Is Fandom a Mental Illness?
I have always been a crazed sports fan for the teams I love.
I don’t remember this, but my mother tells me when I was seven I went into the bathroom and sobbed when the Yankees lost. When I moved to Los Angeles as a young adult, it didn’t get much better. For more than thirty years, I have bled “Purple and Gold,” going into a serious depression, barely able to talk to family and friends, when the Lakers lost and feeling complete exaltation, close to euphoria, when they won, especially an important game.
Wednesday night, when Kobe dropped twenty-five on the Spurs in the second half of their Western Conference final game to pull the Lakers back from a twenty-point third-quarter deficit, I was in heaven. You’d have thought I’d just won the Pulitzer or been nominated for an Oscar. (Okay, those awards are tainted, but you know what I mean.) An hour before, when my team looked to be blown out, I was in hell, stomping around my house like some grown-up version of Little Itch.
With these extremes, good for me I was a Laker and Yankee fan. Think what I would have been like if I rooted for, say, the Chicago Cubs!
I also confess to a secret vice. When I want to procrastinate, which is remarkably often during basketball season, I log onto LakersGround, a forum for fans who seem to be as obsessed as I am. From what I can gather, they come in all sizes, shapes, races, and ages — although many, though far from all, are male.
So the question that puzzles me is — why do I care so much? This isn’t me. I don’t have anything to do with these sports teams other than I live or lived in their towns. I gain nothing from their success or failure, nor do I contribute anything to it (well, other than the cost of a small yacht for Laker seats). It should be no more than a mild diversion, an entertainment, like watching a couple of episodes of South Park. But it’s clearly not.
Sometimes fandom almost feels like a mental illness. During the playoffs, I can spend more time thinking about my team than my work, family, or anything else. Part of the reason I am writing this article is that it, at least, combines thinking about the team with work. And I have checked LakersGround and ESPN twice while writing it, even though the article, no magnum opus, is at this point barely seven short paragraphs long. Surely there is something wrong with me.
But what is it? Am I just some aging white guy anxious to identify with six-seven black dudes who can slam-dunk backwards? I hope it’s not that pathetic. But even so, I worshiped Mickey Mantle when I was a kid and he was shorter, white, a bit pudgy and, apparently, something of a drunk. (Parenthetically, I am much more willing to excuse athletes their personal foibles than any other public figures — as in the Mr. Bryant mentioned above.)
So what is it? Arrested development? Testosterone poisoning? So far I have no full explanation for this insanity. And it’s not just me of course — Bedlam itself had nothing on those maniacs sitting in EnergySolutions Arena for a Utah Jazz game. And I’m not even going to mention the Euro-bullies pouring out of the stands for your average Neanderthal dust-up between Manchester United and the Italian team du jour.
Whatever the case, it’s all idiotic. Still, I can’t wait for the Spurs-Lakers game tonight, although I dread it and am already biting my nails. So forget your Shakespeare and his sonnets, your Oscar Wilde and his witty comments, what I really want to hear are the immortal words of the late Chick Hearn: “This game’s in the refrigerator … the door is closed, the lights are out, the eggs are cooling, the butter’s getting hard, and the Jell-O’s jigglin’!”
UPDATE: Lakers 101 – Spurs 71
Mr. Simon,
Have a look at forumblueandgold.com
Excellent analysis, great comments and Kurt allows for the talent to express their love for the Lakers with whit. Also, take a look at freedarko.com
Very left leaning but beyond the pathos they are interested in the unusual sentence and the previously unseen angle when it comes to what a fan experiences through basketball. Liberated fandom turns out to have some smart writers on their side.
Is Fandom a Mental Illness?
Yes.
Next question.
I have the same problem. I live and breathe Lakers during the playoffs. I don’t understand what my problem is.
The only answer I have come up with is that somehow their struggle, to excel and win, is an incarnated representation of an inner struggle (itjihad?) that I experience in daily life.
Anyway, it makes me feel better to think that.
“Is Fandom a Mental Illness?
Yes.
Next question.”
It’s no more so than but being obsessed with music, movies, clothing, TV, computers, etc.
I prefer sports. It’s more real.
Roger…”Fandom” is that part of a male psyche that wants to win or prevail over a worthy adversary. It “used to be” why men fought wars, or at the least watched men battle it out…part of why we see ultimate fighting gaining in popularity.
Of course, with team sports, we don’t need to feel so “brutalized” and messy. And with basketball, a fast moving and beautiful “ballet” if you will, we see unmatched skills on display, teamwork, passion, and desire all rolled into one…something nothing else offers us in our daily life in the same way.
Women wonder why men get so passionate about their team, so enamored with it’s players, so exhilarated when they win, and so depressed when they lose. Well, it’s in our genes…we just have so few places to express those feelings in modern life. And though business can be a big substitute for some…it lacks that “emotional ingredient” that team sports provide. Let’s face it, basketball can be crack cocaine for a sports junkie…
And yes, I feel the same about about the Lakers that you do…for the past 30+ years!
Dave, the mental illness of fandom is not the exclusive domain of males.
And if being distraught that your hockey team failed to make the playoffs is a sickness, then so be it. It’s not something I want to find the cure for, there’s too much fun in being a sports fanatic.
Dave, good answer. However, it’s not limited to males. Otherwise, how would you explain my obsession? I’m a 41 year old woman, who lives and breathes Dodger Blue. My moods seem to be controlled by their win/loss record. And if there is anything I hate, it is when someone tells me, “it’s just a game.”
Fandom is nothing more than community spirit. We all want to belong to something and being caught up in our local sports teams draws us together – as you find going to the website.
In the old days, it was the local tavern where people hung out to argue over the ballgames. Now its the internet.
