‘Getting compared to the ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl’: Woman slams ESPN for filming her eating ice cream cone

A woman is slamming ESPN for filming her and a friend eating ice cream at the 2024 Men’s College World Series final. She says it led to her and the friend becoming the target of internet creeps and that they even got compared to the “Hawk Tuah” girl.

TikTok user Annie (@.anniej4) posted the video detailing the situation, along with a companion slideshow of some of the disturbing comments made on TikTok about the video. They’ve since combined to amass more than 1.6 million views in less than a day. “If you were watching the men’s series baseball championship game, you may or may not have seen this lovely clip of me and my best friend on TV,” she says.

“It was a 20-second segment of just us licking our ice cream,” she says. “Twenty seconds. Dedicated. With commentary. To just us eating our ice cream. We all knew what direction that video was going to head in. And lo and behold, the creeps of TikTok got ahold of it. Because we woke up getting compared to the ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl. Which, no shade to her. Girl, do whatever.”

Who is the 'Hawk Tuah' girl, and why are people making the comparison?

The “Hawk Tuah” girl turned into an overnight sensation after a viral interview posted earlier in June. It led to speculation that she might lose her job as a teacher over it. While many delighted in the raunchy joke, others expressed concern about the potentially exploitative nature of these kinds of interviews. 

TikTok users, including one named Corey Caddell (@airboatsofoklahoma), took note, and posted the clip along with some unsavory commentary. In another video, Annie reacts to a screengrab of a video posted to Caddell’s account, in which he can be heard saying, “I think ‘hawk tua’ is about to get replaced.”

Annie says she was disgusted by the “absolutely repulsing” comments on the video, in particular from men with public profiles containing photos of their families with young children. “I didn’t really want to come on here and just rage, but it is so beyond evident that women are not welcome in the sports world,” she says. “Not that I have to justify why me and my best friend decided to go to the national championship game—because it’s cool.”

She says she and her friend simply wanted to enjoy the game. And it was extremely hot outside, so their ice cream melted more quickly than anticipated. “Then people sit back and wonder why don’t women feel comfortable in these environments?” Annie says. “It’s crazy. It’s like we can’t sit and eat our food in peace.”

@.anniej4 Replying to @a we choose the bear ❤️ @ESPN #mcws #collegeworldseries #hawktuah #womeninsports ♬ original sound - Annie

Annie says it was a fun experience to be caught on camera at first, because she was getting texts from friends and family excited to see her on TV. “But what’s not a fun thing is to get text messages from other friends of disgusting people making TikToks about you,” she says. “There are so many comments just like this one talking about ‘ESPN does this every year. … They always pan in on women doing it,’ and it’s true,” Annie says. “Because what is funnier than a woman licking an ice cream cone or eating a hot dog or something that can be overly sexualized.”

She continues, “So maybe we just do better, and we don’t knowingly take videos of women in the crowd at sports games doing this [expletive],” she says. “As if I was doing something wrong [by] trying to avoid heat exhaustion.”

Annie points out that she wasn’t asking to be on TV. “So, to ESPN, just stop contributing to the issue and stop making sports a place where women don’t feel safe and welcome,” Annie says. “We can’t eat in peace, we can’t wear clothes in peace. We can’t do anything without it being sexualized or turned into something way out of context. Be better at your job, ESPN.”

In a follow-up slideshow, Annie shows examples of the comments on the clip. One user @lil_wolf wrote, “I don’t know about you all however double duty is better then one hawk tuah in my opinion.” The ensuing comments are not more charming.

In a follow-up video, Annie clarifies that it was not the ESPN commentators that made the “hawk tuah” comment. “It was the creator whose video is playing in the background of this video,” she says. “And I just didn’t want to stitch it to give more attention to him. In part, the frustration was just how much screen time [ESPN] dedicated to this.”

She continues, “It just didn’t feel necessary to be on screen that long while eating ice cream. It just felt like it opened the door to these types of comments. The frustration is with the creator who got over 200,000 views for making the comment about me and my friend. Because the comments and everything that came from that video felt more harmful than anything that the ESPN commentator said.”

In another video, Annie reveals that Caddell has deactivated his TikTok account.

The Daily Dot reached out to Annie via TikTok comment and direct message for comment. We also reached out to ESPN via email for comment. Caddell couldn't be reached for comment.

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