Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

the rivalry was why the ones who were killed were killed

The rivalry was the way in which the rioters were divided, not *why* they were killed, at least according to my reading of the page you linked: they were killed because they rebelled against Justinian. If your argument is that sport can, and often is, be put to horrible ends in the exercise of power, I agree with you. If your argument is that in that case sports was the cause of the massacre - why those people were massacred - I wouldn't: that would be letting Justinian and his troops off the hook.

leaving the USA and moving to France with children in school, you notice the differences in sports culture. there's nothing like the organized sports of usa here for school kids, where schools compete against other schools and all's organized by the schools, with excused absences for athletes, cheerleaders, pep rallies, practices everyday, etc. Schools tend to have an organization for kids who want to swim or play tennis etc but it's all done in house, not against other schools. Otherwise you join a club outside of school.

This is also how it is in American schools below high school, fwiw. I think our middle school might have one or two teams? Cross country, maybe basketball? But that's it. Kids who want to play sports in competition (tennis, soccer, baseball, hockey, whatever) do it in leagues outside of school.

xp sure, but justinian was a blue, and it was only blues who were allowed to leave (& in the end the sporting rivalry trumped anti-justinian sentiment amongst the blues). obviously there's a lot going on there, but sport provided the structure & crucible for it all to go down the way it did.

as I write there's a mob of feyenoord fans being kettled in the middle of manchester, singing incredibly loudly and seemingly drunk at 2pm. there have been a few incidents of fans trashing the city centre in recent years (Rangers take the prize). it's not letting alcohol off the hook to point out the common link of footer

You don't need to go back to the reign of Justinian to find examples of European sports riots.

policing obviously a huge issue too wrt fan violence, I'm not justifying kettling at all

ultimately flags and badges were invented for armies to rally around and sport has military connections almost as far back as it exists

but the sensible conversation is about strands and trends and histories and in lots of respects reaching back to Justinian or medieval archery or the Bodyline tour or the weird pro-bullying culture in American High Schools (the extent of my actual knowledge of that being as far as it's expressed in US movies and TV shows but hey let's run with it) is a very tangential way of thinking about the modern sports-entertainment complex and its massive presence across multiple cultures and economies.

and the meaning of sport to different individuals and communities, to different polities and cultures, to the innate (? nothing's innate but let's run with it) ludic instinct in human beings

sport can be, has been and is weaponized. can't think of a cultural artefact that this doesn't apply to.

> there have been a few incidents of fans trashing the city centre in recent years

around here (QPR) it seems to manifest itself as stickers stuck on bus stops and lamp posts.

Not sure if this is significant, but sports culture in UK private schools appears to be closer to the US culture? At least as far as schools play competitively with other schools, boys who are good at sport get special recognition ("colours"), rugby is a real man's game, rugger lads bully nerdy kids in the same way as "jocks"?

plenty of state primary schools have inter-school competitions

ah the post I was taking that from was referring to France not UK, fair enough.

tbf my state primary didn't have inter-school competitions, but that was 30 years ago so

yeah I only vaguely remember this; I was too busy playing wargames, which are ofc a more male pursuit than sport

Football brings twenty thousand ppl into a city centre

Calling the ensuing chaos 'sports related' isn't imo meaningful

Again, attack music concerts on same ground or call it the effect of crowds

eh not really the same imo since there is no competition involved in a crowd all gathered to see a musical performance

honestly in the post Gamergate post Reddit post doxxing post alt right etc etc as I've said before the Internet's great lesson was that given a chance nerds would act worse than jocks

xxp there's only a few hundred afaict. music fans haven't trashed the city centre. this is nonsense

How soon we forget the epic 2004 throwdown of Luna fans vs. Ok Go fans in Pittsburgh, both concerts were letting out at the same time and harsh words were exchanged about the quality of production on Pup Tent.

As many as two dudes got their glasses slightly scuffed in the ensuing melee.

Big gigs over here routinely involve more trouble than much better attended sporting events- I'm thinking specifically the events in the phoenix park (which is not usually an event venue)

LL's point is fair, you have to manage opposing fans in many sports so there's a heightened risk there

Here it's the norm to have mixed seating at rugby and gaa events and even soccer doesn't seem to need this type of management. Very rarely any trouble.

Ogmor you'll offer your Manchester events, fair enough. Maybe there's a major cultural divide between even there and here.

i wish i could say that musical performances are free from hostility but that wouldn't be true. they're just not the same as sporting events.

irish sports seem so charming and wholesome compared to football & english sport culture, chatted about this to a (completely unsporty) friend who moved to dublin about how much more appealing it is

It's probably relevant that gaa/rugby attendance in particular is imo much more mixed ito age and gender than yr stereotypical footy crowd

pep rallies are deeply weird

I guess regardless of culture or geographic location, kids who are so inclined will find an outlet through which they can exercise their desire to be shitty to other kids.

boys will be boys!

