Sunday, February 04, 2018

Why are Sports Fans Such Idiots?


I've explained it before, but it bares worth repeating again.  For even though the Philadelphia Eagles have won the Super Cup, their fans have still decided to riot in the streets of Philadelphia.  So pour yourself a drink, light up a cigar, and get in a comfy chair as the Ole Captain explains to you the phenomena (and idiocy) of sports fans.

First, realize that if you are reading this blog you are smarter than the average bear.  This is not an opinion.  This is not speculation.  And this is not me trying to butter you up.  If you're reading a blog about economics, finance, philosophy, cryptocurrency, and western civilization on purpose, then you are not a dummy.  You are not stupid.  You very likely have an IQ above 115.  In short you are smarter than 80% of the population, the dumber half of which is so dumb and so far removed from you intellectually you simply cannot relate to them or understand them.

Second, most of my readers here have lives.  You have a STEM degree.  A profession.  Perhaps you have a family that is still nuclear and intact.  You do not have half-siblings or step-parents.  And when you have free time you spend it with family and friends, or perhaps on hobbies that are of intellectual interest.  You might play in a band. You might like to read. Some of you hunt, fish or hike.  Others rebuild classic cars or restore houses.  The point is if you have some down time, you typically dedicate that time towards some kind of constructive and rewarding activity that either improves you as an individual or brings you closer to family, friends, and loved ones.

Third, you have hustle.  You don't sit on your ass all day.  You probably have some kind of regimen or work out schedule.  You watch what you eat and at least make attempts to eat healthy.  And that says nothing about the efforts you put towards your education, career, entrepreneurial endeavors, or hobbies.  Yes, you might take a rest.  Yes, you might get hammered over a weekend.  But the lions share of your time is not idle be you at work or at play, as you are always aiming to improve your life.

Finally, you think.  You have independent thought.  You probably are suspicious of religion.  You don't believe what your teachers, professors, and now media personalities tell you about politics and the world.  You know enough not to watch filth like "The View" or reality TV or day time TV.  And you know a fancy sports car, a McMansion, or brand name clothes will NOT bring you success or happiness.  You get sick watching daytime TV and don't bother watching the "Grammys" or the "Oscars" because your life is just too short to be wasted on such pointless, meaningless things.

Now take those four things;

Intelligence
Purpose/a life
Work ethic
Independent thought

and take their COMPLETE OPPOSITE

and that my friends is your average sports fan.

A person who is;

Stupid (or horrifically conformistly average)
Has no point or purpose in life
Is lazy
And is easily susceptible, if not perfectly susceptible to indoctrination, brainwashing, and conditioning.

Now, even though it's impossible for people with an IQ of 115 or above to understand what it's like to be one of these people, just try.  Put yourself in their shoes.

You're not smart enough to have a profession or a career that is going to amount to much.  Worse, you're not smart enough to avoid life-crippling mistakes that will essentially enslave you to people smarter than you.  So as you flail about in community college, culinary school, or cosmetology class, you make sure to get pregnant or your girlfriend pregnant, while incurring $50,000 in student loans.  Of course, you're not independent minded enough to resist the marketing and brainwashing thrown at you by corporations and marketeers.  So you borrow even more money to buy cars, trucks, clothes, and trips you can't afford.  Making this situation not worse, but now IMPOSSIBLE, you're lazy.  You don't want to work hard to pay off those debts.  You don't want to work hard to become an accountant, a carpenter or an engineer.  And you certainly don't want to hit the gym and the treadmill that might actually make you an athlete or physically appealing.

And so what's the ultimate end result?

You are forever stuck in life being a loser with no point or purpose in life and nothing to look forward to.  You are forever financially crippled because you didn't use a condom or get an abortion.  And you are forever in debt because you're too damn lazy to work a second job or get an education that would make the first one suffice.  Oh, and by the way, you're overweight and ugly, which doesn't prevent you from achieving excellence in life, but it just adds insult to an already injured life. 

There's just one problem - you're not going to die tomorrow.

If you were to die tomorrow, this misery would end.  The bill collectors calling. Explaining to employers why there's three bankruptcies on your credit report.  Getting pissed off because your co-worker got a $1.25 per hour raise and you only got a $1.00 raise. Not having enough to retire before you're 70.  Choosing between food or a Ram truck payment.  Oh and those student loans you got for that strip mall cosmetology school.  ALL of it would "poof" just go away.  But unfortunately you're going to live to at least 60 and you need to have something to give your otherwise meaningless life some meaning.

