You can’t cancel hot

Are you sitting down? I hope so because I’m about to tell you something shocking. 

You’re going to be stunned to learn this. It will change your outlook on the world. 

Are you ready? 

Hot people have an advantage over less attractive people in sports media. That’s especially the case when it comes to women. 

Yep, if you are young and hot and people like to look at you then you’re going to have a leg up at getting your first job. A dude can be a “relatable dork” if they know their sport, but a woman really can’t. If they do know the sport, that’s a bonus. It will probably make them more successful long term and keep them on camera after the youthful glow starts to fade, but the blunt, harsh truth is that most women in sports media are hired because they are nice to look at. 

Is that fair? I guess that depends on what you consider fair. Sports media is not a meritocracy, however. It’s a business that relies on engagement and that is primarily targeted to 18-35 year old single, hertrosexual men.

You know, dudes that like to look at hot girls. It’s not particularly trendy to admit this reality in today’s political climate, but it’s also no less true than it was 25 years ago. 

This conversation is relevant right now following the controversy of TikTok influencer Addison Rae being given accreditation to work UFC 264 on the weekend. 

If you don’t know who Rae is you should probably talk to your kids more. Seriously, she’s a massive star among the Gen Z population. She has 81.9 million followers on TikTok. That’s roughly the size of Germany. 

Forbes ranked her as the highest earning TikTok personality in the world. 

Her content isn’t all that deep, nor particularly clever. In fact, it’s as old as time itself. She, a 20 year old woman, with what can only be described as fantasy looks, does sexy dances in front of a camera. 

It makes complete sense that UFC would want to use her. I suspect a lot of its fans watch her videos. Yet, reaction to the news that she was going to work at the event led to a massive pushback on Twitter. That, in turn, led UFC to back away from the association.  

Rae’s mistake was to make a joke about how little she was qualified for the job — “I studied broadcast journalism in college for 3 whole months to prepare for this moment,” she Tweeted. That led to a cancel mob forming and they smelled blood in the water. 

It worked. For now. The mob stopped Rae from cashing in on the UFC gig, but I’m not sure what they proved otherwise. It’s not like they went out and hired a smart broadcast student with average looks to replace her. 

They’ll just find another hot girl (that can better read a room) to do the same thing. And, Rae will have to make due with still being the highest earning TikTok star on the planet. 

Sex sells. It’s as true today as it was at any time in the past. Brands that understand that and can figure out how to deliver it in a way that doesn’t draw the wrong kind of attention are going to continue to thrive.