The Paris 2024 Olympic Games sparked concerns and controversies including terrorist threats, an Opening Ceremony that caused fury among the populist and religious right, and an eruption of online hate against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif. The controversy most directly impacting Australia, however, was over the online hate pile-on that targeted Rachael Gunn (Raygun), Australia’s first female Breaking competitor at the Olympics. In this briefing we look at some of the online hate, where it came from, and and the role disinformation and misinformation played in spreading this cyberbullying of an Australian Olympian. The briefing follows an extended Interview with our CEO, Dr Andre Oboler, on ABC News Radio on Friday 16th of August where he discussed the online pile-one against Raygun and the factors creating a perfect storm that took it viral.

Background 

On August 9, Raygun took the stage at the Olympics to compete in the Breaking competition. The competition started with a set of elimination rounds. In these rounds each competitor competed in two round against each of three opponents. Much of the criticism of Raygun centered on the fact she scored “zero points”, and many assumptions were made from this which frankly showed an ignorance of the way the sport was scored. After all scores of nil in football are quite common and not considered a sign a team is a national embarrassment, but failing to score a single point in a sport like diving would be an embarrassment. Being new, the public understanding competitive Breaking was low, and not helped by responses from some in the media.

In Breaking each round was scored by a panel of nine judges. Each judge has 1 point they must give to one or the other competitor for that round. Each judge decides who to give their point to by scoring the competitors according to 5 categories, then selecting the overall winner across those 5 categories. Within the categories, competitors are not given a score for how well they did in absolute terms (like diving), but rather each judge gives one competitor a zero, and the other a score based on how much better they did in that category than their opponent. They then total the scores giving one candidate zero “category points”, and the other the total of their positive scores, minus the total of the scores given to their opponent. This means one candidate gets a category score (and more importantly a point) and the other gets zero category scores (and no point).

Because it is based on a relative score, whether a competitor gets any points or not very much depends on who they are competing against. The round-robin elimination round saw Raygun compete against the USA, France, and Lithuania. Given Lithuania won the silver medal, and France was a quarterfinalist, this was a particularly tough draw. In the quarter finals China, who won Bronze, scored 0/9, 0/9, and 1/9 while France scored 0/9, 1/9 and 1/9. In the Round-Robin Morocco scored 0/9, 0/9, 0/9, 0/9, 0/9, 2/9. Italy scored 0/9, 1/9, 1/9, 1/9, 7/9 and 9/9, the USA scored 0/9, 0/9, 1/9, 1/9, 1/9, 4/9, 4/9, 6/9, 9/9 and 9/9. This all highlighting just how important it was who your opponent was, and that getting zero or 1 point in a round was far from unusual. Had Raygun drawn against Morroco and Italy it’s possible a more evenly matched competition would have led to all three countries scoring more points. In short, zero points does not mean a candidate is terrible, they may actually be better in a particular scoring category than their opponent according to one or even all judges but still get zero points. Raygun did score category points for originality 6 times and vocabulary 1 across her matches, but no points.

The narrative that spread in the media and social media focused on the fact Raygun received “zero points” and often seemed to suggest this meant her performance was worthless and not of Olympic standard. Some went further suggesting she wasn’t a serious competitor, wasn’t taking the games seriously, or was only there to further her research or waste taxpayers money. The Head Judge at the Olympics rejected these ideas explaining, “her level was maybe not as high as the other competitors, but again, that doesn’t mean that she did badly. She did her best. She won the Oceania qualifier. Unfortunately for her, the other B-girls were better.”

Raygun was ridiculed online with clips of her performance sent viral on social media platforms. Rumours and misinformation then started circulating including false allegations that she had “rigged” her way into the Olympics. This led to a Change.org petition which called on Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) to hold Raygun “accountable for unethical conduct”. The petition falsely accused Raygun of “manipulating the selection process to her own advantage”. Tens of thousands of people had signed the petition before it was removed after the AOC wrote to Change.org highlighting the disinformation being spread by the petition and the way it was inciting hatred against Raygun. Describing the online hate she has received as “devastating”, Raygun has pleaded for privacy for her family and friends.

