The tension is thick. The star player drives up the court, ball in hand, seconds left on the clock. The crowd stares, transfixed in the excitement, as collective breathing slows. All eyes on him, the player finds his moment, he jumps, he shoots and. . . . who fucking gives a shit!! OH!!!
That's right, I'm not a sports fan. In general. Never have been. Which make my balls ripe for the eating, by you (care for a condiment?). And yes, this entire essay will be devoted my hatred of professional sports, their fans, and the psychology thereof. Are your defenses up yet?
I've wondered (with rage) for a long time what people seem to see in professional sports. Why the importance placed on them? Why so much passion for it? Why does it seem to be the most common national, if not international, outlet for entertainment, emotion and social connection? As usual, I have some notions, each more diabolical then the last. (Except for the third one which is really quite tame and uninspired).
THE OUTSIDER
A former manager at my current place of financial slavery, once asked me, during a football game, about the score. I, of course, replied that I had no idea, due to the fact that I was paying no attention to the TV screens. He quickly amended his question to, "so you're not a football fan then?" I smiled to myself, rolled my eyes (only slightly, I promise), and simply told him that I was not. He paused a beat, and then asked, "do you like any sports?", to which I also gave him a simple "nope".
"That's really weird. I've met people who just don't like hockey or baseball, but I've never met anyone who didn't like any sports before."
Congratulations. Let me shake your hand sir. I'm assuming you don't have a big circle of friends that consist of intellectuals, artists, and philosophers do you? Well, nor do I, regrettably, but you've just met one. I'm the filet mignon of potato chips. In other words, I don't belong.
A simple but effective example of how disconnected I can be from typical social interests would be this year's Superbowl. My restaurant threw a large party with buffets and unlimited (piss water) beer for a reasonable all inclusive price. I was working the door that afternoon, dressed in typical work attire, while every other employee wore random sports jerseys, a sign of their enthusiasm and desire for social commonality. During the game, while all the staff were cheering, yelling, and talking about each play to infinitum, there I was, at the front, paying no attention to the crowds, engrossed in a book about the history of secularism in America.
"But how can you not like sports at all?"
How indeed. A quick smattering of my reasons include, but are not limited to the following: it means absolutely nothing to me; I learn nothing from it; I have no personal connection to it; it bores me; it does not make me laugh; it does not make me feel; it does not make me think about things in a new light; and if someone wins or loses, it affects me not at all in the grand scheme of awareness and existence.
Boy, I sure am a fucking nerd/idiot/loser huh?
So even at the outset, I'm the outsider, yet again, just like most of the observations I have these days. It's good to be the king. . . of deprecation. And by good, I mean hellish and bleak.
THE DELEGATES AND REPRESENTATIVES
I hope you enjoy extreme anger, because this next section contains more antagonistic rage per square inch than any of my previous recipes combined. Just a warning.
I've come to realize that what I really hate most about professional sports, is not actually the sport itself, but the fans. The ones I'm lucky enough to encounter seem to be the cream of the crop, or bare minimum, the crap of the cream.
Since the Nuggets ("of gold" presumably; though I prefer "of turds") have been in the finals, my restaurant takes the brunt of East Denver sports fandom during a game. In the course of the last several games, I got a good chance to consume a generous helping of the common fan (and then send it back to the kitchen, as they were mostly undercooked).
The sports fan has come to represent everything (or at least many things) I personally dislike and even abhor about society. One of the biggest things linking these pit-stained grunts is the lack of a sense of humor about themselves. Sure they may tell the odd level one joke about boobs, or how some dude they know is a "fag", but when it comes to looking at themselves with a degree of deprecation and humility, they show their true, pig-headed colors. It's interesting how much this one aspect factors so heavily into my like and dislike of particular human beings.
Never have I found a more disgusting example of rudeness, stubbornness, lack of empathy, lack of emotion, social bigotry (yes, I see the irony right now), and severe lack of intellectual prowess, then I have with this one, generalized group of neanderthals.
These are people who feel that everyone should treat them like they are at Burger King: They need to always have things "their way". Demanding is putting lightly, a thing, by the way, I don't do well (the lightly part).
So far, the sports fan I'm talking about comes in several external varieties. One of the most frequent spottings I've had is of the DEB. The common DEB, (which, in case you want to use it, is an abbreviation of Douche Bag, with an added vowel for better pronunciation), can be identified by their signature plumage; often a backwards white baseball cap, a non-descript button-up short sleeve shirt, tan khaki shorts and sandals or white sneakers. The DEB most often travel in packs of identical looking cohorts, and can be heard from afar by their characteristicly loud, obnoxious, stutter of a laugh, and the overuse of the words "bro" and "fag".
