Seems like a lower intensity and less serious sport so I have to approve of getting people outside and having fun in a lower-toxicity sport.
It’s like playing tennis but I don’t have to run. Also it’s very popular and easy to drop in and play, so it’s an activity where you can meet new people without it being weird.
I'll have to say the culture in pickleball is really friendly
Super open to rotating drop ins and solos, very welcoming and friendly unlike tennis where they don't even want to look at strangers
Truly the proletariat's tennis
For sure my biggest gripe with pickleball is how badminton is right there and more physically active.
The people that play it here are all retirees and young professionals and they take it incredibly seriously. They take up half the basketball courts and drive kids who want to shoot hoops out of the rec center. The wear patterns it puts on the courts are so concentrated they have to be resurfaced twice as often and once pickleballs been played on a court for two seasons you can’t play basketball or volleyball on it anymore because of the slick spots.
Pickleball is played on the nearest courts so new people wanting to play basketball or volleyball or whatever with their kids see fifty loud af boomers and elder millennials grunting and checking each other out and Abe Simpson on out of there.
The management of play used to be run by the rec center but they got tired of dealing with it and let the players run it so now there’s a hyper regimented schedule and even if you did want to play pickleball with your kid or solo, whoops it’s mixed doubles day, whoops it’s a league night, whoops this is clinic hours. All of those examples are scheduled during the 330-6 primo after school time too.
A decent portion of the out of shape crossfit ppl who were only into crossfit for the swinging are now pickleball people, so the benches are full of the grossest motherfuckers you can imagine trying to figure out how to fuck each other down.
It’s awful and I’d thanos snap the pickleballers out of existence if I could.
E: I’m sure it’s fine if you aren’t exposed to it ruining something you like every goddamned day.
I use to work in a situation that gave me access to the minutes of HOA meetings. Converting basketball courts to pickleball courts was always the hot topic of discussion at them. The boomers that wanted it done would preform all sorts of surveys and take samples of player counts per hour as evidence that no one plays basketball. They were never happy with the courts they had and always wanted more.
I played it 10+ years ago in highschool gym class. It's alright. Table tennis is the real shit.
It's like tennis but more fun and doesn't given people the mistaken impression that I own 30 rental properties.
I haven't seen it first hand, but in the last year or so, some highly competitive league has formed on the other side of my small town... the side with affluent professionals / young gentrifiers and all their local political clout, and they've taken over the parks system on that side.
so I've taken it upon myself and recruited a few others to invent a fictitious shadow league/association from the part of town where the real people live. we play on "pop up courts" with chalk marks like behind dying strip malls on loose gravel. we can't play consistently in any one place and have to be secretive, because the cops will shut us down/rough us up/make examples. classic underdogs, raw talent, limited resources (can't afford association fees), and the only true appreciation of the game in town.
and a key feature of the rumor is that they are afraid to even acknowledge our existence. also that [made up person] is the best player in town, except they were secretly banned from association play because they don't look like what the rich people want their champions to look like.
I have never once played this game. I used to play in a "social league" of mixed gender softball. this town has social & competitive leagues for everything. and the problem is, once the hierarchy is set in the competitive league (which is always vicious), some group of competitive assholes forms a team and joins the social league to absolutely crush everyone and talk mad shit during games about how incredible they are. like in front of families. swearing, spitting, heckling. I've seen it across multiple sports, even goofy shit like kickball. the sports association never gives a shit, because they got their fees up front. and the fees are big.
I used to play team sports as a kid competitively, and to me it's a sign of immaturity to take it seriously. team sports are a way to get to know each other and be active while literally engaging in play. so I'm injecting some play into this shit... because people who take any game, but especially this game seriously deserve to be mocked.
For a few years in the 90's in the USA there was a poor people's sports day camp that ran during summer vacation... I vaguely remember playing pickle ball and badminton. Both were okay to play and did a pretty good job of wearing me out.
Turns out, both can be played with far more intensity than you'd think.
I love it because it apparently really pisses off people who are too into tennis. And I generally love things that piss off people who are too into things.
I dont give a shit about tennis but define "too" into something. You make it sound like you hate people that are passionate about something which is ...eh. Just curious.
It's hard to define because it can apply to anything. But the "too" is important. Passion is great I'm talking about when it becomes an annoyance.
It seems weird to me that this sport that I've never heard of before this summer is suddenly this hot new thing that everyone is playing. But also, I like weird new sports, so I'm down to try it.
Not sure where you're from but pickleball got popular on beaches around the world like 15 years ago.
That would explain it, because I live very, very far away from beaches. I've never heard of pickleball since this year.
I remember being forced to play it in gym class. Wasn't a huge fan.
isnt it just tennis for people who can't run?
Death to America
Yes it's more accessible tennis. Lower impact lower speed smaller court. Kinda half way between table tennis and regular tennis.
literally had never heard of it a year ago, and now there's like professional leagues with televised games. i think someone is doing a prank on me specifically.
It's fun to play casually. Gross to what the other poster is saying about it though
