I’m Really, Really Fed The Fuck Up
I didn’t want to write about this. I truly didn’t. But my work day is done, the kitchen’s been cleaned after dinner, and I’m just fed up.
For those who missed it, another white guy who’s paid a lot of money to do something he loves decided it’d be an awesome idea to throw a racial slur out there on Twitch while streaming this past week.
This guy, NASCAR driver Kyle Larson, has since been dropped from his racing team, lost some huge sponsors, and has even been challenged to a charity fistfight by a Mets player. Needless to say, the guy’s not doing so hot right now.
And hey, rightfully so. This is just the latest in a string of streamers, performers, celebrities – whoever, who find themselves softly sobbing in front of their front-facing camera, face just a little too close to the device, using the same excuses and citing the same mistakes that tons before them have used. “I’m sorry”, “this isn’t something I take lightly”, “I’ll learn from this”, y’know – the standard racial slur apology starter pack.
I’m only writing about this because IndyCar’s iRacing was the platform that Kyle Larson found himself in deep shit on. During their Twitch livestream, Kyle Larson had a choice word for his teammate, and you can probably guess what it was. I’m not posting the clip, but if you’re really interested in seeing a song and dance you’ve already seen a thousand times, it isn’t difficult to find.
I’m sure Kyle Larson is sorry. I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of thinkpieces about what he said, and I’m sure he’ll take a long hard look at himself in the mirror and probably think twice before speaking next time, but you’ll never be able to convince me that any of these people learn from stuff like this.
God knows they sure don’t learn from each other.