Friday, August 10, 2007

Michael Vick murdered Barbaro

When Barbaro the horse was hospitalized and then died, and there were a lot of human supporters and then human mourners, the sports blogosphere was generally cynical, snarky, irreverent, and a bit iconoclastic.

"Just a horse," was the rallying cry as the horse and anybody who cared about him at all got mocked incessantly.

Now, Michael Vick is accused of making dogs fight each other to death.

Is the general tone of the blogosphere something akin to "Just a dog"? No, generally, the sports blogosphere has both mocked and vilified Vick. Rather than dismissing the charges with the same "Just an animal" tone that Barbaro was dismissed, sports bloggers used the opportunity to make fun of Vick. It gave sports bloggers a chance to be cynical, snarky, irreverent, and a bit iconoclastic at the expense of Vick.

Why are we not supposed to care about Barbaro because it's "just a horse," but we're supposed to think Michael Vick is a bad person because of the way he treats dogs?

So are there principles in the sports blogosphere? Or are you all just looking for a chance to mock anything?

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:06 PM

    i thought people were sad about barbaro. i'm still sad about barbaro.

    rk

    ReplyDelete
  2. Heh, you go get them, PV! Good point. So if the animal's bigger than us, it's not important?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous12:08 PM

    Check out the Kevin Kolb comment in Pro Football Prospectus for an interesting juxtaposition with the Vick situation.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous5:23 PM

    I am 100% with you on all the points here.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm pretty sure it was mostly the people who were writing letters to Barbaro that were being mocked.

    If anyone starts a letter writing campaign for the souls of departed pits, I'm sure they too will receive their share of irreverent snark and cynicism.

    ReplyDelete