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Post by michaelw on Jun 4, 2021 1:12:31 GMT -5
I'm starting to lighten up in terms of my views on this. I don't really have much of a problem with her decision anymore and it's understandable (especially when considering that several professional musicians that I like have also discussed their near-crippling anxiety in front of crowds, as well as reflecting on my own past battles with social anxiety disorder and panic attacks as well). Yeah, I think my own experiences are kind of influencing my feelings on this, as well. I think when I was Osaka's age, I would not have been able to stand in front of other people and take questions. I'm asking myself now: could I have done it even for a large amount of money? And I still think the answer would've been no. Nowadays, fortunately, I think I'd be able to handle it. I agree. I'm sympathetic toward Osaka but not at all toward Nike and the others.
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Post by michaelw on Jun 3, 2021 23:00:52 GMT -5
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Post by michaelw on Jun 3, 2021 19:47:09 GMT -5
This piece might be worth a read... www.cjr.org/the_media_today/naomi_osaka_french_open_media.phpThis in particular I thought might be important... Obviously the ADA doesn't apply in France, but it could potentially provide some guidance in thinking about the right way to handle this type of issue. A lot of people might assume that someone with a psychiatric issue shouldn't be working, but I think the ADA kind of operates under the assumption that people often can still work--and have a right to work--despite their disability, and that a better solution might be to work out accommodations when possible. (e.g. If someone works for a company that requires business travel, but they have a crippling fear of getting on a plane, a better solution might be to just let them travel by other methods, if possible, rather than telling them to stay home until their issue is fixed.)
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Post by michaelw on Jun 3, 2021 19:20:47 GMT -5
For sure, Nike won't be asking her to return that money. The company will cynically use this for good press, banking on a triumphant return by Osaka in the near future. I'm merely suggesting that the ethical move would be to willingly return the money, if one had decided to not fulfill the obligations entailed in the contract for that money (assuming media appearances are required in the Nike contract, which is a pretty fair assumption). Yeah, I agree. I think I can agree that taking time off would've been one possible solution, but I don't think it was "the" solution. As I mentioned, I think she probably assumed she would simply pay some fines and move on. Even though that turned out to be incorrect, I'm not sure it would've been an unreasonable assumption at the time, given previous history/precedents.
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Post by michaelw on Jun 3, 2021 18:06:17 GMT -5
The last is, I think, our major point of divergence. I see no evidence whatsoever of "validity" in this regard. The fact that she doesn't always enjoy her interviews isn't a valid reason to skip them, given that she's obligated to give them, both by the tournament and likely by her contracts with her sponsors. Well, I'm not really disagreeing w/ the bolded. But I think I'm more willing to accept the idea that this goes beyond simply not enjoying something. (It's kind of like if someone claims they've been sexually assaulted. I tend to just assume the person is probably telling the truth, as a default.) Oh no, poor Nike! I'm sure they have plenty of lawyers who can stick up for them if there's some kind of breach of contract issue. (OTOH, as you were getting at earlier, Nike might find a way to use this whole situation to their ultimate advantage, regardless).
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Post by michaelw on Jun 3, 2021 8:21:59 GMT -5
I don't think she's shitty, per se. I think her behavior in this case was shitty, diva-esque if you will. Yah, I understand what you meant. Thank god no one reads any of my posts here (except for you guys.) Right? Yeah, I still don't really think she effed up much, at all. Maybe announcing beforehand that she planned to skip the press conferences could be taken as a tactical mistake. But the basic thing here--skipping press conferences--is not really anything special, IMO. It's happened many, many times before, in various sports. Except, unlike in previous cases, she might possibly have a valid reason for doing it. (If the tennis bosses wanted to require backup from a doctor, or something, that would seem fair enough, though.) Fair point on Djokovic, although I'll note with some degree of amusement that he doesn't seem to think Osaka should be skipping any media sessions... news.yahoo.com/doing-press-part-sport-says-033959269.htmlHe might not exactly be the best person to carry the message, you know?
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Post by michaelw on Jun 3, 2021 7:32:49 GMT -5
She only dropped out after being fined and threatened with more fines and/or expulsion if she continued to not meet her obligations. Correct. Correct. That's not so clear to me. She mentioned beforehand that she expected to pay fines and that she was OK w/ that. That doesn't sound quite like expecting special privileges. (Maybe if she objected to being fined, I could see special privileges.) And you know, FWIW, Djokovic did the exact same thing--skipped a media session--and only had to pay $7,500. That was it. No suspension or even threat of suspension, AFAIK. Maybe he didn't expect any special treatment, but that's arguably what he ended up getting, relative to Osaka. Yes, clearly I agree about Nike, but I don't see her as being shitty, at all. IMO, she comes across as fairly reasonable, overall.
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Post by michaelw on Jun 2, 2021 18:40:29 GMT -5
Well look, this is not someone who is uber-shy, imo: Disagree. That doesn't seem mutually exclusive with shyness, at all. Regarding the rest: Sure, I understand. I get why the organizers want participants to do interviews. Hence the policy: if you want to participate in the tournament, you should be required to do interviews. Just sounds like a lot of people are overly focused on the second part of the conditional. Dropping out of the tournament is also a valid choice, IMO. If she's willing to do that, then she shouldn't have to do the interviews, just like you and I shouldn't have to do the interviews. (Because the three of us aren't in the tournament.)
