Just Name Three

Last year on election day, I wrote about my disgust for bandwagon-ing fans, and, for that matter, bandwagon-ing voters.  Today I'm going to write about a larger offshoot of bandwagon-ers, which essentially includes the bandwagon-ers plus the 'fear of missing out' (FOMO) folks.

To identify, these are people who spend money, sometimes hefty amounts, to attend events for which they have little or no passion.  They go solely because they know other people are going.  You see this all of the time with both sporting and music events.

An example:  Last week, I attended a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concert.  The following day at lunch, I overhead a 30-something year-old woman talking to others about it.  She admitted she didn't really know any of his music, but tagged along with friends anyway.  This way she could say she was there, not to mention she could party / drink beer.

Who knows, maybe she didn't have to pay between $60 - $100 to go to the concert like the rest of us.  But probably she did, and regardless, she took away a ticket for a sold out show from a real fan who wanted to go.

I've called people out on this before, and when they get all defensive about it I give them a simple test.  That is, for a big-time concert, can you name three songs (just titles, not even the lyrics!) by that artist?  And for a sporting event, can you name three players on the team for which you're supposedly a fan?

The vast majority of those I ask cannot successfully answer.  If you can't do that, you aren't a fan, and definitely not a passionate one.

However, that isn't going to stop them from paying big bucks to take a seat that a true fan would love to have.  (By and large, the artist or athlete would love for the true fan to have that seat as well.)  But never mind all that.  What's important is being seen as a cool person partying with others at a big event.  And of course, posting their fake superfan-dom on social media.

I suppose it's really not that surprising, in the age of reality TV and social media stars.  People make entire careers out of being seen at events they couldn't care less about.

The difference is, those people get paid, rather then paying for the right to do nothing more than warm a seat.