Q&A: How ESPN SportsCenter reporter Sarah Spain wins the game of social media
In honor of National Bullying Prevention Month, we sat down with social media role model and ESPN reporter Sarah Spain. When it comes to social, Sarah’s an MVP. She takes a lot of crap from trolls on Twitter and starred in the viral sensation #MoreThanMean video. It revealed just how much cyberbullying female sports reporters put up with on Twitter. Check out her interview below for how she wins at social and kicks cyberbullying to the curb.
Where did you get your inspiration to do the #MoreThanMean PSA?
SARAH SPAIN: Brad Burke, the co-host of “Just Not Sports,” came up with the idea. He noticed there would be blips of people talking about harassment and there would be coverage on it, but nothing ever changed. He wanted to present it differently, so he reached out to a bunch of female sports anchors. Julie and I were the only ones who replied and were open to the idea.
How do you define cyberbullying and why do you think people do it?
SARAH SPAIN: It’s definitely a different feeling from being bullied in person, face to face. When you’re being bullied online, the fact is that you don’t have to see someone’s face and see how something that you’re saying is affecting them. There are so many parts of our brain that will be impacted when we physically see the reaction on someone’s face.
Bullying today is so much worse. There’s a general feeling of being left out. There’s a permanence to mean words being in print. But it all stems from the same place for bullies, which is insecurity and a desire for power and control and a concern about fitting in and showing off to others.
What’s your advice to a 13-year-old who has experienced cyberbullying?
SARAH SPAIN: I’m not a parent, so take this with a grain of salt. The hardest thing to hear when you’re young is that the awkward things that you’re embarrassed about now are what you embrace later on in life. When you get older, it’s never about fitting in. The fun and most awesome and engaging people are the people who don’t fit in. The challenge as a teenager is the need to always feel that you need to fit.
“Feel awesome about yourself and feel bad for the bully that they need to pick on someone to feel good.”
As a young teen, I would probably hear that advice and say, “I don’t care what you say. I want to fit in right now.” It gets better and you learn to just do you. In the meantime, if there’s one person who is making your life miserable, maybe they can be blocked on social media or dealt with by a parent or another adult. Be sure to talk to other people about it. Don’t keep it to yourself. Talk to your family and friends. Let them remind you that you are fantastic and awesome. Feel awesome about yourself and feel bad for the bully that they need to pick on someone to feel good.
OK, next we want to run some Social Sprints with you.
These are real-life scenarios that kids have shared with us. We want to know what you would do, and you have to think fast!
You’re in a group text with 10 other friends, and someone starts to talk trash about another friend. What they’re saying isn’t cool and gets really inappropriate. You’re on the text. What do you do?
I would text back something like, “Hey, this is a pretty terrible thing to do to our friend. If it was all of us talking smack about you, I think you’d be pretty upset about it. If you have a problem, go talk to her in person.”
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You’re sitting at lunch, and a friend tells you to ask another classmate for their phone and then post something inappropriate on their Instagram account.
I would stand my ground and tell them something like, “When we’re doing things to other people, why don’t we think about how it would feel if it were done to us. Why would you want to make someone feel bad? There’s enough troubles and issues and scary issues in the world that we shouldn’t focus on that.” By the way, isn’t it illegal to do that? I don’t know if it’s even legal to take people’s phone and post something on behalf of them. [Unfortunately, Sarah, it is not illegal. 😞 ]
You’re at a party and got in a group photo. The next morning, you see one of the popular girls posted it to Instagram but cropped you out. What do you do?
I love addressing things face to face. If I had a good relationship with the person, I would want to talk to her face to face and tell her how I feel. I would ask her something like, “Why did you crop me out of the photo? That really hurt my feelings and that’s a crappy thing to do.” If someone does that to you, that’s not really a good friend for you. You have to figure out if that person is someone you want to be around.
“Bullying today is so much worse…but it all stems from the same place for bullies, which is insecurity and a desire for power and control.”
Since Sarah starred in the #MoreThanMean PSA, she has developed her own style of calling out crude, inappropriate tweets by folks who don’t think before they post. Awesome examples of that in action include this and this. You can follow Sarah on Twitter at @SarahSpain.
