(no subject)

Interesting post about mass culture from someone I don't know named cmeckhardt. (Read it or not, but don't expect what I write to make sense if you don't.)

I'm wondering to what extent sports fandom follows the same patterns. Certainly basic sports knowledge sets up a lot of metaphors that are necessary for full communication with American English speakers ("Three strikes, you're out"; "This project is a slam dunk"; "Andrew Sullivan needs to shut it with his Monday morning quarterbacking"; "I scored last night"). But I don't know whether sports themselves are about creating metaphors to simplify communication. I do know that sports, like other mass culture, serve some important social functions. The first one that comes to mind is a sort of toothless mock tribalism, where you get to bond quickly and easily with "your people" about something and get to playfight with the rival "tribes" through the hallowed ritual of trash-talking. It also gives an easy, safe conversational topic to which you can turn in awkward social situations where you don't know someone very well.

Yes, I do get a weird pleasure out of overanalyzing ordinary social foo. I should thank my lucky stars I didn't turn out to be a sociologist *;).

*See, social scientists can talk trash with the best of them.