process. \u00a0However, I am especially enamored by women\u2019s gymnastics (in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1753,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[12615,55,2094,36493,129,497,36491,1528],"class_list":["post-21406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-broadcast-media","tag-gender","tag-gender-politics","tag-gymnastics","tag-media","tag-olympics","tag-rio","tag-sexism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21406"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21412,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21406\/revisions\/21412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}