I have always had an active
opinion on Facebook – especially about sports – and my older cousins (about
9-10 years older than) know that I stay up-to-date with most professional
sports. So, about three years ago (give or take) my cousins invited to this private
sports group – “Elite Sports Debaters” – created by their old high school
friend.
The group at its core is built around Proviso West High
School graduates in their early-30s and grew as some original members of the
group added some of their other friends and/or family to the group to just
debate sports. It quickly became more than just a sports debating website into
a place where opinions on all subjects are welcomed. To an outsider, it can be
seen as a pretty disgusting place – I cannot lie. I see it as “barbershop
talk,” there’s no filters, all content is uncut and sometime X-rated.
All
members are men and mostly black but that isn’t intentional. Subjects are
talked about and images are shown that have made people – especially women –
uncomfortable. Is the fact that it’s a private group an excuse? I don’t believe
so but it what it is. Outside of sports-talk, members of the group talk about
their attractions towards celebrities, models, and all kinds of beautiful
women. I have never witnessed anything disrespectful said about these women but
they are often objectified and I can see that making women uncomfortable.
With all of that said Elite Sports Debaters – or ESD – is
just a community of guys participating in healthy banter. Every once-in-awhile someone
is invited to the group and their style of debate is insulting and threatening,
in this case the administrator has made the not-so-tough decision of removing
that person from the group. The group consists of 144 members but only a third
of those members are regularly active. Many of us have developed friendships,
even the out-of-state members. We are all live pretty close together, the
majority of those regularly active members are from the westside of Chicago or
the near western suburbs.
All of the content on ESD is from various websites or
Facebook pages ESD members follow and find interesting enough to share and
discuss with other group members. As someone pursuing a career in media, I find
it important to stay connected and informed with the “trending topics” and
current events in our society, and ESD has helped me to stay connected and gain
different perspectives on these topics and events.
Many sites are shared in the group, sports sites like: Black Sports Online, Bleacher Report, SB Nation, NBA.com, NFL.com, ESPN, and plenty more. While we
touch on many subjects, the most popular subject is sports (particularly
basketball and football) those have the best debates. Matter of fact, hip-hop
might be the most popular (well most entertaining) subject debated. Our longest
thread consisted of close to one-thousand comments and the subject was me
simply making the statement: “Biggie is the greatest rapper of all-time.”
There are few people who share opinions in ESD. There are
Chicago Bears fans, Dallas Cowboys fans, New England Patriots fans, fans of
just specific athletes, and sports betters. With such diversity in sports
allegiance, opinions vary even more because I have been in Facebook groups
about the same sports team and people have had heated debates on the different
approaches they believe the team should take. ESD has the same situation but
add in people being fans of your team’s rival and imagine the banter that comes
with that.
Many of us have become friends outside of the group,
whenever out-of-state members are in town we try to schedule a poker game. I
work at a local nightclub, many members have swung by to visit. We all share
very similar general interests although we debate, argue, and fight over them.
We are all sports fans and hip-hop fans but few of us agree upon who we listen
to or root for (as I have stated earlier).
Our most controversial discussions occur whenever race is
brought up. Most members are black but we have a handful of Hispanic members
and a few white members. I remember the most controversial thread being about Ferguson
and a white member called the people vandalizing property “thugs,” a bunch of
asked about if sports fans who vandalize property after a team’s win or loss
are “thugs.” The debate made a quick turn when the white member called a black
member “racist” and I jumped in saying “blacks cannot be racists.” No
disrespect ever emerged, just healthy banter.
All of the misogyny aside, ESD is just a place where
healthy banter is welcomed but the occasional sight of pictures of beautiful
women and men commenting (sometimes rating them) makes you uneasy, you probably
will not enjoy the ESD community. I look at ESD as a place for men to be
completely uncut, it’s unapologetically an online mancave.
Virtual communities like ESD are important in today’s
society because people spend so much time on their technology. It is hard to be
active in today’s society without being “plugged in.” Like I said early, what I
like most about ESD is that it gives me different perspectives from different
people on different subjects. Social media, in general, has become a place
where people share news articles and viral videos. Social media has made
“water-cooler talk” all the more interesting. Communities like ESD allow me to
expand my consumption of news that I am already interested in and something
like that is very beneficial when it comes to wanted to be well-informed and
current.
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