Her name is Megan Crosby, and she plays softball in Texas. If you look on YouTube and other social media outlets, she recently surpassed Hitler, Saddam, Pol Pot, Caligula, and Usama bin Laden as the worst person who has ever lived.
I’m working with my iPad and not sure how to embed the video. If you haven’t already seen it, just google Megan Crosby or go to Youtube and look for “Ejected or Not? 6/6/15” and the video will come up.
Megan is a junior catcher for the Needsville high school softball team, which was in the championship game of the state tournament in Texas. Twice, she gave the bionic elbow (in honor of the late Dusty Rhodes) to girls from the other team as they were scoring runs, though there was no play at the plate.
It was not right. She made two dirty plays. I’m not sure why the umpire did not eject her from the game. If I were the coach on the other team, I’d have probably gotten thrown out complaining!
But in typical American social media response, here’s what has happened since.
- Megan has been called pretty much every name in the book. No amount of discipline is good enough for her!
- It is assumed that not only is she a terrible person but her family, and especially her parents are also terrible people to have raised such a horrible daughter.
- She has
been signed to play college softball and many have demanded her scholarship be revoked. - She has been hounded off social media by twitter and Facebook bullies.
- She has received death threats.
- People have actually been driving by her house repeatedly. Police have had to take to patrolling, according to reports I read, because of the threats and because of suspious activity near her home.
Note: the other team, while unhappy about the incidents, won the game and wants to let bygones be bygones. This is all driven by social media crazies.
- There is a pack mentality that develops in social media in which people gang up to bully those with whom they have a disagreement. These trends are prevelent.
- Someone points out an injustice (or at least a perceived injustice – it might be real, it might not) and addresses it. Then, the swarm forms and people begin to chime in. Person after person must add their voice to the din.
- Often, as the herd mentality develops, anger and insult get worse and worse.
- Those who disagree or defend are often steamrolled by the stampeding herd.
- The “offender” (real or perceived) is often labelled in the extreme. Megan was called the dirtiest softball player ever in the link I saw first. Really? Worst EVER? EVER?
- The pack digs in and goes for blood. At some point, basic human decency, respect and courtesy are lost in the frenzy to destroy the enemy.
- The pack is often only content when the enemy is destoyed, or perhaps when there is a fresh kill to turn to.
Would that this tendency only occurred in sports, politics, entertainment, and other forms of social media., Would that the pack-mentality, bite-and-devour, kill-and-destroy attitude was absent from Christian social media. It is not.
The solution is Christ. Grace must becom more than soteriological buzzword, it must be our plan of operation. Love must be our norm. 1 Corinthians 13 must not simply be a passage read at weddings, then ignored. It must govern our actiions daily.
Megan Crosby made a mistake. But the social media wolfpack that sought to destroy her is more evil than anything she did at homeplate on the softball field.
May the spirit that sought to destroy Megan Crosby be banished from among us in the Christians blogging world.
Whew! When I saw the title of your article roll past, I thought you were filing another report on a speaker at the Pastor’s Conference! ;^)
“May the spirit that sought to destroy … be banished from among us …”
Dave, there is no doubt that the destroyer is at work in the Christian blogosphere. May we all be more discerning in the future to try the spirits whether they are of God … and not to personally go where we should not go in what we say and do.
Couple of cases recently jumped out at me regarding this phenomena. The first was the picture that blew up facebook of the girl at Arlington Cemetery who flipped the bird and appeared to be screaming at the SILENCE AND RESPECT sign at the entrance. Here is her update of the aftermath. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2964489/I-really-obsessed-reading-Woman-fired-photo-giving-middle-finger-Arlington-National-Cemetery-says-finally-Google-without-fear.html However inappropriate, this girl was simply being stupid. That’s not that surprising for that age demographic. Note that she did not commit any crime, do anything dangerous, just being silly and letting her friend document her stupidity. Should that be held against her by potential employers? Absolutely! Should… Read more »
Dave: This an awesome post. You have outdone yourself. What you have written is a challenge to every Bible believing Christian; it is a confrontation, an invitation, a summons to take a road even less travelled than the one in the poem and in the book that bears that title. The directive of I Corinthians 13 is a behavioral modification of the most extreme nature, because it is so contrary to our ordinary responses to the get-even mentality. Basically, the behaviors are those that reflect the influence and the presence of the Person who embodied them in His conduct and… Read more »
Is this at all related to the increase of what I’m starting to call “Social Extortion” – basically, “you will agree to conform your speech and beliefs to what we say, or we will take away your freedom and livelihood”. There’s no room for discussion, or even for evaluating whether the charge under consideration is even accurate. I get this picture of SJW types walking around, swinging a chain, and saying “Nice family…nice job. Wouldn’t it be too bad if something should…..happen to it?”. It’s just that what they’re extorting isn’t money, it’s your freedom to disagree with them. And… Read more »
I would say so.
