I feel sorry for Ryan Lochte. I really do.
I know this isn’t the popular thing to say. It’s more fashionable to beat this guy up for how stupid he was, how unprofessional and how much attention he pulled from the Olympics onto his charade.
As humans we love to laugh at the folly of others. Rarely are our own imperfections put on display for the entire world to see. Rarely are we called out for our lies or hypocrisy. So it feels good to laugh when others are exposed because “how dare these lesser humans do such things”.
Ryan was out drinking with his Olympic pals. He was probably drinking more than he should have. Whatever really happened next is kind of a gray area, but rest assured when this young man was approached by a peer (who is in the media nonetheless), he expanded the truth to create a story of excitement and bravado. Thank God none of us ever do this.
Stretching the truth to make ourselves look smarter, tougher, sexier or simply better? Never!
The media of course loves this shit.
They build it up as an unbelievable story of danger and bravado in a foreign country. They don’t fact check anything of course because the media would rather just jump and be first than be accurate. There's more money in the game that way. So they simply run with it.
Ryan doesn’t help the cause by basking in this immediate spotlight and looking like a guy who faced danger and walked away without breaking a sweat.
Then others start to vet the story. It’s not quite as heroic as it sounded. In fact it may not have been close to the original version.
The media of course loves this shit.
So now it’s time to shine a light the liar among us. An Olympian who's judgement is so bad it's inconceivable! Within 24 hours the media builds him up then breaks him down on the same story.
Ryan’s reputation is in ruins. He’s lost millions (yes millions) of dollars in sponsorship money that took him a lifetime of doing all the right things and sacrificing more than most will ever understand - but that's irrelevant now that it's obvious he's "one of those people who make bad decisions!".
Let me be clear. I don’t condone what he did. It was remarkably stupid.
What I am saying is that the spotlight of imperfection that is on this guy is unwarranted. If we are to vilify and tear down everyone who ever makes a stupid mistake, there will be none, yes NONE, standing.
Every weekend millions of men and women fabricate the truth of even the smallest events to make themselves look better. You didn’t take three shots, you took eight. Your youngest didn’t stumble around a soccer field and score a freak goal, she dominated. Those guys weren’t staring at the tv screen watching the game, they were eyeballing you and your friends up and down the entire meal. You didn’t just get into an argument with some guys at the bar, they had a crew and it was about to go down in the parking lot. You didn't swim out 30 feet into the ocean, it was like one hundred yards. Those guys didn’t stop you and ask you to pay for a broken door, they held you at gunpoint.
If every time you embellished the truth someone called you out, exposed the actual truth to everyone and walked you out as a lying idiot, life would be pretty damn tough.
We all make mistakes, often really stupid mistakes. We all embellish the truth. We are all imperfect.
No one got hurt here. A young Olympian stretched the truth about a drunken night out in Rio where the story happens to end with him being a brave stud. What a shocker! Get over it and let this kid have his life back.
The embarrassment of being exposed would be enough to make most of us want to stay inside forever. If we then took away the bulk of your income and shattered your reputation I’d say we were going a bit too far.
Maybe I’m wrong. But I’m rarely wrong. In school I was considered exceptionally brilliant and handsome by pretty much everyone.