#gaming became frustrating again after playing non-stop back to back eventually classics

[jaythelay]

Like really sit down and come to the unmistakable conclusion that the people not pushing graphics, but instead artistry and gameplay, are literally all and solely indie, and literally every company that has the money and influence to take as long as they want, don't, and push for unfinished releases just to meet dipshitted deadlines.

At some fucking point the people with 0.001% of the budget, employees, and time, should not be industry, creative, and technological leaders.

[andrewuttaro]

Why should I be a sports fan?

I’ve been writing this article for years. I’m not kidding. I have been asking myself this question for at least five years. I’ve struggled to frame this question in a compelling yet personal way for a while. As much as watching and consuming sports had become a big part of my life it provided so much pain along the way. Then sports were taken away from us earlier this year. In a way so rare and normally reserved for labor disputes, the global pandemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19) caused the whole sports world to go on haitus. It’s insensitive to put this loss as anything but minor next to the tremendous human toll of a once-in-a-century contagion so let’s start by saying are just entertainment. Even if it’s your livelihood you are probably aware deep down that you work in the candy shop.

That said what we decide to entertain ourselves with says a lot about us. As much as we view Ancient Rome as the jewel of antiquity these were also depraved people who used gladiatorial, often genocidally-oriented slaughter as their entertainment. In a non-pandemic world the deepest conversation in the sports world is probably how much violence should we tolerate. Not having any sports to consume allowed me to go into the deeper question of why should I be a sports fan at all?

I’m soon to finish Graduate School with an education to work in government so you don’t need to tell me there are more important things then sports. But that is really part of the why isn’t it? Sports is an escape but also a function of all that chaos in the broader world. Sports are not separate from politics, in many cases sports only exist because of politics. On the other hand, they should be an expression of depth. At its best sports express the depth of human flourishing: our yearnings, our joys, our sufferings, our need for togetherness. The poetry is warranted: sports helps humanity process the ups and downs of our own existence. Then again, it’s also really, profoundly stupid. Need I remind you of the butt fumble?

I was a giant nerd for the first decade and a half of my life. I still am now really but the classical definition of being a nerd precludes loving sports as much as I do. My family had always paid attention to World Cups and even club soccer on a casual level. My family had gone to a hockey game here or there but if I told you I was aware of the Buffalo Sabres President’s Trophy Campaign in 2007 I would be lying to you. My true sports life begins in 2011 watching the NHL playoffs with my dad. Those memories are precious to me. He probably would’ve preferred I get into the real sport of the family: American Football.

None of us actually played Football but like many American families mine gathered around the television on Sunday afternoons to watch the NFL. If it wasn’t the nearby Buffalo Bills it was my father’s Kansas City Chiefs, or my sister’s Philadelphia Eagles, or my uncle’s Oakland Raiders, or my mom’s whatever-team-Peyton-Manning-is-on. Football didn’t really capture my heart until last year and the likes of one Josh Allen, but it was always a part of my family life. Sports weren’t an interest of mine until those early 2010s Stanley Cup playoffs with my dad. I am hooked on hockey to this day.

I suppose many of you reading this can see your own story in similar terms. If you’re a lifelong fan of a team you probably have a full journey of ups and downs, wins and losses, joys and pains to look back on. I have far more pains to share than joys. I have been provided with so much pain in this decade of being a sports fan that I questioned: Why should I be a sports fan anyway? Why bother? If it gives me pain do I really need that in my life? On a deeper level most people who own sports teams are the worst kind of degenerate fat cats. I would feel less comfortable making that generalization if it weren’t true 80% of the time. Just take a deep dive into stadium and arena financing and you’ll agree with me before sundown tomorrow.

As stupid as the real-life ramifications of the sports industry are they reflect our own societal ills. The Ancient Romans hated foreigners and religious dissidents, so their entertainment was feeding those groups to tigers. In modern America we deify the wealthy so we let them walk all over our local governments to get tax breaks for giant stadiums we can chill at. The off-the-field stuff really grinds my gears, can you tell? Long before social distancing was in the everyday lexicon all these issues with sports in general made me seriously fumed on a regular basis. Then a Superbowl changed my thinking.

My dad’s Kansas City Chiefs won Superbowl 54. Ironically they did it against my father-in-law’s San Francisco 49ers. The Chiefs won the Superbowl fifty years after winning their only other championship in Superbowl four. My father, not even ten years old at the time, was entranced for life after that game. A fun rivalry with his cousin’s Raiders made it his team among other sports he loved. He went ahead and suffered through fifty years of Chiefs football which, the more I learn every day: really sucked for a long time. Five decades of suffering only magnified the joy of the eventual return to the mountaintop. The journey through thick and thin was a companion that my dad takes pride in. Recently he expressed some relief to me that the Superbowl the Chiefs finally won wasn’t cancelled by Coronavirus. After five decades of frustration I can see why.

Then I wondered if my dad was a sucker. The Hunt family who own the Kansas City Chiefs have bankrolled half the American Sports world. Their hand is in decades of American sports including being one of two guys keeping Major League Soccer afloat twenty years ago. The Hunts are one of a handful of people who can be considered the kingpins of this industry in North America. Was my dad just another one of their marks? Was I a mark for loving the Buffalo Sabres through their roughest decade in franchise history and still buying all the merchandise? Was all of Rochester, NY a mark for a beautiful experiment in the predatory world of American lower-division soccer called the Rochester Rhinos?

Well… Coronavirus happened, and those questions became silly next to images of mass graves and empty streets. That was the perspective it took for me to stop worrying about whether sports are some latent capitalist scheme to channel money from the middle class to the wealthy. Money goes where money comes. A healthy portion of social awareness is critical to be a good sports fan, but the off-the-field-stuff doesn’t undermine the spirit of the thing itself unless it REALLY does (I’m looking at you NYCFC letting fascists salute at your games). So what am I trying to say here? What am I going to wrap this up with: a feel-good message about how what really matters is the friends and experience we get along the way? Bonding with family and friends is the meaning of sports?

No, I’ll spare you that tired resolution today. I’m a campfire guy. I am no Boy Scout level camper, but the campfire is my jam: the campfire of shared experiences. Beyond family, religion, sports and a few common landmarks in our personal lives how many things really bring giant groups of humanity together? Like I’m talking about millions of people: what are things we all still share together as one whole? War I guess but if you find that fun in real life I am a little worried for your mental health. It just so happens I am something of a family man and a religious zealot. I just live for those things that bring humans together, the more the merrier!

In internet parlance the phrase is “concurrent viewers”. I’m a moth to the light for things we can all do together. I haven’t missed a Superbowl as far back as I can remember. And these thoughts are where I really found the answer to my question. Why should I be a Sports fan at all? In a time when we’re all craving human contact like I do as a part of my personality it reminds us what brings thousands and millions of us together is the glue of society. Glue is a fickle thing if you haven’t used it recently. It sticks and if you give it time it hardens into something almost inseparable. In these tough times healthcare workers, essential workers and the government are welding things together like sports once glued us together.

The metaphor isn’t perfect but my reason for sports is simple: it’s an us thing. It’s why we watch movies, eat certain places and go to certain live events when we’re not quarantined; we’re attracted to the things that bring us together. Okay, so maybe it is the friends-we-made-along-the-way argument, but I don’t hate that as much as I used to. Life is better together and living through a life-altering pandemic opens the mind to what that deeper, albeit corny truth really means. I’m a sports fan because I get to share it with others.