I woke up this morning with nothing to say, so I’ll talk about sports.
In a sense sports remain the stereotypical male fallback of items to discuss in a very nonsensical (almost mattering) small talk sort of way. I can tell you that my hometown Yankees are still in the MLB playoffs and face elimination tonight–though I am not a fan of baseball. It is background knowledge I acquire for a specific conversational purpose–like knowing the weather forecast… in the desert. I also know that my Giants, who I actually do care about, have lost all of their starting receivers. For a team that is reliant on passing, having guys they pulled off the street days ago is not a good look.
Sports is a way for others to safely define and categorize us. For example, I am seen as a Giants fan. People can be derisive and poke fun at me in that way and it is not considered in ill humor. It is not seen as mattering as much as say my religous or political affiliations. It is still an affiliation, and I suppose that is the key ingredient in all of this. The binary nature of humanity always circles back to ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ however we choose to define those terms. The more those differences can be clearly defined, the safer we feel about who is around us. This is why the mainstream media is having such a difficult time with the Las Vegas shooter. They cannot find a way to classify this man as them, and are forced to create a context in which he is in no way one of ‘us’ or at least the ‘us’ they promote as the ideal group.
I guess this stopped being about sports a long time ago.