With sports it's this thing where it can be deployed as an organized and validated and authority-approved method of exhibiting your superiority over other kids and maybe even getting to beat them up a bit with a hard hit or two, and no one's gonna really get in trouble for it.

I always liked sports and gym class, I mean though during square dancing weeks the latter was pure hell.

Well there's playing sport and watching sport; the Feyenoord fans in Manchester right now probably aren't feeling very authority-approved.

eh not really the same imo since there is no competition involved in a crowd all gathered to see a musical performance

I know what you mean but I still reflexively am like "this does not match my experiences with attempting to see the stage at non-classical concerts"

YOU have trouble seeing the stage? I'm 5'2" and i still don't feel competition. Hostility, yes.

struggle to remember any non-classical gigs I've attended where more than 20 people were there and a percentage of them weren't dicks

Basically, unless I am practically sitting on the stage, some (white) dude 3-5 inches taller than me will invariably elbow his way in front of me and performatively enjoy the show while I jostle around for a better viewpoint, at which point some other tall (white) asshole will cut off my line of sight. It is very much "I must show my devotion to the band by getting as close to them as possible" combined with "well you don't really belong here anyway so why should I care if I block your view" posturing.

^^^ I have stood *right against the lip of the stage* and have big muscleheads jostle me out of the way, because I'm a dumpy, 5'8", 48 y.o. dude who is not going to start a fight and they know it.

that's just a healthy outlet for aggression iirc

ever since I got called out for obstructing someone's view at a Downtown Boys show a couple years ago (I'm not tall and have some hangups about it so it generally didn't occur to me to check behind me at shows) I obsessively check to make sure I'm not in other folks' way

I try to do the same.

I also try not to smash up town centres, whether or not I am in town to watch the football. I am some kind of paragon.

i neither elbow my way to the front of the stage nor performatively enjoy things, but as a tall (white) asshole there's not a whole lot else i can do to not block people's view

it's kind of funny how often the handful of ppl who are taller than i am end up right in front of me tho

Same as mookieproof - At 6'4", pretty much anywhere I stand, I'm going to block someone's view, so I'm most comfortable against a wall or at the bar if there's one with sightlines. Don't feel the need to be 10' from the stage anymore. But if I'm on the floor, like you, if there's one taller person in the venue, I always laugh that they'll move in front of me.

Speaking from experience and the anecdotes of others, tall white dudes at concerts are equal-opportunity dickholes to everyone. I don't know how many times I've probably very nearly gotten mashed for berating a dude 1.3333 times my size because he parked himself directly in front of a woman .5 his size.

some hard-to-say real talk coming up: afaict you are seeing this show of hostility through a competitive lens. to me, that kind of aggressive behavior is hostility. there is no chance of me "winning" that encounter. i have been studiously monitoring my choice of attire to ensure that i am not singled out as a person to grope for over 2 decades. by myself for about 10 years or so. it's tiring and yet i keep doing it because i enjoy going to shows. but like it's not a competitive environment. half the people don't walk into the show knowing "their team" will lose. i am no one's rival, opponent, or enemy. i am merely attending a musical performance.

i'm not even saying that monitoring my attire works, it's just a preventative measure that makes me feel safer
going to a musical performance can be dangerous for lots of reasons for lots of people, but that doesn't make it competitive

I agree with you re: this action being hostile.

This is not, from my viewpoint, an either/or situation; there is a competitive "I must have the best vantage point in the house" streak married with "I belong here more than you" hostility that informs all of this.

I guess "I must have the best vantage point in the house" is not something I even consider within my grasp 99% of the time -- I just go where I feel comfortable and can (hopefully) see what I want to see. The idea that I must (or even might) get "the best" view rarely enters my mind tbh. On the occasions when it does, I park myself there early and wait patiently. If I'm lucky, I will have a buddy to talk to.

"competitive streak" otm -- i don't think i have one, or it's very weak

It's basically a competition which the majority of the participants hadn't been informed of. Like so many of the pissing contests particular dudes perpetuate to the bemusement of everyone else.

i'm sorry you guys. that all sounds sucky. i look like a taller combination of larry, daryl, and his other brother daryl so people just tend to leave me alone. and give me room.

i tend to stay in the back when i see music. as long as i can hear it i'm good.

Im 6 3. i block people's view all the time, even though i never try and get close to the stage at shows. i have had aggro dudes give me shit for it. i don't hardly go to shows anymore so it all works out in the end

if there is an unhealthy injection of competition into a noncompetitive sphere, and it makes people feel bad because it's accompanied by hostility, let's try to squash that
just an idea

I think it's a capital idea. It might be a harder sell with those who are doing the unhealthy injecting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncSkQ4nOmiQ

metal shows are a whole other kettle of fish

indeed
i still think it's worth trying even if it is a hard sell. none of this is going to be easy.