Tiger Woods Sext Messages - Page 2

We're not saying "Hey guys, not cool." We're saying it's dumb to try to cloak schadenfreude in faux outrage. Tiger didn't wrong anybody but his wife. Acting like he betrayed the public trust is ridiculous.

Are people around here really outraged? I mean, do any of you guys actually give a fuck what he does, or do you, just like me, think it's funny that the guy really got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and that its especially poetic justice when he prided himself on his family friendly image? Dennis Rodman on Sober House is kind of sad, because the guy has always had rather public issues. Tiger Woods is hilarious, because until 3 months ago everyone thought he was Ward Cleaver with golf clubs.

man I don't give a shit about Tiger at all but these mediocre jokesters on Facebook riding his polygamous ass into the ground need to die

ITT: real talk

Read the thread. There are several comments that go into how he has been lying to the public, been making millions off a false bill of goods, all of that bullshit. He didn't lie to the public any more than any other public figure. How much money he made in endorsement deals is irrelevant.

I've read the thread, I just think you might be confusing "outrage" for "enjoying delicious irony". Outrage is frothing at the mouth, standard Glenn Beck shit. This thread seems to be enjoying a good old fashioned Nelson Muntz moment.

Which, actually, is standard Glenn Beck shit. It's pretending someone did something offensive when really you just wanna talk shit about them.

He's a very public asshole. Pretending that his persona exists in a vacuum is nonsense. Kids play his 'E' rated EA game. He was presented as a role model to kids, and he got rich off of it. I don't know who, exactly, is outraged, but there are plenty of people who are upset that he so thoroughly embraced that persona and then so thoroughly, and publicly, fucked it up.

There seems to be an argument being made that the public nature of his celebrity and the dollar amounts and subsequent visibility of his endorsements are somehow irrelevant. He traded on a wholesome public persona, and is being brought low by the hypocrisy of that trade. No one rushes to the defense of moralizing politicians who turn out to be closet perverts. We generally agree that they get what they deserve. So how is this different?

And if they did, then they were missing the obvious signs. I don't even follow golf, nor do I give half a rat's shaved ass about Tiger, but the few interviews I have read of his don't paint him as wholesome at all. Quite the opposite, actually.

Sometimes, fans see what they want to. When all this Tiger scandal broke, it just seemed to fall in line with the vibe I'd gotten from Woods all along. It seemed to be a natural, expected progression of events for an ego on two legs.

Give me examples of how he passed himself off as a paragon of virtue? He put his best public face forward, like almost everyone does. If you bought into the commercials or photo ops, you were living in a fantasy land and this should be a welcome wake up call.

Yes, he's a role model whether he likes it or not, and so on that level it's disappointing. But, hell, this puts him in the company of at least every other celebrity we've ever heard of. Cheating on your spouse seems to be the norm. Barely worth mentioning. Certainly below celebrity DUI's and the like.

And how does cheating have any bearing on kids who played a video game or drank a bottle of Gatorade with his face on it? It doesn't. People didn't look up to him because he had sponsorships. He had sponsorship because people looked up to him. So, now, since they don't regard him as highly, his endorsements will lower. Why should anyone be upset he made money in the past presenting a fake image, when all commercial imagery is fake? If you're upset about him earning money based on a false persona, I don't know how you restrain yourself from going Elvis on your television every time you turn it on. Nobody should lament the money he earned any more than they should the money he's going to lose.

Cheating, yes, but I simply don't understand why people think that engaging in regular old dirty talk somehow makes him an asshole, a hypocrite, unwholesome, or anything else... It's an oddly conservative reaction.

Either way, I agree with the people who say that this shit is personal.

So having a family picture is "trying to pass yourself off as a paragon of virtue"?

Whether your overall stance is right or wrong, this particular argument is useless. It is the same as saying something like,

"Wait, you're trying to tell me you are against this particular instance X of subtype Y... I haven't heard you complain about every instance of subtype Y throughout human history, so you're a hypocrite and have an invalid opinion!"

OR

"Lots of people/everyone does/commits/engages in <insert bad thing> here, so why be upset or complain about it?"

The implication that something isn't "bad" or "wrong" any more because either some individual hasn't complained (to your knowledge) of similar transgressions or because so many people have done it is kind of silly, no?