But what can lazy, dumb, conformist people do to give themselves a point and purpose in life?

Well the key problem is with the word "do."  That requires hard work, toil, thought, of which the majority of American sports fans are either incapable of doing or consciously choose not to do.  So what we need is an effortless way to give these otherwise worthless people some kind of worth in their lives.  Something that they can take pride in, even though they themselves would not expend a single calorie of energy achieving some sort of accomplishment.  And whereas religion used to fit this role nicely, going to church requires you wake up early on Sunday and go someplace you really don't want to go.

So, the solution?

Sportsball.

Whether it's football, baseball, basketball, or hockey, "sportsball" is incredibly attractive to the millions of lazy, unintelligent, conformist, pointless people that account for at least half of Americans today.  Their lives are helplessly destroyed beyond repair.  They either lack the intelligence or work ethic or both to get out of it.  But if you can get them to live vicariously through the achievements and accomplishments of others, they will gladly fork over a significant portion of their garnished paycheck for tickets, jerseys, training camps, cable packages, light beers and wings!  You can even get the taxpayers to WILLINGLY subsidize these various sportsball franchises to the tune of billions of dollars a year.  All a sportsball franchise has to do is set up shop in a large town, speak about hometown pride and how much they like "City X," sponsor some kiddie programs, get the local news to run some horrific "sports news shows," give away some shirts and some banners, and the agencyless sheep will line up from a 300 mile radius to give you their time, money, and tears.

But to truly understand why sports fans are such idiots, particularly when they are violent or ecstatic when "their" team wins or loses, it's key to realize what is truly driving their irrational emotion, be it anger or happiness.  It's because they have absolutely nothing else going on in their lives.  They have NOTHING of value in their lives.  Their lives are so void of meaning and purpose they fill this hole with the athletic performance of other people who have nothing to do with them and don't even know these people exist.  You may not comprehend why a guy cries when the Chicago Cubs win a world series, but that is his second coming of Jesus.  You may not understand why a guy screams at a television (often times destroying it) because his team didn't toss the sphere into the ring, but that is his entire life.  You cannot view sports fans from the perspective of reason and rationality.  You must view them from the perspective of the absolute lack of anything of value going on in their lives.  And if you do you see why their otherwise sad, pathetic, and irrational behavior makes sense.

I'd like to say the day is coming that these people will slowly wake up and realize that every sports game ever played has had absolutely no effect on the real world, let alone their lives.  That it doesn't matter if the Bulls beat the Golden Knights in extra innings or not, because your life does not change come the morn.  That sports is supposed to be for fun and entertainment, as well as the admiration of athleticism.  Unfortunately, there are so many sad, pathetic losers out there that sports is all they have.  And if they didn't have that, their minds would not be distracted and they would have to fully face the utter nothingness that is their lives.

So let them have their games.  Let them have their ESPN.  And let them have their Sports Center. And if you ever find yourself annoyed with sports fans, just be thankful you actually have a life that is so good you couldn't care less about sports.
____________________________
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32 comments:

John W Berresford said...

Magnificent. I laughed out loud at 3 in the morning.

Unknown said...

Another great article from the asshole himself

Martin said...

It's Hard to believe you did not grow up in rural Texas....

Anonymous said...

I understand why children obsess over sports, wear jerseys, trade baseball cards (do kids still do that?), and idolize athletes. I used to do all those things when I was little. I don't understand why grown men and women do so.

Anonymous said...

Best article I've read in months. Actually went to a Super Bowl party for first time in 10 years. Couldn't relate to a single person there

Mike said...

Sadly, these sportzball fans are still more economically productive than the people who choose the liberal arts as their religion substitute.

Jim Scrummy said...

Okay, I broke down and watched my first entire NFL game of 2017-18. It was an okay game if you like all of that scoring. Me, I watched, got bored, started some mindless interwebz scrolling while the game was on. So, I have my NFL footballz fix for 2018, won't watch again until next year. As a onetime resident of filthadelphia (25 years ago), I was more interested in seeing how much of that s-hole was going to survive into the morning...?

