This is such a common and exhausting take.

[nmott@infosec.exchange]

There's also a certain dissonance between folks saying "we need to create more third spaces" and "sports are dumb and bad and you're dumb and bad for liking them." These people are often visiting a third space because of sports! And if they aren't, there's a good chance they're having people over to watch "the game," which is a good thing!

(I am not saying the original poster has made that argument; I don't care enough to check. But I have noticed the Venn diagram of "people who cry for third spaces" and "people who mock other people for enjoying sports" has a lot of overlap. So I'm speaking generally here.)

Should we need excuses to have regular get-togethers with the people we care about? No. But we're in the middle of a loneliness epidemic, and we in the U.S. have specifically been told if we aren't busy grindin' we're too busy dyin', which compounds the problem of only socializing via our Doom Devices. Having a regularly scheduled event to bond over is A Good Thing, actually.

[nmott@infosec.exchange]

Anyway. I don't mean to be shouty at OP in particular. This has just been on my mind a lot, lately, as I've worked to disambiguate "the things I like" from "the things I've been told I should (not) like."

It hasn't been a very fun time to be alive. (See: the rise of fascism, climate apocalypse, geopolitical crises, and whatever other thing I'll see when I check The Guardian later today.) At least I haven't found it to be; maybe someone with deficits of empathy or a surplus of capital feels differently.

Give yourself permission to like and enjoy things. Even--or maybe especially--if some holier-than-thou fuckwads on the internet try to mock you for it. As long as you aren't hurting anyone else (without their consent) it's none of their fucking business.

Watching Eberechi Eze score fuckin' banger goals, or Josh Allen cackle like a maniac while being the head of a who-knows-how-many-man battering ram, or Robert Baloucoune pull off a bonkers try against Scotland, all make me happy. These are people who've devoted significant amounts of their lives to a particular skill and we get to watch as they take the field with a bunch of other people who've done the same thing and see who's "better" on that particular day. That's fucking art, and I won't be convinced otherwise.

[lproven@social.vivaldi.net]

@nmott No, watching sports is not fun for everyone. Don't generalise. Don't assume that what you like means everyone likes it. This is a common error of thinking and it results in hurtful behaviour.

[nmott@infosec.exchange]

Here's Eze: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EIYJY6dyOOo

Here's Allen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol7ZJ2_eTLs&pp=ygUVam9zaCBhbGxlbiBoaWdobGlnaHRz

Here's Baloucoune: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XQZQG8tBWPU

Those were all recent so they were top-of-mind but let's check out...

Portia Woodman-Wickliffe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlUjaj_57Mk&pp=ygUZcG9ydGlhIHdvb2RtYW4gaGlnaGxpZ2h0cw%3D%3D

2025 Women's College World Series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBOFEaAy5EI

Motherfucking Game 7 of the World Series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU_bMo561b8&pp=ygUXd29ybGQgc2VyaWVzIGhpZ2hsaWdodHM%3D

Chloe Kelly scoring a banger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQm32DXE2jM

[nmott@infosec.exchange]

@lproven I didn't say "everyone." My post wasn't any more general than your mention of "sports fans."

[lproven@social.vivaldi.net]

@nmott You stated, baldly and without qualification, "watching sports is fun".

This is not true for everyone.

Don't generalise from your own experience. It's not a good thing to do. Learn Wheaton's Law and follow it.

I stand by what I wrote.

[nmott@infosec.exchange]

@lproven

"Don't assume that what you like means everyone likes it." I didn't and don't.

"This is a common error of thinking and it results in hurtful behaviour." As do the constant efforts to portray anyone who enjoys sports as an idiot.

And in terms of "hurtful" behavior, I'd say that mocking entire groups of people with a (tired-ass) comic is up there, no?

(I also clarified in a follow-up that my intention wasn't to be shouty at you; my apologies. I should have spoken generally from the start rather than quote-posting.)

[nmott@infosec.exchange]

@lproven ugh, so we're devolving to "I can't reason that a person saying that something is fun doesn't necessarily mean the person is saying it's fun for everyone."

Either you're being willfully obtuse (and sanctimonious, which is an impressive combination, I guess) or you're engaging in bad faith because I took offense to something you posted rather than taking the vacant space in the "hur-dur sports is dumb" circlejerk. I'll leave you to that.

[nmott@infosec.exchange]

I cannot believe this has been portrayed as me saying that anyone must enjoy sports. So allow me to be clearer:

It's fine not to like sports. (I don't think winter sports are interesting, for example, and the incessant squeaking makes it difficult for me to watch basketball.) But if you're thinking about taking your own lack of interest and using it to mock the billions of people who do enjoy sports, kindly fuck off, and consider refraining from yucking other people's yums by casting them as bumbling idiots.

(Speculation that many of the "hur-dur sports" folks are simply jealous that people enjoy something they don't and/or have a sense of community they lack will be left as an exercise for the reader.)

[nmott@infosec.exchange]

I'm taking this personally because feeling pressured not to enjoy sports--and therefore not engaging with them for over a decade--cost me so many opportunities for joy and connection in exchange for, what, nerd cred? An ultimately hollow and wholly unearned sense of superiority?

But this isn't about sports. I probably would have responded almost as forcefully as I have if that comic had been about something that doesn't interest me. I'd like people to be encouraged to enjoy things without feeling judged--again, unless they derive enjoyment from harmful things, which I understand is technically difficult to define but that's fine because I'm not a lawyer--and I'd also like them to share it with the world because that's beautiful and interesting and, I would argue, necessary.

Do I give a shit about Minecraft (outside of $KID1 enjoying it) or its internals? No! But this is cool as hell: https://purplesyringa.moe/blog/optimization-lessons-from-a-minecraft-structure-locator/ Do I have a reason to learn about text rendering? No, but I return to this post about it every once in a while because having someone learn a bunch of stuff and then share how cursed it all is does interest me: https://faultlore.com/blah/text-hates-you/

Anyway. Like I said, a lot of this has been on my mind lately, and I'm sure the assortment of medications I'm taking to deal with injury and illness haven't helped curb my natural proclivity for ranting, so my bad for making a mountain out of a molehill. As one of those athletes I'm supposed to be worshipping said:

Be good.
Do good.
God bless.
Go Bills.

(That last part isn't strictly necessary but I like it. Edited because strikethrough didn't originally take.)

[cyberwitch@goingdark.social]

@nmott I don't get sports, and probably never will, but I tried and ended up discovering a lot of neat history in the process.

Popular major league sports reveal a ton about our core culture and values, for better or worse. And while it can sometimes paint a picture of the core culture that is kind of a turn off to lots of people, it's still valuable as a platform and a forum. That's why the Bad Bunny halftime show was such a huge deal, and why people primarily only talk about women's sports when transgender women are involved, and why people still bitch about players kneeling during the US national anthem.

And while it's easy to sneer and r/notlikeothergirls at our core culture, it's worth remembering that core culture is dynamic and multifaceted and capable of improving and we *want* to see it improve. And I feel that looking at sports is kind of the pulse of where our countries are at.

[cyberwitch@goingdark.social]

@nmott i guess my point is that society *needs* massively popular shared past-times to have cohesion and signal change, even if not everybody participates