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andrewduckerThis has been all over Twitter for the last few days, and frankly, it annoys me:
So there's a world cup on, and the people who are in the football fandom are excited by this. I think this is _awesome_. Look, people are enjoying the thing they like! Isn't that great! No? We have to take the piss out of them, by reducing it down in some way? Oh, what lovely people we are.
I grew up with people being intermittently mean about my interests. And do you know what that made me want? A world where people weren't mean about each other's interests. Not, as many people seem to want, a world where everone is mean about everyone's interests, because equal-opportunity meanness doesn't seem, to me, to produce a great world where everyone is happy.
And if I want a world where I get to enjoy playing with code and pretending to be a level 62 Mage without people being mean about me, and you get to write Alternate Universe Supernatural Fic, and someone else gets to dress up as Harry Potter, and we're supportive of all of that, then we also have to support people putting on t-shirts that match their favourite football teams and chanting their names loudly while they play, and getting all excitable about things we don't understand because we never joined that fandom.
I could understand this more back in the 80s, when football season meant that everyone's TV was disrupted. But nowadays you have hundreds of channels, thousands of box sets, and the entire sodding internet to fall back on while the football is on. Stop picking on people for liking something different to you, and go do something you love instead*.
*Unless you live next door to a football stadium, in which case feel free to complain about the noise.
So there's a world cup on, and the people who are in the football fandom are excited by this. I think this is _awesome_. Look, people are enjoying the thing they like! Isn't that great! No? We have to take the piss out of them, by reducing it down in some way? Oh, what lovely people we are.
I grew up with people being intermittently mean about my interests. And do you know what that made me want? A world where people weren't mean about each other's interests. Not, as many people seem to want, a world where everone is mean about everyone's interests, because equal-opportunity meanness doesn't seem, to me, to produce a great world where everyone is happy.
And if I want a world where I get to enjoy playing with code and pretending to be a level 62 Mage without people being mean about me, and you get to write Alternate Universe Supernatural Fic, and someone else gets to dress up as Harry Potter, and we're supportive of all of that, then we also have to support people putting on t-shirts that match their favourite football teams and chanting their names loudly while they play, and getting all excitable about things we don't understand because we never joined that fandom.
I could understand this more back in the 80s, when football season meant that everyone's TV was disrupted. But nowadays you have hundreds of channels, thousands of box sets, and the entire sodding internet to fall back on while the football is on. Stop picking on people for liking something different to you, and go do something you love instead*.
*Unless you live next door to a football stadium, in which case feel free to complain about the noise.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-14 07:43 pm (UTC)Yesterday, I also chose to find a nice shady seat outside where Purple and I could hear each other and have a pleasant conversation, and free up seats inside for those who would appreciate it. It was sunny with just the right amount of breeze.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-14 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-14 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-14 07:52 pm (UTC)