Should the Lee Twins Have Been Cancelled for Middle School Bullying?

The latest “me-too” clone movement in South Korea has taken out two big name athletes:

South Korean volleyball twins Lee Jae-yeong and Lee Da-yeong have been dropped from their national and club sides amid claims of teenage bullying. The 24-year-old sisters, two of the country’s best known female athletes, have both apologized after being anonymously accused of bullying previous students at their school. In Jae-yeong’s apology she referred to “actions and images from her teenage years.”

CNN via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but the alleged bullying happened 10 years ago in middle school. Because of this they have been dropped from playing in the Olympics this summer and suspended from their club team. This seems like something extreme to do based off of anonymous social media accusations.

I had things happen to me while in school that would be considered bullying, especially since I was an athlete just like these twins and hazing was a right of passage back then. I don’t condone hazing and I think it is good that it is going away, but I don’t wish people that hazed me to be cancelled. Heck I have enough self esteem I don’t need or expect any apology. That is why I think these accusations say just as much about the accusers as the Lee twins. If you read the article the accusers actually consider themselves “victims”. This seems like another example of the cult of victimhood where people search to be part of some kind of victim class to bring attention to themselves, especially in the social media age.

These twins being premier athletes who received a lot of attention in middle and high school probably were jerks. However, people change significantly between middle school and adulthood. Are they still jerks? I don’t know the article doesn’t ask anyone they play with now. It seems like if they were still jerks teammates would be telling their stories to the media.

It seems like this could have been something handled with a statement of apology from the twins and their pledge to lead an anti-bully awareness campaign. It seems like this would have been more helpful to addressing bullying than cancelling them.