Ray Lewis, Twitter, and Steubenville: Internet Outrage By The Numbers

If you follow anyone sports related on Twitter, you probably learned Ray Lewis officially announced his signing with ESPN Wednesday. You may have found out because that person probably referenced the 2000 Atlanta murder case which saw Lewis plead guilty to Obstruction of Justice. Many feel Lewis was more involved than claimed, so when Lewis retired at the start of January, many felt compelled to bring up the thirteen-year old case.
So how many tweets have there been about Ray Lewis as compared to other recent sports cases, such as Lizzy Seeberg or the Steubenville rape case? Well, by using Topsy, a search engine for tweets that allows you to look up keywords in a select time frame, we can find out.

Terms for Ray Lewis include his name combined with murder, kill/killed/killing, stab/stabbed/stabbing, homicide, knife, blood, Atlanta, and victim. Lizzy Seeberg, and her proper name Elizabeth, were used, along with crossing Notre Dame with rape/raped/raping, sexual, and suicide. Also Declan Sullivan, the young man who lost his life in a sissorlift accident filming a Notre Dame practice in 50+ mph winds was searched, as well as Lizzy Seeberg's alleged assailant who will not be named. The Steubenville search was limited to town name and the two suspects. All searches ended at the end of last Wednesday.

Image courtesy TotalProSports.

Ray Lewis

Ray Lewis' retirement was announced on January 2, with 366 tweets referencing the murders. Starting the next day and leading up to The NFL Today, there were 493 tweets referencing the murder. During his last home game in the AFC Wild Card (Noon-5 ET) there were 442 tweets alone. If you factor in the entire month from the day after the retirement announcement (January 3) to the start of the Super Bowl (6 ET on February 3), there were 6,684 tweets, some of which may have cross-referenced the deer antler spray story. During Super Bowl XLVIII, there were 9,689 tweets, from the 6 ET start to 2:00 AM. That's a combined 16,739 tweets from retirement called to retirement made. And when the ESPN announcement came Wednesday, an additional 128 tweets were released referencing Atlanta.

Image courtesy WNST.

Notre Dame

If you count tweets from the start of the BCS Selection Show to the start of the BCS Title Game (Dec. 2-Jan. 7), there were 120 references to Lizzy Seeberg and/or suicide, and 145 tweets referencing rape or something sexual at Notre Dame. Lizzy's alleged attacker was tweeted about 42 times, and Declan Sullivan was mentioned in 178 tweets. That's 485 tweets for basically December, barely more than Ray Lewis murder tweets during the AFC Wild Card game the day before.
And for the title game, from 8 ET to 1 AM, there were 83 tweets about Lizzy Seeberg and/or suicide, 237 about Notre Dame and rape or something sexual, 31 referencing Lizzy's alleged attacker, and 30 referencing Declan Sullivan. When the Manti Te'o story broke January 16, starting at 3 ET, Seeberg or suicide came up 177 times, her attacker twice, rape or something sexual appeared 106 times, and Declan Sullivan was tweeted about 102 times for a total of 387.
Since the start of September 2010 (when Seeberg was alleged to have been raped) she or "Notre Dame Suicide" have been tweeted about 1,071 times, rape or sexual has been referenced to Notre Dame 1,690 times. Since his death on October 27, 2010, Declan Sullivan has been referenced 1,062 times.
For comparison, for the 24 hours after kickoff of the title game, Brent Musberger was tweeted about 2,115 times, 152 referenced both Musberger and Miss Alabama, and Katherine Webb alone was tweeted about 7,899 times. During the time period after the Manti Te'o story, Musberger came up 296, Webb 516, and the name Manti 24,097 times.

Images courtesy Fighting Irish Thomas and Chicago Tribune, and USA Today.

Steubenville Rape Case

Since the August 22 arrest of the two perpetrators in the Steubenville rape case, there have been 16,610 tweets about Steubenville and rape. That's on average 2,300 to 2,700 tweets a month. That's as many tweets for Ray Lewis in January as Steubenville had in almost 7 months. The two perpetrators have been tweeted about 485 times, and their coach Reno Saccoccia 167 times. Since ESPN's Outside the Lines profiled the case Sunday morning, there have been 548 tweets about Steubenville alone, the two suspects 152 times, and Coach Reno only twice.

Image courtesy Toledo Blade.

Conclusion

It's disturbing to think people were more likely to tweet about a 13-year-old murder case than a rape case that's currently going on, or that Reno Saccoccia's name only came up over 160 times a year after Joe Paterno went down to the Jerry Sandusky scandal. Or that the "internet crusader" culture feels more about reminding people of a case that already went through the court system than a case that stalled in an on-campus police investigation, or one that was nearly covered up by local authorities. The question is, is this a matter of celebrity, lazy journalism, or perhaps even racism?