Culture wars: right-wing hate

Much of the hate against Raygun that we observed was based more on her being an academic (in her day job) rather than being related to her sporting performance. In addition to being a member of the Australian Olympic Team, Dr Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn holds a PhD in Cultural Studies and is a member of the Macquarie University Performance and Expertise Research Center. Being an Olympic athlete made her a topic of news and for a limited time a public figure and this was used as an excuse to target her. A flood of hate merged online.

Some of the attacks that led to the pile-on came from the mainstream media. An article by Sky News Australia, shown below as shared on X (formerly Twitter), was titled “Australian breakdancer Raygun’s performance in Paris was humiliating but somehow her academic work on colonial structures in breakdancing is worse.” At the time of capturing this Tweet, it had more than 200,000 views. 

A reply to it reads: “She’s a woke narcissist and managed to get pushed to the top by other woke narcissists with taxpayers money … Get them out of academia and power.” This (right-wing) attack on both academia and the Labor Government is an example of partisan toxicity. A recent research paper examining content on Reddit noted that “the voices that are most amplified on social media are dispositionally toxic, an arrangement that seems unlikely to cultivate the sort of constructive discussion and debate that democracies require”. Such toxicity is harmful to democracy.

On Gab, a far-right social media platform, a user posted a video from Rumble (another right and far-right platform) along with the caption: “Maybe liberal white ladies should stop getting degrees in cultural studies and using it as cool points. That is what happened when Rachael Gunn, AKA Raygun, scored 0 points in the first and last Break Dancing competition at the Olympics.” The post then goes on to argue that university degrees in the humanities have “given white liberals a narcissistic” sense of entitlement.

On 4Chan, another platform associated with the far-right (particularly on /pol/) a user called Raygun a “bitch” and argues that the “biggest problem with Raygun is her PhD bullshit and pseudo babble.”

Culture wars: Left-wing hate

Breaking originated in New York among disadvantaged youth. It is considered a part of Black and Latino culture. When it was first announced in 2023 that Breaking would be in the Paris Olympics, the was a significant debate, particularly in the United States, around the tension between preserving the cultural roots of breakdancing and the technical scoring which favours innovation and creativity.

The tension exploded in response to Raygun’s use of Kangaroo hops and other Australian-themed moves which took her performance far from the traditional Black and Latino roots. Some in the US struck out against Raygun’s style calling it disrespectful of their culture. Columnist Leslie Gray Streeter from Baltimore called Raygun’s performance “not only shocking but derogatory” adding “I can’t imagine a Black American on the world stage of any cultural artform that didn’t originate with us and daring to be that bad.” In contrast, the Head Judge for Breaking at the Olympics rejected criticism of Raygun’s routine saying, “Breaking is all about originality and bringing something new to the table and representing your country or region. This is exactly what Raygun was doing. She got inspired by her surroundings, which in this case, for example, was a kangaroo.” This was a reflection of the tension predicted back in 2023.

The attacks from the left, in defense of the cultural roots of breaking, include suggestions that Raygun was clueless about the culture of Breaking and her routine should be considered “bad” due to its departure from the traditional norms. Users on X, for example, called her performance “bizarre” and another replied, “She’s an entitled narcissist who should never have been there.” Raygun is not only a serious competitive bgril who was judged the Australian Breaking Association’s top-ranked bgirl in 2020 and 2021, and represented Australia at the World Breaking Championships in Paris in 2021, in Seoul in 2022, and in Leuven (Belgium) in 2023, and who won the Oceania Breaking Championships in 2023 (giving her entry to the Olympics), but she is also someone who has studied and published on the culture of Breaking. She is a serious academic and a serious sportswoman. Her routine departed from those cultural roots in a deliberate manner designed to speak to the technical scoring system. It was not a sign of ignorance or poor quality for being different.

Another reply to the same post claimed Raygun “single handedly got a sport removed from the olympics”.

These attacks blaming Raygun’s 2024 performance for a decision that had already been made back in 2023 are bizarre, but riled up tensions from those who saw having Breaking in the Olympics as a step forward for Black and Latino culture, particularly their disadvantaged youth. Breaking was in fact only included in the Paris Olympics under the “event-based program”, a system that started at the 2020 Olympic Games, and which allows the host country to add a number of optional sports of their choosing that are not part of the regular Olympic program. The decision of which event-based spots would be included in 2028 was already decided and announced back in October 2023, nothing at the Paris Olympics had any influence on it.

