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re: Which is WORSE? Bandwagon fans or Sidewalk fans
Posted on 4/24/14 at 11:38 am to randomways
Posted on 4/24/14 at 11:38 am to randomways
quote:
There's an enormous fallacy, though, in tarring them with that brush when you could just as easily tar alumni/students with the same brush. Are you one of the frat guys at Death Valley tossing piss balloons? If not, you certainly don't want to be treated like them. The same applies to sidewalk fans.
Sure, as noted the teabagger was an alum. I am not generalizing and saying sidewalk fans are overall bad, just that comparatively as a group they are the worst group of fans ON AVERAGE, and that average is driven by outliers.
quote:
It's just as silly to look down on someone for not attending your school as it is to look down on someone attending a school with a worse football team than yours. Either way, it seems unnecessarily condescending, imho.
I am not looking down on all sidewalk fans.
My father in law is a sidewalk fan by definition. No college degree himself, but he put two girls through at A&M, has season tickets, and has donated more to the program than I probably ever will. He is a bigger A&M fan than me, heck he respects the brand more than me. His father's Aggie ring is his most prized possession.
He is a good fan, sidewalk or not. I am proud he represents my university. I am not being condescending to fans like him.
I reserve my condensation for a particular breed of sidewalk fan- one whose only claim to a program was the fact he was born in that state or some other arbitrary thing, and who tries to leverage the success of that program (relative to the success of other programs) to feel better about himself by tearing down other fans.
This type of fan is close to a bandwagoner, aka they ride the coattails of team success. The difference is unlike a bandwagon fan who wants to root for a winner, this type of sidewalk fan uses the team brand as a way to feel superior to someone else because their normal life gives them no such opportunities because they suck at life.
This type of sidewalker, in my opinion, is the worst type of fan on the earth. Worse than teabagging alums (who then have to live with that brand hit) and worse than a unloyal bandwagoner with a closet full of different team jerseys. This type of fan is so bad that they drag down all sidewalk fans on average.
Why?
Because they take something with real value (the team brand) and borrow against that value (their shitty self esteem boost) without any claim to the principle. They basically spend someone else's money (since the brand is worth money) to feel better about themselves. As an alum, that is MY brand value they are spending and for that reason they can go frick themselves.
The worst sidewalk fan is a self esteem welfare case basically and I have no respect for that lifestyle.
You don't see these fans as much I assume because you live in a one-team state. I notice the USC fans sympathize with me, and that is because Clemson provides for them the exact type of fans I am talking about.
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Posted on 4/24/14 at 11:59 am to cardboardboxer
Without this clarification, you seemed making an awful lot of assumptions about the generic sidewalk fan before, though. You do describe a very specific sort of fan and ask we agree that they suck, which, yeah, the fan you describe kind of sucks. But it also kind of describes plenty of alumni too. I'm not seeing a reason to buy that this is a reason to even bother discussing them as sidewalk fans simply because I'm not seeing evidence this is inherent to the breed, so to speak. It's a classic fallacy of composition.
My problem with your argument, to turn it to the teabagger, is that you either have no vested interest or have vested interest regardless. The teabagger hurts his brand, but he hurts yours as well, as does the (assuming one buys your argument) sidewalk fan you describe. Either you care about that in every case or you're best served, argumentatively-speaking, letting it slide in every case because I can't see how you can argue any moral validation in self-harm. Either way, you probably need to establish a more data-driven syllogism anyway. Your argument is mostly emotional, which doesn't establish solid evidence that even the most obnoxious sidewalk fan harms the brand in any way that isn't measured in Internet validation. I may mock Alabama for Updyke. I may needle TAMU fans for Manziel's exploits and the PR disaster that is old-timey male cheerleader photos. But the brand hasn't been demonstrably hurt in either case unless you can provide more evidence.
My problem with your argument, to turn it to the teabagger, is that you either have no vested interest or have vested interest regardless. The teabagger hurts his brand, but he hurts yours as well, as does the (assuming one buys your argument) sidewalk fan you describe. Either you care about that in every case or you're best served, argumentatively-speaking, letting it slide in every case because I can't see how you can argue any moral validation in self-harm. Either way, you probably need to establish a more data-driven syllogism anyway. Your argument is mostly emotional, which doesn't establish solid evidence that even the most obnoxious sidewalk fan harms the brand in any way that isn't measured in Internet validation. I may mock Alabama for Updyke. I may needle TAMU fans for Manziel's exploits and the PR disaster that is old-timey male cheerleader photos. But the brand hasn't been demonstrably hurt in either case unless you can provide more evidence.
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