Mr. Sparkle Saturday - Taxonomy of a Real Fan
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Welcome to Mr. Sparkle Saturday. My name is David Arnott, and I'll be bringing you at least four posts today on whatever the hell I damn well please (as long as Zach doesn't kill me first). If you are interested in distributing Mr. Sparkle in your home prefecture, or if you want to suggest an item, shoot an email to mrsparklesaturday at gmail dot com.
Ready?
11:18am -- I was browsing through my buddy Brent's blog when I came across a comment someone left in the most recent entry: "A fan through ups and downs ...and backflips, I am..." This guy is talking about being a fan of Carl Edwards even though Edwards had physically threatened another driver on TV. Now, in a personal relationship, this might be grounds for abandonment. Most folks I know don't tolerate douchebaggery in its many forms, and though they might put up with douchebags, they won't be said douches' friends. But athletes and teams are different, somehow. The bar for banishment from our lives is higher.
I've thought a lot about what actually constitutes fandom, and though others have attempted to lay down rules for fans, no one's attempted to create a taxonomy that applies across Western culture.
The first problem in attempting to define this thing is that fandom is expressed differently in different communities. I'm reminded of a comment Ken Arneson made on a piece I wrote for The Juice addressing this topic:
But I do think that in the Northeast corridor there exists some sort of cultural logic that denies that an emotion is truly felt unless that emotion is visibly expressed. As if you can't love someone unless you actually say "I love you" all the time--or, in sports terminology, you're not really a Yankee or Red Sox fan unless you're dressed from head to toe in the team colors. So whenever I hear the "West Coast fans don't care" argument, I ignore it. I care, dammit. I just don't feel any need to tell YOU about it. I know what I feel.
I second this argument, having grown up in San Francisco and gone to college in New York, and furthermore, I now work in an office full of Boston fans. So, with hat tip to Ken, here's the first, obvious, (Edit: and only truly important) element of fandom, with several clarifying sub-elements.
A FAN LOVES HIS OR HER TEAM ON A PERSONAL LEVEL
a) The level of outward expression is irrelevant as long as there is a form of outward expression at some point. (I'm looking at you, Red Sox fans)
b) One can love more than one team, though it will never be equal love. This applies across sports and within sports. It's like choosing which sibling or parent you love more: Even if you do love all of them, you probably have a keener attachment to one than any other.
c) Change happens. Kids move three states over. Parents get divorced, dad's new wife is a huge Milwaukee Bucks fan, and she gets season tickets for the family. Falling in love with a team doesn't mean you must stay in love with that team forever. However, like the first boy or girl you loved, that tiny pang of longing never goes away.
More this afternoon.
12:30 -- I was watching College Gameday this morning, and I found myself wondering how many people truly are crazy insane superfans, and how many put on the act because it's fun to do group activities such as getting 90,000 people all dressed in white and screaming together. I mean, are the people in the video below superfans? Or are they just doing an activity that's really cool? It ties in to the whole "flash mob" thing. It turns out the originator of the "movement" did it in order to make people look ridiculous, but, regardless, it appears he tapped in to something, that people are social and like group activities.
7:28pm -- I'm rocking the purple and dark grey argyle sweater look tonight, when I'm going out with Red Sox fan buddies to watch the game. Will they comment? More on the game tonight, when I get back. Quickly, on college football:
Oregon: Awesome.
USC: Lack of John David Booty notwithstanding, I can't consider them in LSU's tier anymore.
Florida: Tim Tebow should still be the Heisman frontrunner.
SEC/Pac10/BigEast: Once again, I insist, they're all basically equal in strength, with the Big XII, Big Ten, and ACC clustered together a notch below. The differences in level of competition is small, people.
1:30am -- Here's the thing about Red Sox fans: Even when they acknowledge that they're annoying, they're annoying. The ones who don't acknowledge it are far worse. I like my boys, and that ain't changing anytime soon, but it's infuriating to hear them talk about their teams these days because they assign moral weight to those teams' accomplishments. And so it goes. So it goes.
Finally, may God help the dude at the bar tonight who wore an OJ Simpson Bills jersey and one leather glove.
