"We Can't Eat in Peace" — Woman Slams ESPN for Sexualizing Her Eating Ice Cream at a Game

A woman flipped off ESPN in a viral TikTok for showing her and her friend lick ice cream for 20 seconds straight while the two of them enjoying the men's college national baseball championships.

Annie (@.anniej4) said that the network's broadcast team intentionally left cameras rolling on them for an uncomfortable amount of time because they knew it would be sexualized.

She says that as a result, her and her friend ended up becoming the talk of pervert town all over the web.

Annie begins her video in front of a green screen clip that shows her and "her best friend" on TV. The two of them are eating ice cream together. "It was a 20-second segment of just us eating ice cream," she says as her and her friend lick their respective servings of ice cream "with commentary."

"We all knew what direction that video was gonna head in," she says, alluding to the lewd remarks that arose as a result of the video that was shared online. Annie remarked how she was being compared to the "hawk tuah" girl and that the comments left by other TikTokers on the internet were "absolutely repulsing."

What she found especially troubling was the fact that there were men who had profile photos of themselves with their kids "just smiling away" who made gross comments about her and her friend eating ice cream as well.

Annie went on to say that the incident is a clear indication that women aren't "welcome" in the "sports world."

She laments the fact that her and her friend simply wanted to go to the national baseball championships because "it was cool" and just because she wanted to get some ice cream with her pal, the two of them ended up becoming some type of sexual poster children for chilled desserts on ESPN.

"I grew up playing softball and my dad played baseball, her brother plays ba — it is, I shouldn't have to explain that. But we just wanted to enjoy a baseball game and it was 100 degrees so...God forbid we eat some ice cream," she went on to say about the internet's reaction to her and her friend eating some ice cream.

She says that it's like women "can't sit and eat [their] food in peace" and to further highlight that fact she mentioned how she was eating a hot dog 10 minutes prior to that and that she was sure to do so in front of a row of people so no one would see her.

"Instead we let our guards down for literally 5 seconds and the ice cream was melting, comedically fast, I mean we were joking, great idea to get ice cream and not expect it to melt in three seconds," she says.

What also seemed to surprise the TikToker was the immediacy in which the production team filmed her and her friend eating their ice creams. According to Annie, she hadn't been seated with her pal for more than 15 seconds before the cameras started rolling on the two of them and a viral clip filled with disgusting commentary from folks on the internet with frozen dairy fetishes was born.

Annie then turned her attention to ESPN after stating that while it was fun to receive a bunch of text messages from friends who pointed out the two of them were being shown on TV, what wasn't fun, she stated, was the fact that folks were making "disgusting TikToks" about the two of them.

She also highlighted a comment made by another user on the platform who stated that it was evident ESPN knew what they were doing, and she agreed with this assessment, stating that there have been other instances she's noticed in the past of ESPN plastering women eating/existing in sports-themed spaces, leaving them wide open for the next pervert-steeped viral moment.

She said that the network is opening the proverbial door for "creeps" to come in and make these types of comments while adding that both she and her friend never "asked to be on TV" — they just wanted to enjoy a live baseball game.

Annie punctuates her message to ESPN with two middle fingers before telling the network to "stop contributing to the issue" and to "stop making sports a place where women don't feel safe and welcome."

"We can't eat in peace. We can't wear clothes in peace. We literally can't do anything without it being sexualized or absolutely just turned into something way out of context. It's not even the problem of being shown on TV," she states.

Before continuing, "We were there the whole game you could have shown us at any point, watching the game. Pan to us when we're fanning ourselves because that's how hot it was down there," Annie remarked, highlighting that the second clip of them enjoying ice cream seemed clearly intentional.

She also had a final message to folks who said that there are more important things to worry about than her and her friend's reaction to being shown on TV eating ice cream, and Annie agreed, stating the national game championship baseball game was one of them.

"Anyway be better at your job, ESPN," Annie told the network.

One user seemed to think that the clip was grounds for Annie and her to friend to slap ESPN with a lawsuit: "GO GET YOUR BAG. I'd take them for everything they're worth. You're about to get paiddddd"

There were other people in the comments section who remarked that they, too, were scrutinized and sexualized while eating food at a sporting event.

"I’m so sorry this happened to you. My friend and I were eating hotdogs and were put on the Jumbotron for an uncomfortable amount of time," they wrote.

Have you ever noticed this as a recurring trend at sporting events? Or is this the first time you've noticed this was a thing? Do you think ESPN be more careful with how they're portraying spectators at sporting events?