The Simon Biles discourse yesterday was a perfect example of a phenomenon I encounter more and more, which is learning of a piece of news first via the “takes” on it and then having to backfill what the actual information is.
All I knew in the beginning was the Biles has withdrawn from the team competition citing her mental health and not a ton more *and* that there was a very intensely polarized discussion of this decision on social media. But I couldn’t actually understand what had happened!
And then there was a bunch of great context offered by ex-gymnasts and people who cover gymnastics and Biles herself and about 24 hours later I had actually learned a whole bunch of new stuff about the intense and harrowing mental precision the sport requires.
I know it makes me sound a big curmudgeonly but it’s a little strange how often this sequence plays itself out with a bit of news. The first thing I want to know is what’s actually happening! What the context and backstory is. But that gets kinda cut out more and more.
There are like six bad typos in this thread, as is my wont.
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