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.
Showing posts with label bandwagon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bandwagon. Show all posts
Friday, June 16, 2017
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
The Bandwagon Is Full
As I write this, it’s presidential Election Day in America. And to help me get celebrate the end of the seemingly never-ending campaigns, I’m going to write about how it’s like…..bandwagon fans.
Last week, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time since 1908. I’m not a Cubs fan, and frankly baseball is at best my 4th favorite team sport behind football, basketball, and even hockey. (I’ve made blog entries in the past about how the baseball establishment has ruined baseball.) But the Cubs’ triple-A team, the Iowa Cubs, play in Des Moines, and I’ve seen many of the players in past trips to those games, so even I was sort of rooting for those lovable losers. (Also, it makes me feel better because I’d like to think that once in my lifetime, another perennial losing team called the Minnesota Vikings will win the Super Bowl.)
During and after the Series, there were somewhere between thousands and millions of people claiming to be long-suffering Cubs fans. And while many of them were, some of them were not. A lot of those so-called long-time fans couldn’t name even a couple of the players, nor had any clue as to how well the Cubs did in the regular season. They were bandwagon fans, trying to attach their sorry souls to a contender they really don’t care about, giving them an excuse act silly and feel good about themselves.
Those fans drive me nuts. They act like they care, but they don’t actually know enough to care.
In a way, it’s a metaphor for this year’s presidential election. Millions of people are going to vote today, and lots of them know virtually nothing about the candidates, nor the issues they’ve been campaigning about for the past year. They just know that a big contest is afoot, and they’re going to attach their sorry souls to a contender they really don’t care about, giving them an excuse to act silly and feel good about themselves.
Those voters drive me nuts, too.
Last week, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time since 1908. I’m not a Cubs fan, and frankly baseball is at best my 4th favorite team sport behind football, basketball, and even hockey. (I’ve made blog entries in the past about how the baseball establishment has ruined baseball.) But the Cubs’ triple-A team, the Iowa Cubs, play in Des Moines, and I’ve seen many of the players in past trips to those games, so even I was sort of rooting for those lovable losers. (Also, it makes me feel better because I’d like to think that once in my lifetime, another perennial losing team called the Minnesota Vikings will win the Super Bowl.)
During and after the Series, there were somewhere between thousands and millions of people claiming to be long-suffering Cubs fans. And while many of them were, some of them were not. A lot of those so-called long-time fans couldn’t name even a couple of the players, nor had any clue as to how well the Cubs did in the regular season. They were bandwagon fans, trying to attach their sorry souls to a contender they really don’t care about, giving them an excuse act silly and feel good about themselves.
Those fans drive me nuts. They act like they care, but they don’t actually know enough to care.
In a way, it’s a metaphor for this year’s presidential election. Millions of people are going to vote today, and lots of them know virtually nothing about the candidates, nor the issues they’ve been campaigning about for the past year. They just know that a big contest is afoot, and they’re going to attach their sorry souls to a contender they really don’t care about, giving them an excuse to act silly and feel good about themselves.
Those voters drive me nuts, too.
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