We get it. You don’t like sports. Who cares. I think there’s validity to sport and I enjoy watching and playing many of them. Has capitalism ruined everything the common person holds dear in most sports? Yes. I literally wrote an article about it.
But sport itself isn’t inherently bad and being like “herp derp sportsball” makes you sound like a basement dweller incel who wants to shoot up their school because they think jocks get all the girls instead of the kind gentlesirs who study the blade.
A lot of people are only exposed to sport as a tv show and a product, but most sports have roots that go back hundreds of years, are very influenced by working class history and local teams are often at the heart of communities (although many have been stolen and turned into just another generator of capital).
Sports have also been an arena for the class struggle - aristocrats and workers battling it out over who should be allowed to play and control different games at different time, “amateurs vs professionals” (i.e. those who were wealthy enough to be able to fund their sporting career as a hobby vs talented workers who needed to be paid to play) was a controversy in sports for decades. Even today there are many teams run and owned by fans in some sports, and the struggle between workers who have been watching their teams for decades (even through multiple generations of families) vs their indifferent capitalist owners is ongoing.
Also playing sports is fun and you will make friends and get healthy.
Read up on sport in 20th century socialist states, it was treated with massive investment and athletes were awarded high honour, it was tied in to public health (along with often being integrated with making people fit enough to serve in the army to defend against all the capitalist countries wanting to invade you for trying to not be capitalist). Even in capitalist countries today grassroots sport is one of the only real community/social circles people have that isn’t tied to working for a capitalist.
Leading up to the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the Chinese government initiated a movement of “let the whole population exercise” (全民健身). Part of the initiative is to build many public outdoor light exercise “gyms,” with stuff like parallel bars, bench presses, ellipticals, chess presses, etc. (some pics here). Pretty much every residential community got at least one such free “gym” in the end. They immediately became public gathering grounds after dinner, a very fond part of my memory growing up. That’s what socialist sport could look like.
socialist sport is good.
capitalist sport is bad
this aint complicated. the superbowl is the greatest display of US fascism and consumerism you can witness, and i really cannot begrudge people hating on it.
The superbowl is fascism is my new favorite take on this site, narrowly beating out "bedtime is fascism" :che-laugh: :che-laugh: :che-laugh: :che-laugh:
the DoD spends millions of dollars on advertising every year at the NFL. this isn't a mystery or revelation.
big expensive displays of nationalism are pretty fash, yo
Yeah, I'm not sure this is a take that should be laughed at
But its really funny. Fascism has a set definition. The word has actual meaning. You can't just pretend everything you don't like is fascism. It makes me think that some communists here are bitter social outcasts who want to pretend anything the normies like is evil.
Isn't the NFL's treatment of Black athletes, the previously mentioned DoD advertising, the overt nationalistic displays including the national anthem (which, yeah, aren't unique to capitalist countries but I'm talking about them in conjunction with the rest of the event), reason enough to call the Super Bowl sus af if not fascistic?
NFL's treatment of Black athletes
i'm not welcome at NFL game screenings anymore because i always loudly ask which team Colin Kaepernick is playing for in the "anti-racist" NFL
Sus username is sus, also not even the best pedophile from the Venture Brothers
Captain Sunshine > Sgt Hatred
As someone who isnt from the shithole country burgeristan:
This is literally the same as saying that "hurr durr the fuccen nationalistic aryan sports competitions they did in nazoid germany wasnt fascist because sports competitions arent fascist"
Murica is a fascist country which actively ruins the world and commits mass genocide through both hard and soft power. Therefore, anything the media industrial complex there does to placate people and unironically celebrate its "culture" is by extension, fascist.
As someone else said: "big expensive displays of nationalism are pretty fash, yo"
Furthermore, your insistence that criticisms stem from "not being a normie" or whatever
A) Is a textbook ad-hominem logical fallacy.
B) Is cringe because you're evoking some abstract concept of what's "normal" to create an in-group out-group scenario where you're on the side of the in-group. Basically invoking the "big other" unironically, its pure ideology combined with the petty immature mentality of your average american highschooler. A maldeveloped, spiritually poisoned human being due to both capitalist brainwashing and spending their formative years in a fucked up environment.
Well you've stepped above superbowl = fascism because of singing the national anthem to straight up the superbowl is fascist because it is played in America. I suppose most of the libs on this site are fascists too since they aren't actively fighting the country and therefor are complicit in the culture.
Your A/B points are big Shapiro energy. I bet daddy would be proud
:debate-me-debate-me:
My point is that football/the superbowl cannot be described as being in itself fascist using ANY definition of fascism that has existed in the past 100 years. I personally think its funny when people misuse the word fascism. My "ad-hominem logical fallacy" is my personal theory as to why some people misuse fascism to shit on things they don't like.
Well you’ve stepped above superbowl = fascism because of singing the national anthem to straight up the superbowl is fascist because it is played in America.
