you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Node 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

What is there to "get"? What's important about watching people with no connection to your life play a game with a ball?

If one were to argue corporate sportsball is justified in existing, what would be one argument in favor of it?

[–]Richard_Parker[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

I have already run off a number of unique characteristics of the Packers that are unlike any entity on the planet. Before the stupid titletoen district, there were residential homes right across the street from Lambeau Field.

There is a connection to my life, just as much as my favorite musicians,artists, and authors are an important part of my life.

Today the Cleveland Indians announced a name change to the Guardians. It all looks stupid and ridiculous. The point being is something like the Packers could not be invented today. As the primordial, ancient power of the NFL, there is something mystical about. You will never understand.

[–]Node 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

I understand more about it than you know. I just see it as the stupid and ridiculous crutch for the lesser abled that it is.

Note that you've not been able to come up with a single justification for its existence, so I'll help you out.

Next time someone asks why corporate sportsball is justified, point out that it's a sort of panacea for those who got the 'affordable' cognitive package. There's so little going on in there that corporate sportsball literally fills in some of the holes.

Bread and circuses

a diet of entertainment or political policies on which the masses are fed to keep them happy and docile.

"with football and politics as the bread and circuses of our decadent empire, whither religion?"

Note the example they give. I'll let you do the further research on the target market for bread and circuses.

My recommendation is to stop defending the undefendable. And if you've been finding yourself identifying with the unwashed masses, seek a cure.

[–]Richard_Parker[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

I am not defending the NFL or sportsball as it currently is. I am say it not saying the Packers have some very unique features that not only make them palatable to me, but are attractive to me in a powerful way. If you go throught he history of hockey, football, and baseball, you simply cannot find a town or small city team whose rarly legacy propelled to endure. All the rest folded.

I understand more about it than you know. I just see it as the stupid and ridiculous crutch for the lesser abled that it is.

Lesser abled? I understand the problems with sportsball as need and circuses, the problem with asshole megalomanic athletes who do not give a fuck about the fans or really the team as anyone one. Some trees are still and unyielding, others bend and are more pliable.

I am quite confident I am probably the most fiercely individualisfic of anyone in here. I like the Packers even though there are tensions with my ideological and political proclivities. And I remain a fan even though it does not pair too well with my musical tastes. Not many Packers fans listen to stuff like Velvet Acid Christ, Death in June, Funker Vogt. Probably a few listen to Joy Division since hipster docuehbags discovered them, popularized them.

Same sort of nuance, pliability that allows me to enjoy Das Ich as art even though their politics--particularly Bruno Kramm's--are absolute shit.

[–]Node 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

I am not defending the NFL or sportsball as it currently is.

That's at least something. Caring about randoms playing some game for money seemed pretty nuts back in the 60s too, but I won't press it.

As for corporate music, I might listen to one to five songs per month, on average. Here's one I can tolerate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM

Probably related to being stationed on the East German border at the Fulda Gap, back in historical times.

[–]Richard_Parker[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Very little of want I listen to is corporate. Again, I am hardcore Packers fan, not an NFl Fan. And again, I am REALLY struggling with things. I might be forsaking something I valued more than human life in Christmas. And yes, I care (might soon be in past tense) much more about my teams criminal under achievement than I do some natural disaster that kills hundreds of people.

[–]Node 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

And again, I am REALLY struggling with things.

Because of what's happening to our civilization and societies? I don't understand the part about Christmas, but people choose to live in natural disaster locations.

I've chosen earthquakes. Kinda came with the territory, but they're also interesting and fun when they're small. Our section of the fault released its tension 30 years ago (Oct. 17, 1989, 5:04 pm), so next up for the big one is the SF bay area. But the chances of a hurricane or tornado here are zero.

The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League as a member club of the National Football Conference North division.

The Packers are the only publicly owned franchise in the NFL. Rather than being the property of an individual, partnership, or corporate entity, they are held as of 2016 by 360,760 stockholders.

So they're still there, but not quite as corporate as I thought. Acme Packing was long before my time. One of the stories my dad told me while living there was about the cucumber packers who would have to fish the dead rats out of the big pickling vats. For whatever reason, they apparently didn't have rat proof covers? Anyway, that put me off pickles for a long time.

[–]Richard_Parker[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I don't understand the part about Christmas

Autocorrect did something stupid. I really not to stop trying to "type" on my tablet. What I mean is that I care more about a playoff loss than some news story about so many people dying in a car accident or this person died from cancer.

Because of what's happening to our civilization and societies?

No, I am struggling reconciling my ardent, rabid support for my team with my ideological, political, and even cultural predilctions. The tension has always been there, but now it is getting to a point where I can no longer reconcile the two. This augmented by my disillusion with the team front office and Rodgers. It has come out today that Rodgers will return this year. Ok and then? We are going to experience a dark age that rivals the 70s and 80s. We should at least three to four more Super Bowl championships since 96 than we do. Not a fairweather fan, not going to become a Vikings or Seahawks fan but overall the Packers have failed in rather spectacular fashion in the past 25 years, given the opporunity we had to dominate the NFL and the planet.

[–]Node 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Not a fairweather fan

Was going to address what you imply as a 'wokeness' infection, but you're saying you have a sort of addiction? Maybe not as bad as "yeah, he beats me senseless, but I still love him", but... You seem to be saying the rational move would be to stop fanatically (= fan) supporting an ever-changing group of guys who falsely present themselves as a thing you used to like, but that you can't or won't.

Does it seem plausible that hanging on until they become something you hate would diminish all your positive memories of them?

The rational move for me would be to like (and possibly support) something while it has the character and qualities that caused me to like it/them in the first place. If those elements disappear, or worse, become the opposite, my 'like and support' are withdrawn from the thing now lacking the necessary positive qualities.

ardent, rabid support for my team

Are there other cults that seem attractive to you? A couple of the big ones around here were the Sannyasins, and the Breatharians. Once you see people up close in cults like this, it really opens your eyes to how easily humans are coerced and manipulated into harmful belief systems.

[–]Richard_Parker[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Are there other cults that seem attractive to you? While all religions start as cults, cults are by definition small and suprressed, frowned upon. There are many millions of packers fans, not just in Wisconsin and the US, but around the world.