Fans are fed up with this viral trend during March Madness
March Madness can be an emotional time for die-hard college basketball fans.
Watching your team get blown out or lose on a buzzer-beater is dispiriting.
While adults usually manage to channel those feelings into an exasperated eyeroll, frown or head shake, younger fans sometimes let the tears flow.
In recent years, shots of children bawling in the stands after their team loses have become irresistible to TV producers, and the CBS and Turner broadcasts of this year’s NCAA tournament have taken it to another level.
It seems like the end of every game in the first two rounds has thrust a miserable kid into the limelight.
On top of that, rival fans share these images on social media, turning a crying child into a viral joke.
Well, many viewers have had enough of this trend.
The shots of crying kids after dramatic March Madness games is old and cheap. Nothing else could better convey the emotions of these games than showing a bawling 10 year old?
— Adam Niemi (@AdamNiemi) March 19, 2018
I said DON’T show me crying kids. #MarchMadness
— Krissi (@sunnyone0107) March 18, 2018
I need the networks to stop showing the crying little kids after losses. Uncool… so uncool… #MarchMadness
— Meredith Williams (@StatCamel) March 19, 2018
Please, please stop showing little kid crying. That is NOT what #MarchMadness is about. Show the players, show the coaches, show people celebrating. No more children crying, leave them alone.
— Tanner D Lipsett (@Tanner_Lipsett) March 19, 2018
Showing kids crying so they can be memes on Twitter is absolute garbage @CBSSports @CBSSportsCBB @marchmadness
— Kindergartencapper (@kindergartencap) March 18, 2018
Sports media figures are also speaking out.
Can we get all the network heads together and make an agreement to stop showing crying kids???
— Danny Kanell (@dannykanell) March 19, 2018
https://twitter.com/Holdenradio/status/975573178197139456
Another thing about the crying kid shots — they're the cheapest way to convey drama. Kids cry after their teams lose all the time; there's nothing especially notable about that. Beyond anything else, it's just lazy.
— Sports Media Watch (@paulsen_smw) March 19, 2018
I think we can STOP showing the crying kids thank you.
— FreddiE ColemaN (@ColemanESPN) March 19, 2018
https://twitter.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/975525870340370438
Andrew Marchand of the New York Post is among them.
“The problem with the children crying is it is unneeded and gratuitous,” he wrote. “The broadcasts have repeatedly shown young kids — around 8 to 12 years old — after their teams’ losses. …
“Worst of all, the networks went for seconds and thirds on some of these shots. The lingering felt especially wrong.”
Marchand took his concerns to CBS — and was told the crying kids aren’t going away anytime soon.
“It is part of the drama and the storytelling of the event,” Harold Bryant, CBS’ executive producer, told him. “It is part of the emotion of the tournament.”
Marchand asked Bryant if he would want his own 10-year-old child shown on national TV crying.
The producer declined to answer.
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