Why do so many people in the "geek" community dislike sports?

[SonOfVoorhees]

Geek is just a name for obsession. You can be obsessed with IT and gaming. Or you can be obsessed with sports. Think about it, people that love sport remember old match scores and how different players played. They even wear jerseys with the players name on the back......thats cos play when you think of it.

Just that obsession in sports is seen as more normal than IT. Though thats just a left over from when computers first appeared and only smart people saw them as interesting.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Good question. I mean personally I have no interest in sports but I have no animosity towards them or sports fans in general. I do dislike the idea that sports are something men should be interested in, but that's a particular attitude and not sports or their fans in general.

 

[Belaam]

Part of it may be generational/geographic. I feel as though in the 80s and 90s (when I was in K-12 education), there was a definite jocks vs. nerds divide with a lot of bullying and harassment. I got some of it, but far less than many as I was always a pretty big guy. It's a little humiliating for a jock to run up onto a table of 8th graders playing D&D, kick some books over, but then be hauled down and punched in the face by a DM who was a good 6 inches taller. I feel like the mix of anti-bullying efforts and nerd culture becoming mainstream has lessened that (though not eliminated it) today. Finding a jock who doesn't also play video games and go to comic book movies is a lot harder today; you can probably find some who enjoy manga or anime without much effort.

But I think the bigger part is the general rejection of something popular if you don't agree with it. Look at the anger against the pop star of the moment, all things Frozen, games journalism that includes critical analysis of the content, or even sports that the person in question doesn't consider a True Sport(tm). Soccer took a long time to overcome that.

SO I think it's a mix of remembered (or present) school age bullying by "jocks", a general disdain for something that is found to be boring in the face of those for whom it is a major event, and I think, a bit of elitism as sports fans tend to be seen/portrayed in problematic ways. Just look at marketing during your average night football. From the amount of beer, viagra, and truck commercials, even the marketers seem to think that football fans are all impotent alcoholics who want to pretend to be cowboys or construction workers.

Personally, I find watching other people play a game to be boring as all get out, whether I'm watching the Superbowl or a global League of Legends tournament.

 

[Dogstile]

I've seen this happen a million times on sites like imgur and here and across the web. Somebody wants to talk about sports but then they usually just get shut down because "hurr durr sportz r dum." I really don't understand what geeks/gamers/nerds/whatever have against sports. I'm pretty fucking geeky but I also really love sports. So, why is this?

Because gamers are assholes and if someones talking about sports and they don't like sports, they will threadshit until it gets nuked so that other people can't enjoy sports.

 

[FriedRicer]

I like playing sports, I don't like watching sports.

^Said it for me. As an add-on sports politics just annoy me. I hate hearing about locker room antics or gossip and watching just feels boring.

 

[marioandsonic]

I actually enjoy the NFL quite a lot, and even follow fantasy football (which is pretty much just a more acceptable form of Dungeons and Dragons, really). Go Eagles!

I also follow MLB, and I'll occasionally watch it, but I can't stand watching more than a few games a season. I do enjoy going to the ballpark, though, as long as I have a good seat.

 

[Zen Bard]

If I want to be cynical I'd say it's because most gamers are bad at sports. So, we tend to be derisive of the thing we don't like.

But, on the flip side, I also think most gamers are more participants than spectators. We'd rather play a game than watch sports.

I myself, am not good at traditional sports (football, baseball, basketball, etc). Maybe all the jocks in gym class put me off it. Maybe I don't find hitting a ball with a stick to be an appreciable real world skill I need to master. For awhile, I though I just had no coordination.

But later in life, I discovered martial arts and became pretty passionate about them. I've studied judo, muay thai and now kung fu. And while I'm not gifted by any means, I can hold my own pretty well. I also started practicing parkour (and subsequently got my wife hooked on "American Ninja Warrior").

Or maybe it is that we are, as a couple of posters said, loaners who don't really care more for the whole bro-jock teaming thing. As I look at that sports I like (both to do and watch), they seem more geared towards individual displays of skill rather than team-based competition.

 

[KingDragonlord]

I dislike the culture of sports more than the sports themselves.

While it's true I was bullied by "jocks" in school, it didn't happen more than any other group. Punks and even other "geeks" had a go at me just as often. Equal opportunity I suppose.