The only difference is the lack of peanut shells on the floor…
Sports are a useful “social lubricant” in that it makes for excellent small talk. My own personal hobbies are astronomy and military history; but sadly I find most people are better equipped to discuss how Jock A got past Jock B to put a ball into a basket than the Venusian Atmosphere or the Battle of Lepanto.
One reason Sports are popular is that they are the only real drama available on TV. Lets face it, T.V. “Dramas” are anything but. How often do the good folks on “CSI: Albuquerque” or “Law and Order: We decided to make another one” actually loose? You know darn well the murderer is going to get caught; same as when Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and some unknown actor in a red shirt beam down to a planet you know who WON’T be back on the Enterprise for dinner that night. Given how the news is stage managed these days, and “reality” TV is anything but, sports are the only thing on television where the outcome is not pre-ordained. In that respect sports is “the best thing on”.
Another reasons Sports are such a good conversation topic is that they are totally irrelevant. This utter lack of importance was best summed up by a football coach (sadly I forget his name) a few years back. When asked if the upcoming game was “a must win” he replied “No. World War Two was a “must win’. This is only a football game.” Since nothing that really matters is riding on the outcome of the game, one can relax and enjoy the contest. Unlike religion or politics, disagreeing over sports is not (or at least should not be to a sane person) personally offensive.
To the extent that such a disagreement is personally offensive, when the Fan is attempting to live vicariously through his athletic hero; Fandom becomes rather sad. My father-in-law put this in perspective one night when we were out to dinner and a loud and obnoxious fan was disturbing our dinner by yelling “WE won! WE won!” My father-in-law went over and said “NO. The HOUSTON ROCKETS won. YOU just sat here on your fat ass watching them. There is NO “we” involved; so shut the heck up.”
To that extent fandom is rather sad… in that it is a substitute for “having a real life”.
Dave is right to say that ” Fandom” is that part of a male psyche, as many if not most males use sports and their participation in sports as a way of proving their “manliness” to themselves. In our current era of an all volunteer military, where fewer and fewer men actually serve, I think this particular use of sports has increased. This may also be where the obsession with it comes from.
Here again Fandom becomes sad, in that you get the 43 year old who’s proudest achievement in life is that he scored three touchdowns in the game against Hays High a quarter century ago. That’s not just sad, it’s really not healthy.
So in the end, I have to agree with AJ. Is Fandom a Mental Illness?
Yes.
Yes, it’s MORE than true women can be fans, just as males are…it just seems like more women “tolerate” their boyfriend’s or husband’s passion for sports than get involved completely on their own. Sports is and always has been a male-bonding experience…and even though “bonding” with the wife in this way can be just fine, it’s not the same as with a group of guys.
Generalizing is usually just fine if not for all the exceptions out there!
Roger,
Much of your writing infuriates me, but I must say that this piece was accessible, fun, and reminiscent of the must-read sports memoir, “To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever,” Will Blythe’s look at the UNC/Duke hoops rivalry.
Have a look at the book if you haven’t already, and please expand your sportswriting jones.
My son lives in Boston so some of you know what that means. He lives, drinks, eats and shits sports. Earlier this year at Christmas I interrupted one of his long winded recitations of the Patriots’ season, players, coaches, games, injurie, ETC., ETC. with, “Son, you know, how about we talk about your getting married, having kids, getting back to God, and the dire political straits our country is in….you know, let’s talk reality.” He sulked.
A few weeks later my wife and I were driving across the south Texas desert at night and I tuned into AM radio by chance and heard the last quarter of the Giants-Patriots regular season game (I believe it was #14.) The Patriots were miraculously coming back after a tremendous effort by the Giants. I found myself getting so excitied I pulled my car off the road. The wife woke up and together, in the desert, we listened to one of the best games (next to the subsequent Superbowl rematch) that we had ever heard or seen. I was in tears.
I suppose somehow sports grabs our hearts because it is the mataphor, the rehearsal of what life is all about and what stirs the heart of everyman – the epic battle in life between right and wrong, between good and evil. Some live that battle and sports innocuously confrims it. Some have sat out the battle on the sidelines and for them sports is their only experience of what true life is about.
Either way, it’s magic. (Go Spurs.)
Fandom is a mental illness. I cannot understand how anyone can express any emotion for a bunch of jocks/freaks if they win or lose. The fact that some people riot because their team has won or lost is even more pathetic.
Getting emotional about something that matters. Sports in the end doesn’t matter a jot.
The Los Angeles lakers will likely win the big prize this year. San Antonio is history. There is no team in the East able to beat them.
Fandom is easy to understand and explain, but the NBA lost me years ago. I grew up on Kareem, Dr. J, Bird and Magic. The Sprewell, Iverson, Wallace hip-hop and gangster culture polluted the league and tarnished a good product. The league is trying hard to fix their problems after the wound festered and ran at the all-star game in Vegas last year, but too late for me. I remember staying up to watch rebroadcasts of my nearby Rockets playoff games that came on after the late news before the NBA went to cable. I wouldn’t talk to anyone all evening so I wouldn’t know who won. I wouldn’t go now to watch them in my local high school gym if it was free.
Hey, good news. You’re not alone, and Lakers stomped the Spurs on Friday, so have a good weekend
*Chuckles*
Fan is just short for Fanatic so that pretty much answers the question of it being a mental desease. The question should be is it a BAD thing? Personally I don’t think so. Those who can’t get emotionally involved or excited in things beyond themselves worry me.
Be it sports, games, TV Shows, Movies, Books, Comics, Camping, Hiking, Climbing Mountains, Politics, or what have you I personally believe it’s a GOOD thing to be a fan. But, just like everything in life, you can take things too far.