:jesse-wtf:
There is a difference between american football as a game, and the fucking spectacle of the Superbowl in totality, which is uniquely fucking American and propagandistic, so it cant be played anywhere else by definition. You're strawmanning here, the argument is "the superbowl is fascist" not "american football itself is fascist".
Your A/B points are big Shapiro energy. I bet daddy would be proud
No I am his daddy, he has bottom energy. The difference here is that he is wrong and I am right :gigachad-hd:
My point is that football/the superbowl cannot be described as being in itself fascist using ANY definition of fascism that has existed in the past 100 years.
you idiot the argument here isnt that the Superbowl in itself is a new fascist ideology lmao why are you invoking "muh definitions", its a cultural manifestation of fascism from a fascist country. Do you think the US is a fascist country?
My “ad-hominem logical fallacy” is my personal theory
Exactly.
Where is the propaganda? How is it uniquely American? The Superbowl could take place in any liberal democracy. Liberal democracies suck ass but its foolish to pretend that they are actually fascist.
Its a championship game for a popular sport. That's it. It has a hyped up halftime show, hyped up advertisements and a brief military flyover. You're acting like its a military recruitment event with several long credos about protecting the motherland and crushing the invaders. Its just a football game. It's the BIGGEST football game every year. But that's all it is. It does not promote fascist ideology or really reflect fascism. It's consumerist sure, but not fascist.
Where is the propaganda? How is it uniquely American?
hyped up advertisements and a brief military flyover.
pick one, this is utterly embarrassing, they begin the "Games" with the burger national anthem, anything celebrating the existance of a genocidal settler-colonial nation built on the blood of non-white people is fascist
The Superbowl could take place in any liberal democracy. Liberal democracies suck ass but its foolish to pretend that they are actually fascist.
You actually think america is a democracy :farquaad-point:
Its a championship game for a popular sport. That’s it. Its just a football game. It’s the BIGGEST football game every year. But that’s all it is.
Critical thinking is lame, noted.
There are multiple examples refuting your dogbrained "arguments" in this thread and its not even worth talking to you seriously until you address every single one of them.
@SgtHatred isn't actually a communist.
They're a liberal who comes here to concern troll.
Their entire post history is just doing apologia for reactionaries, trying to deradicalise people, trying to make us look bad when semi-public figures come to do AMAs and just in general, presumably for screenshot purposes and occasionally going "oh wow, us communists sure are awful and weird huh, no wonder everyone hates us".
Advertising is advertising. This guy is talking about the actual event being fascist. Also you can find displays of nationalism in every communist country. Using that to define something as "fascist" is not very smart. Do you clutch your pearls and scream brown shirts every time you see a military flyover?
Do you clutch your pearls and scream brown shirts every time you see a military flyover
in America? you'd better believe i do. i also curse god because they woke me the fuck up
this whole country is built on an indian burial ground and this army filled those graves. 'America is lebensraum succeeding' isn't a fucking joke its literally what happened.
even retreating that, the nationalism on display at the NFL is explicitly an anti-muslim project that emerged in the wake of the ""war in terror"". the fucking 500 ft flags are there to get us on board with ceaselessly bombing the cradle of civilisation and making life hell for muslims who live here
They fly some planes and sing the national anthem, that's it. You think the standard American flags they fly are brain washing people into supporting imperialist projects?
'blatant propaganda isnt real because its blatant'
its fucking troop worship on the most popular entertainment programs in the country. get a grip, people buy into lies when they're repeated over and over and over.
but i don't even have to argue that, patriotism being a part of the game is chronologically linked to imperial projects. even if you don't see the relationship, the goddamn DoD certainly does
Do you clutch your pearls and scream brown shirts every time you see a military flyover?
So what do you think they use those jets for?
All football is a blood ritual, the Superbowl isn't special, although they really aren't calling penalities, which sucks for the players.
risk of head injury = human sacrifices isn't quite as funny as Superbowl = fascism but I gotta give you props it still made me laugh
20 years from now, in an even more explicitly fascist America: "Oh yeah sure, everything is fascism to you guys, huh? The weekly police marches? The public executions of dissidents? Immigrants disappearing into train carriages and never being seen again? How on earth are we gonna be taken seriously as a movement if we just say that everything around us is fascism? People will get tired of hearing that shit and you'll just alienate them from your movement even more."