There's just something about going over to a friend's house, and being able to hear his parents (mom typically), screaming bloody murder before I even get in the house. Absolutely losing her shit at the TV screen, beer in hand. Granted this does happen in gamer culture, and it does happen online. But... well... that's not really a compelling argument.

Can't really compare someone getting in your face IRL to an angry message in a chat box or inbox. If they are in a voice chat, mute them or block them. Fact is there are tools at your disposal nearly always for dealing with this stuff online. There is no way to turn off an angry fan who is drunk when you're at a stadium. As for the culture being xenophobic or harsh to outsiders, I'd say sports forums are worse by a very large degree. Gaming is still a young medium. Sports have been around much longer, and their fans often express a zeal and zealotry most gamers could never hope to achieve.

To me, the video game community is easily the most vile and aggressive community that I have experienced. What you attribute as negative aspects to sports fans I see it as 10x worse in any gaming forum. Say what you will, but personal attacks are too casually thrown around in nearly any multiplayer video game.

Homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, death threats are way too common in video game chat rooms and with the popularity of swatting these idiots have a means to potentially kill someone that one time said something that they disagreed with.

Oh please! I don't care how bad they are, words are never as harmful as what can happen to you in the locker room after gym class. And you only get that kind of ugliness from jocks. I'll take a lifetime of net rage over 10 minutes in a locker room.

Sports bring out the very worst sort of competitiveness, aggression, thuggishness, attention grabbing, in public in real life in real and tangible ways. Just look at the top players. A bunch of hyper aggressive morons who can barely speak. Its only on the internet that you can even pretend that geek ugliness comes anything close to approaching that.

In high school I never had a bad experience in the locker room, and I've never had a bad experience with a jock. You shouldn't let how some people in a certain group affect how you view everybody. Do you think all Muslims are terrorists?

And yet you have no problem with how geeks and gamers were generalized in the post I was responding too. I didn't say that all jocks are ugly just that a certain ugliness comes out of that community and that I prefer geek ugliness over jock ugliness.

I didn't say all geeks and gamers. But if this thread is anything to go by I'm not wrong.

You didn't, but Wasted did.

 

[Ragnoon]

I love my motorsport and playing Hockey, but I also love my games and anime. Just have to keep a healthy balance between them all.

 

[BarrelsOfDouche]

Why do so many athletes dislike Dungeons and Dragons?

 

[Proto Taco]

http://youtu.be/zES39OJOhY8

Your argument is invalid

 

[Karadalis]

Sportsfans are just to violent for me.

Unlike gamers who are mostly all talk and no bite, sports "fans" are obnoxious drunkyards that depending on if they have won or lost can be pretty damn destructive and violent.

you never see riots for example when your favourite CS:GO team lost their match.

Certain Soccer clubs thought? Yeah their "fans" have been responsible for people getting killed and massive amounts of property damage.

Now granted as with most fandoms most are not violent, but can be still pretty douchy if you in their eyes are a fan of the wrong club. And unlike over the internet its kinda hard to ignore your coworker for example.

I rather stick to gaming where the worst that can happen is someone calling you a ****** across three different continents.

 

[Trunkage]

I like playing sports, I don't like watching sports.

Same here. There is nothing more boring than watching other people do things, be it sport or video games

 

[nightmare_gorilla]

All i can say is why I personally dislike sports sometimes. I don't have too much of a beef with sports in general other than finding them uninteresting and dull. what I do dislike is how "normal" it is to be a stark raving mad rabbid fan of a GAME. football, basketball, baseball, these things are religion to some people and that's totally fine. my issue is if you took someone who has an interest in sports or a favorite team and all that, and directed that exact same level of enthusiasm at a video game you're a wierdo or a "basement dwelling neckbeard." where I went to high school there was still very much the whole jock/ nerd bulling going on. so yeah you can say there's some resentment there, i'll admit to having a chip on my shoulder but it is still astonishing to watch people ravenously talk about football stats and season and their favorite players and all that. but when i try to talk about dnd or upcoming game released i need to "Try and talk like an adult." it's the double standard that gets me every time.

Add to that stuff i've mentioned over and over again about the current BS controversy, nerds are constantly under fire for "misogyny" and created a hostile environment towards women meanwhile every other player in the NFL has domestic abuse charges on their record. you'll forgive me for thinking the video tape of ray rice cold cocking his fiance' and knocking her out is an objectively worse thing than assasin's creed not giving you a female character option. floyd mayweather has a laundry list of recorded incidents of beating up his wifes, his girlfriends and on at least one occasion his wife's friends, but lets throw a hissy fit over the design of the new tekken character that makes sense. Hey marvel has a new female thor suck on that you misogynerds and fedora wearing losers. "we litterally could not give a fuck about that if we tried." meanwhile the NFL had to establish a domestic violence panel including former dectectives from the sex crimes division of the NYPD, so yeah it's nerds who are a threat to women. nerds definitely.


