A few weeks back, I wrote about the rivalry between the two famous basketball players: Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. While they have a great rivalry between the two of them in basketball, the fans of the two players seem to be more involved in the rivalry than they are. With the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) crowning a champion on October 20th, the feud on social media has not settled any at all. Clark and Reese’s fans have still been going at it even though neither of their players made it to this year’s finals. As I wrote about in the last blog post, Caitlin Clark VS Angel Reese: Separated by Skill or Race? (https://wordpress.com/post/shoutoutjmu.com/50333),the fans constantly try to tear down the other player over social media. I want to show some examples of this happening and expand on why it causes such a feud between the two players.
In a post made by the Chicago bulls, WNBA, and Chicago Sky via Instagram, linked here (https://www.instagram.com/p/DBxNxO1RpG7/?igsh=Y3ZpbHdteW9jZDBs) it shows Angel Reese sitting courtside at a Chicago Bulls home game. This is not unusual for celebrities that are based in a city to do in the same city they work or play in. Angel Reese plays for the Chicago Sky which is the WNBA team from Chicago, and she is photographed supporting the men’s NBA team. What looks like a supportive gesture from her, quickly turns hateful when you open the comments. The post is captioned reading, “Angel Reese is in the building” along with a blue and yellow heart emoji. The comments are not as loving. One man, by the username “_kdotworld” commented, “she everywhere but on a basketball court working on layups.” While this is one of many negative comments that has nothing to do with the post itself, it elicited many responses from other commenters, so I figured it was a good example. Even though Angel Reese was the winner of the most rebounds award in her first season in the league, people try to say that the rebounds she gets are “farmed” meaning they are easily attainable since she misses so many shots. Rebounds are obtained whether you shoot the ball or someone else shoots the ball and the comments hinting that she only gets her own rebounds are just ways to troll online and fuel the fake rivalry made between the two fanbases.
Another post which made fans start to feud was a post made by Angel Reese herself back in May. She made a post (linked here: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7ksoJmxkBJ/?igsh=MW8ybnQyeGRtNHlhNQ== ) of herself warming up before a game followed by a series of pictures in her uniform captioned, “league barbie.” While the post is just a photo dump of some of the pictures she has obtained through photographers, the comments were filled with hatred once again. The top comment on the post, which had 6,125 likes at the time of writing this blog, was a hateful one made by a white man that goes under the username, “evren_here” The comment reads, “Clark will always be better than you. No one’s watching the WNBA cause of you…jealous looks good on you”. As I stated, even though the post has nothing to do with Caitlin Clark, white men constantly want to post things under the pictures of Angel Reese’s Instagram. With 241 replies under the comment, there was a mix of support for Reese and some support for the commenter.
These posts go to show how the rivalry between Clark and Reese is fueled mainly on social media. It is more of an internet beef than a rivalry because the hatred the two fanbases have for the other competitor overshadow the play on the court.
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