Anonymous said...

More reason to not live in a big city.

Anonymous said...

Why do I get the feeling you are still bitter that you got picked on by the high school football team?

Anonymous said...

About the only other point I would add is that I would sooner do a sport (no matter how badly) than watch that same sport.

Other than that, the tribal, unthinking nature of "My team is the best in the world, in the universe in space" attitude that can easily disproved, you hit the nail on the head.


Phil B

Anonymous said...

You still have to greatly admire that Philly fan who bent down to eat horse crap. That took some skill and balls, bro!

Post Alley Crackpot said...

"... it doesn't matter if the Bulls beat the Golden Knights in extra innings ..."

AHAHAHAHAHA YES :-)

Also, rabbits will be rabbits.

Unknown said...

Sooo....how do you explain all the owners (most of which were fans themselves) and many affluent, powerful people, most of whom far more accomplished than "Cappy" ever could be, who are "fanatics"? This sounds more like the rant of a physically inferior, short man who could never compete with real alpha males in a physical domain. Sure, lots of fans are complete a$$holes, but the holier than thou angle is running thin. You're like what, 5'3"?

Shannon_Entropy said...

A lot of "mysterious" human behavior is simply innate i.e. hard-wired into our genetic code, much the way a dog in a yard barking at every passing stranger is behavior innate to dogs

Humans -- especially men -- seem to have a need to band together and fight other groups of men. This is the root cause of every war ever

Sportzball is simply a socially acceptable and 'proxified' outlet for these urges. ( I say 'proxified' cuz other men -- the athletes -- are the ones who get dirty & injured )

This concept first occurred to me in high school: why was it that OUR school was so passionately screaming for the destruction of the team of the high school across town?
They looked just like us; heck, we lived in the same city!!

Blogger Fred Reed makes this same argument, but on the military-grade scale:

https://fredoneverything.org/the-military-instinct-the-human-race-as-feral-dogs/

Anonymous said...

You can say a similar thing to other obsessive subcultures like videogame, movie,comic book, and tv nerds, Music geeks, and art geeks. They invest their very existence into those media products and get angry when the creators do not meet their expectations. They hoard collections, cosplay,go to conventions, and go on the internet going into heated debates and theories surrounding fictional characters, cast, crew etc. Insulting their interest and trolling forums like asking who is a better Starfleet captain on Star Trek,Picard or Kirk? The biggest question Star Wars fans obsessed about is whether Han Solo or Greedo shot first in the New Hope? Heck, sometimes I even see character and story analysis of comic book, movie, tv, videogames on YouTube. Does analysing the nihilist themes in Fight Club add much to your life? You can just enjoy as a fun male power fantasy against modern day complacent and materialism film. Nerds should be leveling up at work, fitness, personality in real life than spending hours leveling up to White Wizard Paladin in World of Warcraft. Actually nerds could use the rpg leveling system in careers and real life.

Captain Capitalism said...

Carl, you're more than welcome to come out to Vegas and see how out of shape I am. We can start with hiking mountains and then go to the gym and see who is in better physical shape.

Unknown said...

Well Cappy, as much as I enjoy the blog, I'm specifically referencing the "all fans" diatribes. I have UTTER DISDAIN for the "casual" fan who only attends a super bowl party and "roots" for the team that wears their favorite color. Even the more engaged fan thinks football is just pass and catch and basketball players just run up a court and Chuck a ball in, completely ignoring strategy, formations, playbooks, player I.Q. etc. I think you need to discern between the average asswad, and the many others who coach, play, manage and make a difference. In my aforementioned comment, I also touched upon the EXTREMELY successful people who OWN teams, are billionaires, etc. Clearly these people aren't the "losers", and unmotivated, and the people who live vicariously through sports as you go on in the rant. While I believe and respect your physical capabilities, your seemingly bitter and unwarranted attacks on sports fans lead me to believe there is a chip there, or some feelings of inadequacy...

Unknown said...

And Cappy, I love the challenge. You are truly not a keyboard warrior, and you put your money where your mouth is!

Unknown said...

