Dustin Tyler
NFL Blog
"Intro"

When given the online options for studying digital diversity online I opted for a group studying blogs. Being a college student looking to breeze through this elective course I chose to study blogs pertaining to the National Football League. In the back of my mind there was a sense of assurance to the ease of finding blatant examples of differences and ignorant race or culture statements from football fans. Football fans generally like eating wings, are somewhat uneducated, drink too much beer, and are lazy right? Here were the assumptions and generalizations coming to my mind and then slapping me, a football fan right in face. Very much to my surprise was the challenge of reading blogs with personal differences mentioned. After a while of searching it became very apparent that when viewing commentaries and journals about competitive events the focus of self is much less portrayed than in chat room type instances. As a matter of fact most of the blogs are intelligently written. The most shocking moments were those when scrolling down comments on different NFL teams from fans linking them automatically to a males' voice and seeing the author revealed is a woman. In many cases the female football fans would make sure to mention their gender so people, like me, could see the assumptions we make. There are many who chose to show their own face as a blog identifier, and others who chose pictures, NFL team logos, or even cartoons keeping their identity secret. These anonymous people possibly attempt to gain power positions in doing so. By not showing who they are, weaknesses are less visible, comparable to a gambler wearing sunglasses at the poker table. On one account there was a person with an anonymous name and a representation icon of a random picture, who was able to get away with racial slurs across many race levels because of the power invisibility holds. Diversity in this environment is found mostly by screen name choices which appear to link to the stronger personality characteristics desired.

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