Originally published at Breaking Modern:
When sports fans say that they’re “worried” about their team, you have to be happy for them. After all, they must not have anything serious to be concerned about.
Buck Up, Sports Fans!
Ted Rall
http://rall.comTed Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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4 Comments.
Team fanaticism leads to promiscuous mimetic crowd behaviors.
Even when a team wins (maybe even especially when, in some cases) a feeling of emptiness and inadequacy reveals itself in riots and domestic abuse cases among the fans whose real life is still crap.
After chanting “We’re number one!” for hours under the influence of alcohol, the sober realization arrives that you are not the team member “hero” you identify with, and individually are not even the champion of your own miserable life.
I once happened to see a crowd celebrating a World Series win, and imagined if people cared about their own lives as much, and managed to stop a war or a trade agreement, something that would make a real difference in their lives and their children’s lives. If only they knew the details of NAFTA or the putsch in Kiev as well as team and player statistics.
Then I awoke from my fugue state, realizing the language that could penetrate that crowd mentality doesn’t exist. I know those people. I sat next to them when we were in kindergarten.
Six months down the road, you still bask in the warm glow of athletic victory when remembering “your” team’s sports victory. Six months after your candidate’s electoral success? You’re thinking, “SHIT! I didn’t even see that coming … (s)he’s even worse than that opposition turd (s)he replaced!”
Ah, the innocence of sports buffoonery.
DanD
Anytime a mook uses the term “we” when talking about sports I ask them if they get a paycheck from their “team”.
The only sporting event that mattered was when Jessie Owens showed Hitler in his front yard.