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

Vigormortis

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BloatedGuppy said:
That strikes me as particularly amusing given the activities of the past six months, but that's your prerogative.
You mean the period of time when gamers and non-gamers, geeks and non-geeks, were being equally shitty towards each other? Because that's what I saw.

But yes. Not assuming entire collectives of people are inline with every negative stereotype associated with them is definitely my prerogative, as well as my aspiration. [footnote]Not that I'm still implying you are[/footnote]
Unless it is your conjecture that no geeks anywhere have chips on their shoulders towards "jocks",
It wasn't. As I'd said.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It's late and I need to try to get to sleep. Farewell Guppy.
 

Julius Terrell

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Dirty Hipsters said:
I hate watching sports because it bores me to tears. I love to play sports, and to actually participate, but I couldn't give a shit about professional sports and athletes. Why? Because they don't do anything, nothing of substance happens. There's no story, nothing at stake, there's nothing to care about, and every year the same thing happens all over again. It's like watching a TV show that never ends and is about nothing. Actually, it's like watching c-span.
This sums up my answer right here, BUT I AM a runner. Unfortunately now I'm an athletes isn't treated like an athlete. Nobody gives a shit about my running anymore than I give a shit about their professional TV sports. I guess it evens out.

Edit: I meant to add that I LOVE table tennis, but people here in America don't consider table tennis a real sport. Spent many years playing by myself. The point is that I hate team sports.
 

RedDeadFred

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Pyrian said:
RedDeadFred said:
I wouldn't be surprised if some of these people who profess to hate all sports would actually thoroughly enjoy some of them if they made an attempt to get into them.
My annoyance with sports is precisely because it's inescapable in my culture. If I'm at a frikken business luncheon, it's just expected that everyone present knows about and can intelligently discuss recent baseball or (American) football games.
It was like that for me with hockey in Canada. Eventually, I just embraced it. Now I thoroughly enjoy the game. Still, it is annoying when people try to force things on you so it's pretty understandable that you'd have a negative opinion.
 

Johnny Impact

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I dislike sports because of the low-brow fanbase, the uncountable billions of dollars that get funneled through it instead of to somewhere better, the worship and superhero status lavished upon people whose only real accomplishment is catching a ball, the constant scandals and despicable crimes, the forgiveness for same, the hypocrisy regarding steroids and other enhancers, the hype hype HYPE HYPE HYPE my god it's EVERYWHERE the paper has a sports section why not a science section, when I was a kid there was no on-demand which meant your favorite show frequently got pushed aside so everyone on the wrong side of the mental bell curve could watch a bunch of overmuscled fools run around on a field..........

Going to cut the rant off there. It's a strange thing: on the one hand I'm jealous that sports has such a following you can simply assume the guy next to you is into it, but on the other hand I'm contemptuous of humanity and likely would dismiss popular status as a fluke if my interests had it.
 

Leoofmoon

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Imgur? dude have you seen the people who hand out there? there nothing but breast obsessed teenagers
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Sports are about balls. They're about wanting really, really hard to put this ball in that one place. And I never saw the fun in that. I don't like playing sports, real or virtual, and can only tolerate watching them every four years in the World Cup midst.
 

viscomica

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I like sports, and I used to watch some on tv. That being said, a recurring point being made in this thread is "different people like different stuff". While I do agree, I don't think that should become an easy excuse to bully someone just because they have different interests. If someone is a gamer he doesn't instantly becomes a pariah the minute he or she states they also like playing / watching sports.
 

Trippy Turtle

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If the majority of the geek community is like me, they got picked last and sucked at sports.
And I don't like watching them either.
 

Kotaro

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I don't watch sports for the same reason I tend not to watch "e-sports:"
I don't see the point in just watching; I'd rather play a game myself.

Of course, I can't actually play sports because I suck at them, but my point still stands.
 

happyninja42

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Kenbo Slice said:
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?
Well from personal experience, the type of person who is a fan of sports, were the types of guys who were bullies in highschool. I had a bully, who was a football player, and he bullied me for 3 years, for no reason than I think he just randomly picked me out of the lunch line. He was revered by the other jock students for his sports ability, and they all thought his mockery was funny. So there is a bit of the "fucking jughead football assholes" aspect to it for me. I know the types of guys who were into sports, and I didn't like them as people. So there's that part of it.