What you say is true 100% but the point isnt about just hating on stuff like superbowl or capitalism ruining aspects of sports. The vast majority of consumption of , let alone participation in, sports by billions of working class people is still very far from being superbowl-ish. So generalized hate and mockery for "sportsball" or any positibility of it being good and positive even under capitalism that can be found as a reaction in the left and not towards specific consumerist domination and capitalist corruption of it examplified by extremes like superbowl makes you indeed seem like an edgy unlikable new atheist
capitalism making sport horrible is in most the US pre high school i serioisly contest the assertion most of sport is proletarian
Yeah it seems like the explicit purpose of a lot of competitive sports in the US is to make people compete with each other and create anger. It reinforces the whole capitalist competition narrative that everyone needs to constantly be in conflict with each other, whether that's competing companies or entire countries or fellow humans.
i mean i was more talking about the fact you have to pay for sport and it gets very expensive but competition is not necessarly a social good yeah
Do you think the entire concept of competitive sports only exist in capitalistic nations? I mean, baseball is pretty fuckin popular in Cuba and Venezuela for example. China loves basketball. I seem to remember that hockey was kind of a big deal in the USSR
I scream when I see sports. I pace my house and I fucking scream until sports stops.
Actually as a kid we had a game called Runny Screamy where everyone would line up and scream as loud as possible while running forward and if you stopped screaming to breathe you had to stop and the round was won by whoever ran the furthest on one scream
It was pretty dope. We also had what we called "Zonky Wars" where larger kids would carry smaller kids on their shoulders and then we would do a wall of death
+ concussion + torn ACL + no tackle rule implemented + stadiums turned into labor camps for libs
Leftists hating sport is so weird as a non American. Maybe it's because American sports broadcasts are filled with ads and fash military nonsense, and Americans don't have the opportunity to play sports themselves due to their horribly designed cities and crushing work hours, bit but still. Hating the fundamental concept of competition with your fellow humans is just always going to be weird to me.
Obviously I hate the capitalistic nonsense and most sporting organisations, but competing against others is fun in the right environment.
My entire direct experience with playing sports involved getting called gay a lot and my parents signing me up for stuff against my will and it killed any prior enthusiasm I had.
I don’t think it's a leftist thing though, it's an online American thing to hate sports. Go ask any weird libertarian forum what they think about football. Because sports here are only two things: memories from high school (where you were a bully or bullied) or a capitalist product with military theatrics attached. The only time I hear about sports being anything else around here is a way to get laid on the weekends.
People offline are usually indifferent or into it.
The big American sports leagues are actually better in some respects than say, most of soccer/football worldwide. They at least have a draft system and stuff vs whoever has the most money gets the best players.
Yeah but jocks bullied me and sa'd my friend in high school and I have no outlet for it
I talk shit about the NFL and college football to my family and coworkers all the time.
The criticisms need to be directed at the system, like how billionaire owners get 52% of all profits, can move teams whenever they want - and use that threat to bully cities into giving them tax money for stadiums. For fucking billionaires.
Or college sports, which is dominated by the likes of easy-to-hate Alabama and Ohio State (the best players go to the best teams, so it self-perpetuates and will always be that way), schools often barely educate their athletes, funding for students and education instead goes to lavish "athletic facilities."
The most unconscionable part of college sports is how if players get injured before going pro there is no recourse for them. They're just out of millions of dollars, permanently injured, and with few career prospects. This goes for college basketball and baseball too, but the violent nature of Amerikkkan football means that anyone that plays in college will come out with at least one permanent injury. Usually bad knees/hips at a minimum, neck or back problems if they aren't lucky.
I remember hearing years ago that the average career length of an NFL player is like 4 games. After dedicating probably a decade of your life and eschewing real education. What does a 22 year old with no prospects do after that.
Yeah, I remember a while back doing some math on NFL average career pay spread over a lifetime and being shocked.
I don't remember the exact numbers, but given the health concerns of playing professional football one is probably better off becoming an accountant or something, outside of like, super star players who make multiple millions a year.
Knew a guy that tore his ACL a month into freshman jv football, walks with a limp ten years later. Absolute insanity
Oh yeah, this is very legitimate criticism, and it only serves to hurt the sport to continue on this way.
I mean, there’s all kinds of sports for people with all kinds of disabilities, one of the most beloved sportsmen in Australia is a guy who plays tennis in a wheelchair. Blind people play soccer with a ball that beeps. There’s a whole olympics for disabled people. And this is all under capitalism. I don’t think sport needs to be inherently “body fascism”
Growing up as a man here in the US who never gave a shit about sports and was always horrible at them myself, I was essentislly treated as a deviant. A malformed citizen. If I'm honest, It was othering and traumatic.
In the ensuing decades I have certainly, at times, over reacted to these childhood traumas and, in turn, judged others for their puzzling enthusiasm for a game, but have long since settled into a equilibrium of sorts where I just don't give a shit if anyone loves sports so long as I don't need to agree with them. Basically the same stance I take on religion. Whatever gets you through the day.
But shocker, I still don't fucking care even a little bit about any sporting event. I will never care about any sporting event. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
:geordi-no: herp derp sportsball
:geordi-yes: effort post explaining the problems in modern day professional sports
if you do not like sports simply do not engage with sports do not decide to be an active pain in the arse around people who like sports it's very easy. Everyone deep down knows this as it's universally considered rude in every similar instance
I don't like sports I just find the people who take pride in being a buzzkill irritating
