有人把成人用品扔进 WNBA 球场，一家虚拟币公司承认是他们找人扔的。被打中的是小孩。

The WNBA is the women’s basketball league in America, and its audience has been growing fast.

Last summer, in the middle of WNBA games, someone began throwing an adult product from the stands onto the court.

The first time it was taken as an absurd joke; then came a second, a third, a fourth.

Within two weeks, several arenas had the same thing happen.

Why were so many people performing the same action?

The answer is not in the stands. It is online.

There is a crypto-currency company whose name is taken from that object, and it openly admitted that it was them, paying people to throw them.

The purpose was stated in the open: take WNBA games and use them as your own advertising space.

Up to that point, it is still only silly.

What genuinely changed the nature of it was the following two things.

One time, the thrown object landed in the stands and hit a twelve-year-old girl.

The thrower was thirty-two, was arrested afterwards, and was charged on two counts of assault.

Another time, a man and his nine-year-old niece were hit by one of the same objects.

The ones doing it were adult men; the ones hit were children.

The players spoke up too: we are running at full speed on that court, and you are throwing hard objects onto it. This is a safety question, not a question of humour.

The WNBA then set a rule: deliberately throwing an object means removal from the arena on the spot, a minimum one-year ban, and referral to the police.

This August it came back — but this time the ending was different.

Angel Reese was sitting on the bench, saw the man, raised a hand to point, and picked him out.

Security took him away immediately; he was arrested and permanently banned from WNBA and NBA events.

One player, sitting courtside, ended it with a single finger.

The thing worth talking about at the end is not the punishment. It is that turning point.

A joke, while it still belongs to only one person, is a joke.

When it becomes an action a crowd performs together, when a company is paying to push it, when it starts hitting twelve-year-old children — the nature of it changed long ago, and only the shape stayed the same.

Telling the difference usually does not come from arguing the principle. It comes from someone being the first to raise a hand and point.

Think about it:

Something a lot of people are laughing at — would you laugh along?