Another great specimen, highly worth mentioning, is the Grotesque Mongoloid Jocktastical DEB. These odd creatures are easy to spot from a distance, due to their hulking physique (either from muscles or fat) and look of continual pissed-off confusion. These hulking absurdities ooze a mallordorous paint-pealing musk, which contains the same chemical eye irritants as an onion, and upon closer inspection, you may notice an frightening emptiness behind their gaze which once used to house some semblance of what we in the industry call, "personality".
These "people" are some of the most dickish, pushy, unempathetic humans I've ever dealt with, who will fly off the handle at the very slightest inconvenience.
The female fans come with a few varieties of their own. I've been in contact with testosterone female sports fan, who can, at times, act, talk and even look almost indistinguishable from her male DEB counterparts. Though the variety I seem to see most often is the one that has been tagged at a mate for either the common DEB, or the GMJ DEBs, or for easier linguistical use, "UDEBs" (Pronounced "you debs", short for Über Douche Bags).
These quiet, subdued females are eerily human like, though I assure you that it has no feelings or consciousness, so you can breathe a sigh of relief. Interestingly enough, these DEB-mates are actually manufactured. One simply takes a hollow plastic Jello mold in the shape of a vapid, mentally-abused female, then spray on a thick layer of cosmetic foundation and eye liner. I'm still baffled at how they program these things to walk around and look so internally unhappy, and still portray a bitchy sense of entitlement in such a realistic manner.
The thing that unifies all of these DEB variants, beyond lack of humor for themselves, would be their blazingly obvious, and personally painful stupidity.
BOYS DON'T CRY
Boy, that was a lot of fun, eh boys and girls? Now that I've been a dick for a few paragraphs and had some good, old fashioned fun at other's expense, let's get back into what's most interesting, namely the psychological questions.
Why do these games draw so much rabid enthusiasm and devotion from people? My personal theory deals a bit with some of the masculine aspects of social gender identity.
As you may or may not know, men, unlike women, aren't emotional. Ever. And if they do have any emotion (which they don't), it's never for anything that is seen as particularly feminine, like, I don't know, love. Nope. It's only "manly" emotions like rage, excitement, and pride (the more unfounded, the better). Oh, and I can't forget the big one: boys don't cry.
Men have been indoctrinated with versions of this bullshit for literally centuries. Fathers telling their impressionable children about what emotions they are allowed to experience, and which ones they should be shamed for feeling, since it instantly makes them a girl or gay (two things that are extremely god-awful I guess).
What we are instilled with as children goes a long way to shape the minds and "hearts" of who we will become as adults. Some of us are able to grow out of any mental or emotional hinderances that may be blocking us due to overly bigoted, gender specific parents and friends.
In addition to the emotional negative reinforcement, many parents (both men and women actually) will hammer home specific interests as unacceptable for males; namely art (why do you think they call them "art fags" huh?!), music (unless it's shitty emotionless drunken blues-based bar rock), philosophy (too heady and pretentious), dance (do I even need to say why?), poetry (pffffff), fashion and more. This is not even including the list of activities that are deemed "okay" for males, but not looked upon as manly enough, like anything in the sciences.
So where does this lead us? If all of the things above are off limits to males for varying reasons, where do you put all of that pent up emotion that you have regardless of whether you are supposed to have it or not (since you are human)?
SPORTS!!!!
Yep. Sports are an emotional safe haven for most adults, as cheering and getting worked up over your team is somehow socially acceptable, not to mention encouraged.
Get comfy, because I'm going to throw out a pretty negative generalization on this topic. Ready? No? Need to adjust yourself? There you go.
I'm going to assert that there is a correlation between people who have no or little creative outlets (or abilities), and those who are very passionate about professional sports.
As usual I need to augment my projections with stipulations that not everyone falls into this category, as my own father, who I would consider to be highly creative, intellectual and even emotional, still gets sucked into sports (and I make sure to give him a hard time about it of course).
Many times, enthusiasm for professional sports becomes an alternate viaduct for bottled up emotions and thoughts for those who are without the ability to 1) express emotion in a balanced human way, and 2) channel that emotion into personal creative expression like writing, drawing, building, singing, etc.
Yes, I realize that some creative people also like sports. But understand that I'm just going for the generalizations, since they are easier to take down (like the sick and wounded in the herd).
THE SOCIAL CONNECTION
Another important factor in its proliferation is the strong social bonding aspect that professional sports can bring.
I get asked about, or talked to about sports at least once a day by customers. Scores, stats, this player did this, this manager got fired and so on. It's always an awkward moment for me, when smiling and nodding does not do enough to send them on their way, and they persist on asking me my opinions on pointless sporty things.
"Looks like they fired Hurdle."
"I'm sorry?" I ask, not understanding the statement that a very butch, thirty-something lady just tried to involve me in, as she glanced at the TV displaying some sort of alien jargon.
"Clint Hurdle." She clarified.
I paused, likely with a squint of confusion, then shook my head slightly.
"I don't know who that is," I said.
