I’m surprised it took Bengals wide receiver Andrei Iosivas three NFL seasons to learn this lesson:
Some people on social media suck. Bad.
Iosivas revealed Tuesday that after some struggles and drops during the 2025 season, his direct messages were filled with hateful comments − including people telling him he should kill himself.
“I feel like last year I was in my head a little bit,” Iosivas said. “I had those drops in those games and people were telling me to kill myself and all that kind of stuff. I never had that kind of stuff happen to me before…It makes me angry, honestly.”
Of course it does.
Anybody telling someone to kill themselves over dropped football passes needs perspective, maturity and probably some professional help. It’s sports. Not life or death.
Iosivas finished last season with 33 catches, 435 receiving yards and two touchdowns over 17 games. Not exactly grounds for public execution.
But this is the dark side of modern sports culture and social media. Athletes today don’t just hear boos from the stands anymore. They carry criticism around in their pockets 24 hours a day.
And unfortunately, some people online mistake access for entitlement.
Welcome to the internet
Working nearly 30 years in the news industry, I’m no stranger to hate and vitriol from people who don’t like how I do my job.
I’ve received it every way imaginable: snail mail, voicemail, email, social media, chat rooms and face-to-face confrontations. I’ve been called every racial slur in the book. I’ve had my intelligence, competence, integrity and credentials questioned by people wholly unqualified to evaluate any of them.
I’ve received threats. I’ve had people want to fight me.
Yet here I am nearly three decades later still writing, reporting and giving opinions.
Thin-skinned journalists don’t survive long in this business.
What I learned years ago is what Iosivas now has to internalize quickly: either tune out the haters or use them as fuel. You cannot allow toxic strangers online to throw you off your game emotionally or professionally.
Because here’s the truth: Iosivas is already winning.
He’s a professional athlete making a tremendous living playing the game he loves. A lot of people criticizing him from behind anonymous accounts wish they had even a fraction of his talent, opportunity or success. Some of that ugliness directed his way is rooted in envy whether people want to admit it or not.
The internet gives miserable people a megaphone.
And social media in particular has created an ecosystem where some trolls derive genuine joy from demeaning people, disrupting conversations and provoking reactions. Many do it hiding behind fake profiles and burner accounts because they know they’d never say those things to someone’s face.
They’re keyboard cowards.
Don’t give trolls your energy
What makes this whole thing unfortunate is that by all accounts, Iosivas is exactly the kind of player and person Bengals fans should be rooting for.
A few years ago, my wife and I vacationed in Hawaii, where Iosivas grew up in Honolulu. I wore Bengals gear throughout the trip and people constantly brought him up with excitement and pride. One waiter at a restaurant told me he had gone to school with Iosivas and described him as a genuinely good person.
That stuck with me.
Fans absolutely have the right to criticize performance. That comes with professional sports and million-dollar contracts. Nobody is asking fans to pretend bad games don’t happen.
But there’s a difference between criticism and cruelty.
Nobody wants the Cincinnati Bengals to win more than the players themselves. Nobody wants Iosivas to catch the football more than Iosivas.
The trolls need to relax.
And frankly, Iosivas might benefit from spending less time in his DMs and more time in his playbook. Some athletes disconnect from social media entirely during the season for exactly this reason. That may be harder for younger players raised in the social media era, but there’s wisdom in protecting your mental space from toxic noise.
Don’t hand over emotional capital
Social media connects people in incredible ways. It allows athletes and fans to interact directly in ways previous generations never experienced.
But there’s also a poison that lives there.
The worst people online want your attention, your reaction and your emotional energy. Giving it to them is letting them win.
Iosivas can’t control trolls. None of us can.
What he can control is whether he gives strangers power over his confidence, his focus and his peace of mind.
That’s a lesson many of us who work in public-facing professions eventually learn.
Don’t give away your emotional capital to people who don’t deserve it.
Opinion and Engagement Editor Kevin S. Aldridge can be reached at kaldridge@enquirer.com. On X: @kevaldrid.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Bengals’ Andrei Iosivas learns the dark side of fame | Opinion