You Always Were The Perfect Fan
“Hence, it’s easier for original fans to dump on newer fans than to tolerate them and hope they advance the cause of whatever they like. I notice this every time I mention the UFC or poker — there’s this bizarre (and totally dismissive) backlash, as if I’m not allowed to watch those sports or even mention them because I’m not a real fan. Well, how do you become a real fan? By liking a sport without disliking the core people who like it. So it’s a self-perpetuating cycle, and as weird as this sounds, the original fans like it that way. It maintains their ownership of the product. When the product outgrows them (specifically in the case of a creative entity), that’s when the core fans start throwing around phrases like “jumped the shark” and “sold out,” mostly because they’re bitter it’s not just them and the product any more.”
-Bill Simmons, July 22nd mailbag.
For all the Simmons bashing that goes on the Internet, here he actually hits on something that is probably bigger than he makes it sound. He called it something stupid (“The Cult of Status Quo”), but the real fan argument is one of my least favorite things in the sporting world. It invades bar arguments, destroys internet forums, and is among the things that makes Yahoo! comments unreadable. The entire idea is knuckle-draggingly stupid- but not because people get bitter and cry sell-out (Shockingly, there’s a difference between sports debate and debate over Simmons’ career). It’s stupid because there’s no good definition of a what true fan is, or should be.
For reference, let’s look at a few hypothetical fans.
Fan #1 is a nearly lifelong fan. The team was good in this fan’s youth, so fandom probably started as a bandwagon thing (kids do that stuff). The quality of the team diminished, but the fan remained, attended games whenever possible. Now the fan still follows closely, and is a decently active member of blogs devoted to the team…which mainly act as a support group. Also, owns multiple jerseys from different eras. Watches only some of the team’s games, but living out of market (and the crappiness of internet feeds) is the main reason for that.
Fan #2 (more…)
Popularity: 1% [?]