Rereading the article really does affirm your bias. People who enjoy sports can't live productive lives, be successful (ie: have money) and by showing loyalty they are just conforming. Hmmmm. So you belive in intersectionality, and worlds without borders? So nationalists are basically indoctrinated, foolish AND stupid? So the U.S.A. should just open the floodgates because if I stand for the anthem and wave a flag, I'm a MORON. Got it. So you're actually one of the "progressive" cucks you routinely grill on here, just in disguise!

Shannon_Entropy said...

You may not have been trying to "butter [us] up", Aaron ... but your "four point" depiction of your typical reader describes me perfectly, right down to the STEM degree

My feelings about sportzball are like my opinions about the United Nations. I hate both, but they exist; they aren't going away in our lifetimes; and so you just have to deal with them

Dealing with other guys on a routine basis and not having at least a modicum of knowledge about sportzball is going to get you branded a pu$$y and result in much less advantageous interactions with said guys

The lovely Mrs Shannon_Entropy and Yours Truly were invited to a lavish Super Bowl Party at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville CT. With an open bar and buffet, what was I supposed to talk about with all the fanatics in their #12 Brady jersies ??

[ FTR, I was wearing my "Sons of Belichick" tee -- a gift from my brother-in-law https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b4/4b/8b/b44b8b230d11c4e70eee8158abe872f4--patriots-football-boston-sports.jpg. Also FTR, we live in Rhode Island, closer to Gillette Stadium than if we lived in the Back Bay of Boston ]

Obviously we weren't going to guzzle beer and discuss the current cryptocurrency bubble. Of course not ... but whether or not benching Malcolm Butler cost the Pats a 6th Lombardi trophy was an apropos topic to chew over along with plates of hot wings & chili

And now I don't have to think about football again until *next* February --- if even then seeing as how the Pats dynasty appears to be over

Anonymous said...

"I understand why children obsess over sports, wear jerseys, trade baseball cards (do kids still do that?), and idolize athletes. I used to do all those things when I was little. I don't understand why grown men and women do so."

Because it's an industry (Huge business, eh?)

See, here are two small websites, https://sportsfan.nz and https://cardcentral.co.nz.
Do you know how many jerseys, caps and trading cards they sell each year? More than you thought!

Tal Hartsfeld said...

"Normal people"
...a bunch of provincial-minded "head-up-the-asses"

Take The Red Pill said...

Reading your article and the comments here brought the phrase "bread and circuses" to my mind, as well as its connection with the 'dumbing down' of the American population that is currently in progress in our culture (usually in the name of "Equality"). But then again, I'm also a retired military veteran with (besides a degree in Mechanical Engineering) a strong interest in history.
Let me just repeat Santayna's popular quote: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Anonymous said...

You may have had something interesting to say but the spelling mistake in the very first sentence made me doubt it.

Anonymous said...

The only thing that anyone will get out of this was, “I am not good at sports/dislike sports, so I dislike people who like them and want to make them feel bad/make myself feel superior to them.” It’s the same BS the SJWs do with hunting and video games: people who like X are inferior to me because of these broad generalizations

Michael said...

Excellent post. Spot on.


Here's a short video (not made by me) that sheds a bit more insight on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEiZ0j1Jx2M

batmansbestfriend said...

Love this article. Most people are conformist dumb*** morons who don't care that their existence could be wiped away and NOTHING in the entire universe would change one **** bit. Nope. In fact, the universe would be better without them...less garbage and consumerist waste being sent to the landfill. They are incapable of contributing to society except to consume and dispense waste. They are fine with their high school diploma and get angry at anyone who is smarter than they are because those people must be out to get them, for some reason they can't even define. Anyway, those people always make me laugh. How sad their lives are...Oprah, football, and going to church are the extent of what they amount to and they think they're better than all the scientists and teachers, etc. combined.

Anonymous said...

I feel the same way as the author. I played all sports, including midget travel ice hockey, highschool football and college ice hockey. I am retired now, but I was a prior enlisted Marine and later a USAF officer and aviator.

My son who feels the same way about pro-sport fanaticism was his highschool(student body of over 3,000 students) football team captain, defensive player league MVP, valedictorian. He graduated one of the military academies and now flys fast movers(fighters) off of aircraft carriers.

My brother a retired attorney was the BMOC in highschool and college. He was the starting quarterback in both highschool and college. He played both baseball and football ona full ride scholarship in college.

