A woman has expressed her frustration after ESPN posted her and her best friend eating ice cream, only for the clip to be discovered by TikTok “creeps”.
Annie, who goes by ‘.anniej4‘, was attending the 2024 Men’s College World Series baseball championship game with her best friend when the pair decided to tackle the hot weather with some ice cream.
Unbeknownst to them, consuming the frozen dessert would lead to their faces being plastered across TV screens for a “20-second segment” as ESPN provided commentary.
This led to “the creeps of TikTok” finding the clip and comparing the best friends to the viral “Hawk Tuah” girl, resulting in an “absolutely repulsing” comment section.
“It is so beyond evident that women are not welcome in the sports world,” Annie stated, frustrated that she and her best friend couldn’t simply “enjoy a baseball game.”
Initially, the girls received a lot of “fun texts” from friends following their appearance on TV. However, the “fun” dissipated after they began being forwarded “disgusting” TikToks made about the situation in which the girls were “overly sexualized”.
In a follow-up video, Annie stitched one of the TikToks in question, showing her ‘disgust’ as a man stated “Hawk Tuah is about to get replaced”.
Separately, she showed some of the comments that had been left on his TikTok. Many were overtly sexual, despite Annie pointing out that it was unclear in the original video whether or not the best friends were underage.
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She also clarified that it was “not the ESPN commentators” who linked the girls eating ice cream to the viral “Hawk Tuah” meme, but instead men on TikTok.
“In part, the frustration was just how much screentime [ESPN] dedicated to this,” she said, explaining it “didn’t feel necessary”. Nonetheless, Annie’s main frustration remained with “the creator who got over 200,000 views for making the video about me and my friend.”
“The comments and everything that came from that video felt more harmful than anything that the ESPN commentators said.”
Since Annie’s numerous posts brought light to the situation, the original TikTok comparing her to the “Hawk Tuah” girl has been removed.
Viewers celebrated the removal with Annie, one person commenting: “This has been a wonderful turn of events. I’m proud of your response to all of this!”
“I absolutely love you standing up for yourself! You’re awesome and this should not have happened to you,” another said.