As far as the escapist itself goes? well it's kind of a nerd culture site and traditionally sports aint nerd culture you're certainly welcome to talk about that crap in off-topic but don't be surprised or annoyed there isn't much interest.

 

[Souther Thorn]

Having said that, certain sports have a reputation for attracting a certain type of person as competitor and spectator.

The same can be said about video games.

very rarely do the police have to be called to clear the streets of drunken gamers...

That's because someones not SWATing you from 5 feet away with a sloshing beer.

Also..have you never been to a party associated with any of the gaming conventions that go on? Many are quiet and subdued (relatively), but I've been to a few post PAX that had cops on deck, so......it's just not as obvious I think, or as frequent, but it does happen.

 

[Buckets]

Mainly because our national sports are so bloody dull (football, cricket, rugby) and the players all seem to have a major superiority complex and a sense of entitlement.
I like(d) the NHL Ice Hockey but I don't get to follow it as its not a mainstream sport here so gets no coverage whatsoever. Aside from this I just don't have any interest, would rather read, paint or play board/computer games with the family.

 

[thoughtwrangler]

I think part of it is because sports are geek activities for geeks who don't think they're geeks. It's a form of hypocrisy shaming that is, itself, hypocritical.

It's the sort of thing that will probably eat itself some day.

 

[Julius Terrell]

To add to my previous post, I hate american team sports with the intensity of a million suns. Given that I'm only 5'3" and 165 lbs, if I wanted to actually try to play ANY pro american sport I wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

Every popular sport requires height,weight, and strength to excel at. I don't have any of those. So it's no surprise that I would have no interest in sports that aren't for my body type. My body is very good at running long distances at pretty good speeds. Does that make me any less of an athlete than someone who can play a team sport.

I grew up seeing people like that as people I could never get along with. People who play team sports tend to have the type of personality that completely clashes with mine, and I can't change that. They are just too extroverted for my tastes. I'm more of a half and half.

As a runner I am quite competitive, but for some reason this is the only sport where most people don't want to be competitive.

Lastly, I'm an otaku and a gamer so it's no surprise that we as a group don't get along with people who quite literally the opposite of us. I'm more of an exception in our communities, but I completely get the point of what everyone has been saying in this thread.

 

[greatcheezer2021]

the only sport i geek out over completely is The Era of WWF Smackdown.

i watched alot as a young child. and then the novelty wore off as i grew older.

one day i came back to it, and it was like an old playground and time capsule had re-opened. i realized now as an adult what made it so successful and what made it appeal to me and, i daresay appeal to others just like myself. With just the right amounts, its enough to make me feel youthful as ever. almost to where i'd take it back to 1983 to see Macho Man Randy Savage doing promos. just to see where it all had come from..and from how far. this is entertainment history in a televised form.

its like one poster said. you need to find something that speaks to you in a greater emotional level. something to allow you to connect to and have an profound impact upon your life.


now i geek out on examples of what i consider great writing. the times have fallen hard.


i havent the heart to say why people like and dislike sports. i find little reason to dislike sports, than i do athletes. never stopped me from watching the game tho.

 

[R.K. Meades]

I love sports-- in the role of participant and spectator. There are few things that feel more satisfying than executing a perfect through ball or connecting with an alley-oop pass, and it's just as nice watching that on TV. When an opponent is taking liberties or trying to clown you, you put something on 'em and let them know that it's going to be a competitive endeavour. PC/console games are not as helpful when you need to unload.

My parents encouraged me to play sports from the time I was about 5, and I never received any serious bullying from other kids for being interested in things like classical literature, comics, or video games.[footnote]If anything, it would be my parents' faith.[/footnote] School kids don't tend to target people who would, on a bad day, run them even in a fight-- they will pick on the 'weak' kid instead.

Given that I'm only 5'3" and 165 lbs, if I wanted to actually try to play ANY pro american sport I wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

Muggsy Bogues would have something to say about that. His gifts were speed, technique, intensity, and wonderful awareness of what was happening on the court.