One thing I found quite shocking as I’ve been keeping up with the Olympics, was the negative attention that Gabby Douglas has gotten as the competitions panned out.

I figured the whole “nappy hair” would be old and dead this year at the Olympics. Four years ago Douglas got a lot of heat about not her hair not being neat. It took the audience and the media a while to truly realize how absurd and petty it was picking on a 16 year old girl whose literally flipping herself in the air over and over.

This year I felt the media and spectators at home would be easier on her because of the shame we all felt four years ago at the London Olympics. Unfortunately this was not the case, and history repeated itself.

Even the camera man played a hand in this nonsense as they zoomed in on Douglas just about as close as they can get, at every chance they could get. They would put the camera on her if they noticed she wasn’t cheering for her teammates or if she did not go hug a teammate, etc. The media portrayed her as this unsportsmanslike, badly groomed prick, as far as I saw it. There were headlines and national articles that only focused on Douglas and the way she looked and how she was portrayed as bitter of Simone Biles.

Biles played a big whole in this whole thing, even though she didn’t try to. She took Douglas’ spotlight, plain and simple. And people expected Douglas to be bitter about it so at any moment that she was smiling and jumping for joy, she was made out to be a monster.

I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact that professional journalists and media personnel would pay so much attention to something as minute and irrelevant as a gymnast’s “edges.” Douglas did an interview with the Associated Press where she broke down in tears about the accusations of being a bad teammate, a “sorry American,” and an ungroomed young lady.

People on social media are driving Gabby Douglas to tears with their constant attacks

Gabby Douglas calls social media critics ‘hurtful’ after ending Olympic career