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Post by michaelw on Jun 2, 2021 4:10:47 GMT -5
I think assuming everything you're saying is true, I don't necessarily disagree. But there's a lot of assumptions there and I am really not sure whether she's been diagnosed by a doctor, or whether she's sought any treatment before. I don't think anyone really knows much about that, beyond her (obviously) and potentially friends/family.
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Post by michaelw on Jun 2, 2021 1:03:03 GMT -5
When she upsets Serena Williams and is the darling of the tennis world, she's fine and has no issues. Again though, I think she is actually saying the opposite. Quoting the same bit again from the NYT... It sounds to me like rather than being fine w/ the above, it was--at least according to her--the trigger for the depression. In other words: the opposite of being fine and having no issues. Absolutely. If she needs help, I hope she gets it. (Though whether she's already sought out treatment, or to what extent, I think is kind of an unknown for us right now.) In theory, I agree 100 percent w/ that last bit. But in this particular case, I dunno if it really applies, since I am far less confident that she's faking anything here. For one thing, there's a kind of contradiction--or at least tension--IMO, between the idea of someone being attention-seeking and someone trying to avoid the media. And, in the big picture, it really looked to me like the tournament organizers were the drama queens here, because they were the ones who escalated the situation. (Apparently they threatened suspension from future tournaments, which as I mentioned before, strikes me as kind of unprecedented.) In other words, she withdrew because they forced her hand, not because she really didn't want to play. Overall, she actually comes across to me as rather gracious in this situation, unlike the tennis bosses, who come across to me as rather the opposite. ETA: I found this bit on her wikipedia page, FWIW... If she was always known for being extremely shy and not being talkative, then her current issues would seem to be pretty consistent with that.
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Post by michaelw on Jun 1, 2021 20:58:02 GMT -5
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Post by michaelw on Jun 1, 2021 20:55:13 GMT -5
I took her to be saying almost the opposite, though. From the NYT article: According to her, the depression was initially tennis-related, not media-related. But I think perhaps she sees a connection, insofar as the media stuff might exacerbate the issues she's been dealing with. I wasn't aware a person picked up depression, like a common cold, from random events. I dunno, I'm not an expert on depression. But if someone says they suffer from it, I tend to be fine w/ accepting it, unless there's some clear reason not to. (In any case, while a tennis tournament is certainly a random event for me personally, I can see how it might be a lot more than that for a pro tennis player.)
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Post by michaelw on Jun 1, 2021 20:13:50 GMT -5
She expects people to believe that the thousands of hours of grueling practice, losses, injuries, and tremendous pressure of performing at the level of the world's elite athletes is fine, especially with the millions of riches and fame that follow, but one reasonable question from a reporter after a loss can cause some sort of clinically depressed psychotic break. I think Opty summed it up very well. I took her to be saying almost the opposite, though. From the NYT article: According to her, the depression was initially tennis-related, not media-related. But I think perhaps she sees a connection, insofar as the media stuff might exacerbate the issues she's been dealing with.
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Post by michaelw on Jun 1, 2021 20:05:53 GMT -5
When I say they're using it like Osaka is using it--the "mental health" angle--I mean that they're just saying "mental health" as a justification for her decision to not do the media interviews she is required to do, as if the words alone represented rock-solid evidence that Osaka is struggling with real mental health problems and should be entitled to special treatment (and again, if she really has some problems, she should have just stepped away from the get-go, imo). Maybe she is, maybe she isn't. Social media is hardly the place to either announce it or argue about it. And yeah, people who question their logic in this regard are getting called racists and privileged and so on. Understood. I was just wondering if Osaka had been playing the race card herself, as I thought maybe that was potentially something I'd missed.
Understood. (Although to be fair, she doesn't come across to me as especially hostile toward the media or anything. Didn't she point out that a lot of people in the tennis media had been really nice to her?)
Nah, I understood it as a metaphor and all that, so I don't think I'm quite taking it literally. But I dunno, I guess I would see more of an issue in a case where decision-makers were actually bending to social media blowback. (To be fair, I guess that can still happen later down the road, of course.) I guess I don't quite see that as what's happening here. I got the sense that she was willing to accept the fines, but that things escalated when the higher-ups indicated that they might go farther than that. (Which seems kind of weird to me. I think the norm in these types of situations--Marshawn Lynch, Kyrie Irving, etc-- is that athletes just pay the fines and move on.) But OK, I get that this isn't football or basketball, and the tennis peeps can ultimately do what they want I guess. Still, if they put her in a position where she had to choose between doing the interviews or simply not playing, then I guess she's accepting that and choosing the latter. To me, that seems fine. It doesn't strike me as anything to get upset over, really. (Beyond that, I understand you also think she's trying to silence her critics, which I can understand as something to be upset about, but I am not sure I really see her as guilty of that.)
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Post by michaelw on Jun 1, 2021 18:02:42 GMT -5
Well, I think the angle--which is not political in a strict ideological sense, true enough--comes from the pack of rabid cultural warriors who are defending her with tooth and nail. I dunno, I think I get what you're saying here, but that seems like another way in which the thread title doesn't really add up for me. A bunch of people are commenting on social media about something that happened in the tennis world, but that's hardly much of an invasion. (Or, if it is an invasion, the tennis honchos are essentially just shrugging it off, it would seem.) Sorry, you lost me here. Osaka and others on social media are calling people racist? Or just the social media users? And I'm not sure I grok your problem with mental health here. You keep putting it in quotation marks. Is depression not a real mental health issue? Or is it more that she's faking it and doesn't actually have depression? (Full disclosure: I don't follow women's tennis, so there may be some elements in this story that are just going over my head here.)
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