Also, the overwhelming anger in people.
We are such an angry culture. On the roads. In places of business. Customer service. And in social media.
Unfortunately, instead of undergoing sanctification and allowing our anger to be taken away in Christ, we simply baptize our anger and call in righteous. We justify it and say it serves God.
Dave, in light of your last comment:
Is there such a thing as righteous anger? And if so, can you define it?
Thanks.
There is, perhaps, something called righteous anger. I think that 99% of what we call righteous anger likely isn’t.
So could you offer a definition or some guidelines? Perhaps with examples?
I’ll give it a whirl. We have examples in the Bible of Jesus being angry when he overturned the tables of the money changers. Now, unless we claim to be sinless, I don’t advocate going out and overturning tables just to make a point. But I would say that Moses was a good example of righteous anger. Moses never got angry when people crossed him. He got angry when people crossed God. If you’ll notice, Moses never stuck up for himself. God stuck up for Moses. So the focus of Moses’ anger was on God’s behalf. To be certain, Moses… Read more »
Thanks, Jim.
Well said. Proportional response needed. Suspend her for a game. Make her apologize. Write 1,000 times “I will not play dirty.”
But she is not the Anti-Christ. No need to crucify her. I agree with you on this one, Dave.
Very good, Rick. Yesterday, I watched an interview of a young woman on BookTV.org. Her name is Kirsten Powers, and she has written a book, The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech. She is on the left side, and now she has found out that the left will tolerate no dissent. In fact, her book, according to the interviewer, documents many instances of such egregious actions where they shut the person up and out who dares to violate the standards, any of them, any time. What the Baptists have been about is the need to persuade, persuasion, not… Read more »
This is the difference between the world and Christianity. Many people seeking to reject Christ use Christian judgmentalism as an excuse. There is a point at which Christians have followed the world in this, and so there is often a legitimate complaint. But it’s no excuse to reject Christ for Christians not behaving like Christians. The whole purpose of church discipline is reconciliation. That’s why there is a tiered approach to church discipline. If someone repents early, then grace demands discretion. Even if sin escalates to public knowledge, the goal is still reconciliation. But the world doesn’t practice this. The… Read more »
Recently, a young man in my area abused his own dog to the point that it has to be put down, by dragging it behind his truck. That was vile behaviour. However, the comments sections of our local media have been overwhelmed by commenters saying that he should be tied behind a truck… and then commentors suggested that he be violated in many many other ways, in extremely graphic detail. That’s just as abhorrent as what he did– aggressively detailing a way anyone should be harmed. It’s is, perhaps, even more despicable, because it is most definitely suggesting premeditated violence.… Read more »
Good article. I agree with the sentiment, but I’m not sure how your conclusions would work out in a practical way for a lot of situations with varying degree of nuance. I can see the problem in going “too far” but nothing about what happens in not going “far enough and the dangers therein. How would your solution a dress that?
So glad there was not social media and cameras evrywhere when I was young. Juvenilles do juvenille things. This girl is just a child with her whole life ahead of her. She has had her life ruined by this video of her. If you have ever played competitve sports you know that in the heat of battle your emotions can boil over. It is understandable. It was wrong what she did but the reaction from the ump and opposing coach was a suprise too. Then social media blew this way out of proportion. Its what people seem to love this… Read more »
This is a great article that is missing its third part. “The solution is Christ,” followed by an immediate wrap-up of the article seems abrupt. The problem was well described, but the part where we can change things through Christ is underwhelming.
(Disclaimer: I’ve preached sermons just like this, so I may be ranting at myself. Twenty wonderful minutes of buildup and a quick Jesus is the answer, Amen.)
Turn the last 3 mini-paragraphs into 5 paragraphs of pratical steps, and we have a winner.