Back to public figures. I don't believe that public figures (or private figures for that matter) are presenting their true faces. I do believe, however, that when a prominent public figure (at least one that is respected by a reasonable subset of the population) does something negative, that may be bad for society in other ways. For better or worse, the example being set can cause certain actions or perspectives to become more acceptable to society (either through desensitization or at least through a sense of, "phew, he does things that I do, so I'm not as bad as I thought").

Now, it makes me sad that Tiger was ever placed on a pedestal for anything other than his physical abilities (and I think the pedestal is still too high for that... we have other types of people who SHOULD be revered that go completely unknown to the masses). I'd love to live in a world where we looked at athletes as JUST athletes, but we're not psychologically wired that way, at least in our current culture.

Oh, and for the record, "dirty talk" text messages (which I didn't read) don't bother me at all. I'm not happy that he cheated on his wife, especially with a kid involved, though, but I don't actively care very much... but I certainly think things would be better if he hadn't engaged in all of those activities (for whatever that is worth).

This is very true - there have been intimations that Tiger was a fake persona all along.

Which is accurate, and fine. I'm just a little confused by this idea that a public figure doesn't have any responsibility for their public image.

I mean, look, if Arthur Ashe can't keep the fact that he has AIDS private because he was a public figure and there is a public impact, it's naive to think all this mess with Tiger is 'personal.'

At the absolute very least, he is/was the public face of publicly traded companies. He should have taken that into account before taking on 12 mistresses - when there is a fiduciary impact consequent to someone's personal behavior, the press is going to be all over that behavior.

It's basic Journalism 101. And while I would tend to agree that privacy should be given the benefit of the doubt in more cases than it does, all that goes flying out the window when you're talking about a alpha-level public entity (you could not be more visible than Woods, and he was visible in a very acute fashion - no one gave a shit that Letterman messed around, because he's a private person who doesn't talk about his private life. Woods most definitely chose to adopt a different approach) responsible for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of corporate revenue.

I'm not saying this is why anyone should have bought into his public persona (personally, I never did - his behavior has been documented and hinted at going back years). I'm saying this is why it's a big deal, and this is why it's not a 'private' matter. That is all.

I didn't read all of them, but I'll go ahead and say it's absolutely TERRIFYING that she saved ALL the texts. And a dick move that she released his messages but not hers.

It's the same thing as the blue dress. Why do women save these things? Because it gives them the power. This is a lesson that powerful men cannot understand in the heat of gettin it on.

Nope, I just thought it was a funny photo with Tiger Woods wishing the dog was somebody else.

She didn't want people to think she was slut.

If every one of us was judged by the things we said when we were horny we'd be in big fucking trouble.

That's not what I'm saying. I don't have a problem with someone complaining about Tiger Woods' behavior; I have a problem with the categorization of those deeds. These are private betrayals, not transgressions against the public. The negative impact it could have, him being a role model and all, I acknowledged already. (Though I think that impact is tempered greatly by the fact that this stuff is the norm nowadays, which is why I brought that up. It wasn't to chastise anybody for not being consistent in their criticisms against famous cheaters.) But to link it back to the advertising and how much money he made "off the public" is wrongheaded. Inasmuch as the advertising was linked to his private life, the revelation of the reality of it will surely cost him much money. But to act as if we needed the full picture beforehand, lest it taint the purchase of that bottle of Gatorade you made three years ago, is fucking stupid. He didn't bilk the public. If you allowed yourself to be sucked in by the advertising... that's advertising.


Also, the photo with the wife and kids and dog. Give me a fucking break.

I was pointing more towards her chosen profession.

Sad, sad world.

Some people here seem to be transferring their obvious issues with celebrity culture in general and what a mass media soaked society seems to believe we should expect from and of the people at the centre of it onto Tiger Woods personally. Guy doesn't owe us shit and what he gets up to privately is actually none of our fucking business, he's just another hamster on the celebrity wheel. Get angry at the society and corporate media that happily set him up as some angelic hero. Get angry at yourselves for being stupid enough to think that means anything or buying into it on any level whatsoever. Then go outside and get some air and maybe a sandwich and wonder why any of you should care about this nonsense in the first place.

Currently the leader in the clubhouse for joke of the year.

I'd avoided reading those till just now, but that's just awful..