In 2020 the event-based sports were: baseball (men) / softball (women), skateboarding (men and women), karate (men and women), sport climbing (men and women), and surfing (men and women). In 2024 they were: breaking (men and women), sport climbing (men and women), surfing (men and women) and skateboarding (men and women). In 2028 they will be: baseball (men) / softball (women), squash, cricket, flag football, and lacrosse.

General abuse

The hate from the left and the right led to a general pile-on as others added their own abuse. On Instagram, where Raygun originally posted the video in which she speaks out following the eruption of hate targeting her, some social media users replied insinuating that she “deserved” the online hate. Below are some examples of this:

In the video, Raygun also says that she “worked [her] butt off” leading up to the Olympics. An Instagram user commented: “You trained for that performance?” At the time of capturing this comment, it had nearly 8,000 likes.

On Reddit a news article about the online hate targeted against Raygun was shared and a user responded by stating that “it really sucks to be bullied”, but “That said, she brought this on herself.”

The general was spurred on by disinformation claiming Raygun’s participation was somehow not legitimate or fair. The fact-checking website Snopes has explored some of the claims made against Raygun in relation to allegations of her rigging her way to the Olympics. One of the major pieces of disinformation that has circulated is that Raygun and her husband, breakdancer Samuel Free, influenced the results of the Australian Breaking Association (AUSBreaking) qualifier. Allegations were made that Free was part of the selection panel. However, there is no evidence to support these claims. Neither Raygun nor her husband are part of AUSBreaking’s governing body, and as per AUSBreaking’s registration documents, Raygun and Free have never been part of the organisation.  

At the qualifying event, Raygun came first out of 15 women who competed. Snopes explains: “Whether she was skilled enough at the qualifying event was ultimately the judges’ decision. Other Breakers said they “weren’t fans” of the selection process but were nonetheless supportive of Raygun. They reported that the event was not exclusive and that it was open to all dancers. Their criticism of the process mainly revolved around the fact that Breaking as a sport is not well funded and therefore such opportunities are less accessible to diverse communities. As a result, a relatively small pool of Breakers participated in the qualifying event. However, in Australia, there are currently only 30-50 competitive female Breakers.

Furthermore, the Oceania Qualifying event that was held in Sydney in October 2023 was conducted under the Olympic qualification system determined by the international governing body, World DanceSport Federation (WDSF) as approved by the International Olympic Committee. The judging panel was selected by the WDSF and consisted of nine international judges who were brought to Australia to provide expert and transparent adjudication.

Raygun does not hold any positions within AUSBreaking or DanceSport Australia. She competed at the qualifying event and won. Snopes highlights that there were no appeals made by any athlete against the result of the qualifying event. 

Conclusion

Our recent briefing on the controversy around Olympic boxer Imane Khelif as well as this case targeting Raygun demonstrates how online hate is used as a tool in political culture wars, and how disinformation online feeds cyberbullying and online hate.

The harassment aimed at Raygun seems to come from three directions, creating the perfect storm:

1. The far-right targeted Raygun because of her academic work in cultural studies which examines issues of power structures and their impact. Part of these attacks described her performance as humiliating for Australia and the Olympics. There were also elements of misogyny in these attacks with comments describing her as a “bitch” and “entitled woman”.
2. The far-left targeted Raygun based on a backlash from the Black community in the United States, who saw the originality of Raygun’s routine as mocking their culture, rather than as an Australian take on the sport. This claim is without basis; she is an expert in these issues and her routine drew on this expertise and sought to fit the scoring criteria. There were also false claims that she was responsible for Breaking not continuing as an Olympic sport, this was disinformation used to create a backlash from those who saw it as harming the sport or Black culture.
3. Values clash and conspiracy: Disinformation claiming her selection was not obtained fairly spread widely and led to a backlash from those concerned about a “fair go”. It spurred a range of conspiracy theories which were promoted by the Change.org petition. This was coupled with claims she did “terribly” and was a “humiliation”. This was not supported by experts in the sport.

Due to the harassment online against Raygun, many female Australian Breakers have had to make their social media accounts private to avoid hate. One Australian Breaker said: “We need support, and we need people to come and see our events and see what breaking is really like, and what our amazing community is … the mockery needs to stop because it doesn’t reflect us.”