She looked at me with a bit of frustration, then elaborated her supposedly-involving conversation topic with, "Clint Hurdle, manager of the Rockies?"
I stared at her without blinking, straight-faced, and gave her a shrug, signifying that I did not give even the wateriest shit about that. She then walked away, disappointed, and possibly even a bit pissed off, realizing that there would be no bonding, or common ground, and that I was, by all accounts, and idiot, a weirdo and a dick.
See what happened there? She wanted to use a very commonly understood outlet for social entertainment and interest in order strike up a conversation with a complete stranger. In most cases this would likely work quite well, as most people seem to know a bit about at least one or two sports, and also show a modicum of interest in them. However, being the perpetually strange outsider in most typical areas of common interest, I ruined her attempt at friendly conversation, due to my complete disinterest, and in fact, sneering contempt for the entire social sports phenomenon.
Me aside (like normal), sports represent a great and open social bonding experience for many people. I get that. A chance to interact with people who share at least one "important" (I beg to differ of course) interest, especially for those who may have a harder time socially fitting in. We all feel the need to fit in somewhere and somehow, including myself. If you like sports, you have an already established connection with damn near anybody, for potential social building, with the caveat that they are probably a DEB.
I'm constantly being bombarded by employee's waxing on about player stats during my work day, as if it meant something to their lives personally. As if the player performing well in a game profoundly altered their views and perceptions of existence itself; as if it directly affected them. (As if).
Yet some people base a good portion of themselves on the fact that they are a sports fan, almost as an identity marker. It becomes a part of who they are. They throw huge game parties, decorate their basements to look like football fields, and dress up in full costume and regalia for events. Listen guys, as far as I'm concerned, it's just fine to enjoy some spirited competition all you want, but remember, it's just a fucking game, not a placeholder for you being uninteresting or having no sense of identity.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES
It has been theorized in several great documentaries, much better then I can do justice in this essay, that a likely evolutionary reason that so many people feel so strongly about competitive sports deals with our origins as wild hunters (before the invention of the briefcase changed mankind forever).
I'm sure it's a fairly obvious connection but it's still quite interesting to me that something like this might be ingrained into us as a culture.
Our less civilized (but more badass) ancestors had to directly hunt and kill their prey in order to survive. Possibly at the same time, we developed a surge of chemicals that released during the chase that made the whole ordeal very exciting and visceral.
Over time, less and less of us were directly involved in the hunt, and now most of us have no outlet for those primal and bloody urges of predator and prey. Where to put them? Hmmmmmm. You see where I'm going with this.
Fiercely competitive sports fulfill that ancient need within us to experience drama, violence and the reenactment of the dance of predator and prey. It makes us feel alive and gets our blood boiling (literally, watching sports boils your blood and cooks you to death from the inside out. Porn also does this. Somehow I'm still alive).
This inner need for physical carnage, the culturally acceptable outlet for bottled up emotions, plus the social bonding aspects go to great lengths to explain much of the underlying appeal within the realm of sports.
THE GOLDEN CALF
You might have noticed that I did not touch much on the actual nature of sports itself, opting to talking about it's fans and the potential psychological reasons for it's popularity. As I stated in the open, I've realized that it is these aspects that bother me more then the literal sport.
In closing this essay, I feel I need to put what really, truly irks me into perspective.
To me, the social and cultural glorification of professional sports represent the worship of all the "wrong" human traits. Is there something to be admired in the physical prowess and stamina of the best athletes and olympians? Sure, of course. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that it takes years of training and honing of skills to achieve such physical feats.
But in this day and age, creativity and intelligence are not valued as they once were. Many of our most popular sports figures, though physically apt, are often conversely unintelligent, almost anti-intellectual, self-important, and not well spoken. Yet these people are looked up to by the vast sea of fans as role models and idols. The apex of human achievement.
This flies in the face of the ancient Greeks who were true renaissance men (even before the renaissance). Yes the Greeks cared about physical competition, but they also balanced that out with art, science, philosophy and music. Something so varied, open minded and cultured is, in my book, quite impressive and truly worthy of admiration and praise.
The modern idolatry of sports figures has us worshiping the pinnacle of egotism, pride, and superficiality. They are looked up to for their personal, and financial successes, and the lives of excessive hedonism they are portrayed to live. People like money, and people seek after those who have lots of it. Simply by our continued fandom and patronage, we are encouraging generally negative personality traits in our idols, namely ignorance and blatant, almost purposeful stupidity, and then applauding them for it. Is this really the best example of human achievement and expression? (If you answered 'yes', please go back to the beginning of this essay and actually
read the words).
In the end, it deeply saddens me how little the general public seems to care about art, philosophy, science, (real) music, and deeper, more significant, life impacting ideas. But hey, as long as two people can bludgeon each other to unconsciousness on pay per view television for all the world to see, we're happy as can be.
. . . Aren't we?
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