Barstool Sports is a site that misogynistic men and pick-me girls love to support. This sports and pop culture blog was founded in 2003 by “internet celebrity” David Portnoy. This man has a long history of misogyny, racism, and harassment towards women.
In a 2014 blog post, Portnoy called a female reporter a “f***ing slut” whose only job is to “make men hard.” It’s almost as if he was trying to outdo himself when he also called ESPN reporter, Sarah Spain, a “f***ing “c***” and wanted to bring that offensive slur back. ALSO, this man has made dozens of jokes about rape to his impressionable audience of young men. In 2012, when defending his infamous Blackout Parties, Portnoy said, “Just to make friends with the feminists I’d like to reiterate that we don’t condone rape of any kind at our Blackout Parties in mid-January. However if a chick passes out that’s a grey area though.” If that’s not enough, Barstool has a “Smokeshow of the Day” in which they objectify women, using degrading language to comment on their bodies and looks. In the Barstool Sports contract, workers must be compliant with “nudity, sexual scenarios, racial epithets, suggestive gestures, profanity and references to stereotypes.”
Earlier this year, Barstool Sports had stolen content from comedian Miel Bredouw and was harassed by Barstool’s brain dead fans for wanting her own content to be taken down. At the end of this situation, Barstool offered her a fifty dollar gift card to use at their online store. Barstool has been sued for copyright infringement eleven times over the past three years. They steal content from other creators without payment or attribution. Then, they have the audacity to offer a skimpy gift card that could purchase one cotton t-shirt with obnoxious print across the chest.
On the Barstool Sports main Instagram account, most of their repetitive instagram clips are unattributed. Everyday, they post seemingly the same content over and over again. These include videos of people who are blackout drunk doing stupid things or more pictures objectifying women. Whenever there is content of a woman doing literally anything, such as dancing or posing for a picture, the comments under the post often say “This is why I don’t want to have a daughter.” Really??? This is the reason? Because you can’t allow women to feel confident in their own bodies and dress for themselves? Barstool Sports is a disgusting blog founded by a supreme misogynist who promotes his ideas to impressionable young adults. People need to stop blindly supporting this blog because the culture it promotes is toxic and needs to be stopped.
*This piece is strictly an opinion piece and does not reflect the views of Her Campus as an organization.*