None of us were "picked-on" in school. We all enjoy playing sports. But we are not even remotely emotionally or psychologically invested in these "Sportsball" teams and players. Personally, I am not going to contribute to the sickness of ignorance in our society that is displayed by societies screwed-up priorities as evidenced today, when aa single player signs a contract worth nearly a half of a BILLION dollars because he has good batting average and slugging percentage. Something has gone haywire in societies values. Oh, and this was all done by design and scheme; this being the dumbing down of America and the global population in general.

The author said it all.

Anonymous said...

Were you describing sports fans or Trump supporters? Awfully hard to tell!

Anonymous said...

So how about those Mets?

Anonymous said...

Hello!

I've been working in sports tv broadcasting for 7+ years. I played organized team sports (3-sport varsity athlete) through high school and to this day, I still love being active (exercising, snowboarding, running, boxing, etc.). That is my background and connection to sports and I am here to tell you that I AM OVER SPORTS FANS. I've come to realize that I like athletes because I enjoy their journey and dedication to the game, but it's sports fans who are killing my connection to sports.

There are many sports fans who used to play sports and have other goals in life. The type of sports fans who I am talking about that I loathe are the kinds that you mentioned in your blog. In fact, a lot of these "sports fans" work in the industry and they have never played sports ever, they don't exercise, they don't have other hobbies - it truly feels like they are merely in this business to redeem themselves for having zero connection to sports in school. Not that you have to have experience to be a sports fan, but I do think you have to have some experience to be talking as much shit as they do about athletes. They talk about players' performances as if they have the knowledge and skill to do it better...like becoming pro is fucking easy. These "sports fans" also think they could be the GM of any team, which apparently is also easy and that's why they are working as production grunts instead of managing a franchise like their mouth keeps saying they can do. Also, it seems many sports fans have little sense of humor and don't understand jokes (which makes sense because there is a certain level of intelligence necessary to understand punchlines). They tend to have zero other hobbies and interests outside of watching/talking about sports so they're clearly very intriguing (eye roll).

And then there's the women (I am a woman, btw) who think pretending to like sports will make them attractive yet they have nothing insightful to say about the game because they don't understand it - because they are so transparently faking it (men do this too but as a woman, it feels worse when my kind do it). Don't get me wrong - there are plenty of women who know their shit and know the game. I am not talking about them. Those are the respectable ones. It's the female pretenders who ruin it for the other authentic women sports fans. These pretenders are like the players you start in fantasy football who earn negative stats and would perform better if you sat them on the bench and they did nothing.

I will always want to be connected to sports through active participation (because that is the actual fun in sports) and by witnessing the greats. What I will never do is talk trash about an athlete's poor performance when they are trying but struggling. What I will never do is act like my life is over because a game that I have no control of does not go in my favor. What I will never do is act like being a sports fan makes me cooler than thou.

Working in sports has allowed me to see many fans' true colors and made me realize that this industry can be very unfulfilling. I will forever rep my favorite teams and be a casual fan but because of my experience dealing with sports fans, I have decided it's time to explore my other passions because the world is so much bigger than sports.

ron770 said...

Fuck sports! Nice site! At age 15 I took the IQ test and got 126. Never tested it since, because I was satisfied with my score. Anyway I can share a story. My father grew up in the Soviet Union and there they had literally only a couple TV channels. One was political bullshit, and the other was 1-2 sports channels that featured mostly European soccer. So when my daddy was growing up in the 60s and 70s this is all he did. Was watch soccer on TV. It was the greatest thing in his life. And he is no dummy, he's got a master's degree and all. But it's just this strong fixation that he still continues to have! He just became very conditioned to it as a child. But he grew up 3rd-world. There was not much else to do. A lot of people can't imagine how bad it was. But these American motherfuckers, they really have no excuse. Unless you were raised in a family of stupid sports fans, then maybe you have an excuse. But you should still wise up and leave that time-wasting trash behind. I was influenced by my dad's love for sports to a small degree. Luckily I dropped all interest in sports in 2008. Too many fair-weather fans had me hating the sports I loved before. It was nothing but a stupid local fad to "love" the Blackhawks, and not even genuine love for the team. Fair-weather or not, you're stupid, but the plethora of fair-weather faggots that sprouted up around Chicago in 2008 just was the final straw that made me want to get away from all these low-intelligence cretins.