Tennis sensation Coco Gauff has opened up about the dark side of fame and revealed her strategy for dealing with online abuse. The 20-year-old, who has been a dynamic presence on the tour for five years, confessed she uses “burner” accounts to protect herself from negativity.
Faced with the flood of unwanted comments, Gauff explained her approach to social media engagement and interacting with her fans, saying, “It just depends on the platform,” before going on to discuss specific habits related to different platforms.
She admitted that she has a rather casual relationship with Twitter: “I’m not really on Twitter. I just search for a game once to see what people think of my outfit. Oh, and then I also searched for Naomi’s because I kept hearing about it but I didn’t see it. Her outfit is great too.”
Gauff is more active on Instagram, but she limits her presence: “I’m not usually on Twitter that often. On Instagram, I’m online and give myself 24 hours. I’ll be on Instagram maybe until tomorrow evening and then I’ll be gone. So, on my main account. I have burners, so I don’t see any of the tennis stuff,” she revealed.
“On TikTok, I’m online most of the time, but I also have a burner, so I don’t watch tennis. I’m on social media all the time. It’s just a matter of whether I’m on my actual account or not. But Twitter is the only one I’m not on at all, because even with the burner, I don’t know, the phone hears me talking and I don’t know. My name pops up. I don’t know if that’s really true, but I believe it.”
2022 US Open semifinalist Caroline Garcia recently slammed the abuse she received after her first-round loss to Renata Zarazua in Queens. Gauff also described her own abuse on social media.
“I didn’t see their post, but they informed me about it,” Gauff revealed. “Of course it’s hard. Especially when I was younger, I had no idea that such a thing existed. At first I just thought I was a target. Then I realized that everyone got it.”
“It’s hard because you hear a lot of mean things and people talk about how you look, how your family looks and all these things. When you’re already struggling with your own mental health issues and then there are people there digging even deeper, it’s hard.”
The American star then admitted that she blocks anyone who insults her online. She added: “Personally, I just block. I’m somebody, I literally spend 30 minutes blocking all the people. I really don’t care. I know on Twitter it’s a small, insignificant thing because I’ve blocked so many people. They’re like, ‘You say something and she blocks.’ ‘Yeah, I do. I don’t want to see it, so bye.'”
“Yeah, that was one thing. People got angry. I was like, ‘I don’t really care. I have no right to read negative things about me. Just like you have the right to write that, I have the right to block it.’ It’s unfortunate. Obviously blocking can only do so much. People create new accounts.”
“Just for players, I don’t know. I just try not to read into it so much or take it too personally, but it gets to the point where, you know, I know a lot of tournaments are trying to step in and put in different AI things. I hope that as technology advances, it can help. It’s tough, and you could be having a good day, and then someone literally tells you, ‘Oh, kill yourself.’ You say, ‘Okay, thanks.'”
