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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Gotta say, I know this post is two years old but I'm gonna attempt a new slant on this.

Athletes aren't given the commericial time that a musician/actor is given. They endorse things but over here in the UK they're usually sports related things (or in a rare case things marketed for men). Their lives in the general media's eyes for that matter or pretty boring and I dare say an athlete is more of a "normal" person than any of the other types listed. Athletes work hard and outside of soccer, I'd say pretty much every athlete could walk down a street and no-one would notice them.

Musicians lives however are on par with actors. How many actors or musicians have you seen capable of walking down a street and not get noticed? This is of course even with the aid of say a disguise. There's one rare case of a band over here called Snow Patrol who on many occasions have said they can walk around even their home town and no-one would know who they are and they're a pretty big band here (and to what I know branched out into the US but to what success, I don't know). Most bands don't have this liberty and often have to hide themselves although many take a great pride in wallacing about without disguise to be seen.

I think a musician doing something bad, isn't simply cared for because they're a celebrity and it's seen as a way to sell themselves. I don't think an athlete (again outside of soccer) is considered a celebrity over here and for that reason, despite their lives being regarded as dull in the media (in comparison to an actor or musician) to step out of line would give the media something to talk about. A good example is England rugby union player Mike Tindall. Until he got married to Zara Phillips, I don't think anyone outside of rugby would have known who he was and probably wouldn't have recognised him on the street but because of a situation on the World Cup tour, he became somewhat villified/a celeb.

Go figure but that's the UK point of view from my eyes.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Musicians.

Athletes are never really recognized or well respected when retired. Nobody really gives a shit about Babe Ruth no more than they do John Lennon.

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