There's also just the fact that I don't find competitive sports all that interesting. Never have. Even when I was a kid, and had to play soccer, baseball and basketball to satisfy my dad's expectations of me, I didn't actually enjoy the games. So there's that part to it.

I dunno, maybe I'm not the right person to ask, as I don't make posts like "hur hur, sports dur hur" like you are talking about, but I don't have any interest/respect/compassion for those sports, and I likely never will.
 

theSteamSupported

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I'm not a sports fan for the same reason I'm not into competitive gaming. So much that I believe the toxicity in geek culture was imported from jock culture after the multiplayer function became the most important thing in gaming.
 

OmniscientOstrich

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I like sports plenty, I just tend to have very little common ground with other people who like sports. It seems when I was a little kid like there was much less restriction/stigma on what you were allowed to like/what subcultures you were allowed to associate with in conjunction with enjoying sports. Then Chav culture happened. And everything was forever ruined. All of a sudden it wasn't socially permissible or believable to be into metal, video games, esoteric films/TV etc. as well as enjoy a bit of a kick around; as though some clandestine inexorable force had decreed that anyone without tracksuit bottoms, a shaved head, eyebrow studs and an affected wiggerised lexicon was no longer welcome. It pushed a divide not just between geek and sport culture but between sports and alternative/outsider cultures in general and exacerbated feelings of alienation in my teen years. Truly it was a horrible time to be alive. Gearing a little bit more on topic, I can kind of understand the frustrations people might have towards sports to a certain extent; it has a mainstream acceptance that geek interests never did, it's a pursuit that was/is encouraged rather than questioned and maligned. Thus it can feel like it's being shoved down people's throats with how heavily advertised it is like that one Mitchell and Webb sketch goes into, but then I hate mainstream pop music and I don't feel the need to get all alpha nerd over it and let people who never asked know just how much I hate it. And I can also see people balking at the frankly fucking ridiculous amount of money (Falcao gets £300,000 a week to not score against fucking Cambridge) that gets thrown around in aid of something that's ultimately inconsequential but then the same could be said about AAA development and media in general. One could also ask why it is sports fans have such a hostile attitude towards geek/alternative cultures at large. At the end of the day both of these interests cast a net over an incredibly vast and diverse number of people, with a fair amount of crossover so it's difficult to get an inkling as to why the nebulously defined sports/geek cultures are adjudged to hold certain attitudes or how pervasive these attitudes are exactly to begin with. To a certain extent perhaps people interpret a bit of friendly ribbing as representative of some sort of irrational deep seated resentment. Some people might take this Charlie Brooker quote the wrong way 'ordinarily I find sports about as entertaining as watching cardboard exist' and try to pin him as being bitter about being picked on at school or something, but I got a good chuckle out of it and in a general sense don't need to agree with what someone is saying to find humour in it. Ultimately I think people across the board could afford to be a little less inimical/immediately dismissive of sub cultures they only have a perfunctory understanding of and not be so vociferous in their distaste for certain factions when it's entirely unprompted.
 

kasperbbs

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I like participating in sports, but watching others play bores me, the only exception being watching it live with my friends. I don't bother other people with my preferences, except that one annoying neighbour who yells at his TV every friday night as if he could do better being a 150kg+ slob that he is.
 

Wasted

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Sleekit said:
I don't want to derail this conversation further so this will be my last post on this thread. It seems you are "No True Scotsman"-ing away the volatile aspects of the video game community and only focusing on what you view as mature communities. I suspect that you are like me as in we have been gaming for decades, I personally started gaming on the original NES back in the early 90's. It would extremely elitist if I go around labeling what is or isn't part of this community just because I dislike it.

Am I happy that (FROM MY EXPERIENCE) any video game interaction (outside of well-moderated forums/servers/lobbies/etc.) more often than not turn aggressive and hostile? Absolutely not, it is an aspect that I hope improves and I have been devoted research into the subject for my school studies.

You are free to disagree since my evidence is anecdotal but please don't belittle my intelligence by saying, "im gonna say this just once so pay very close attention and you might learn something" only to then follow up with a Venn Diagram scenario on how little those aspects of the community overlap with no evidence to back it up.

Again, as someone who lives in the US, I have never seen any of this aggressively in any avenue in my life except from the video game community.
 

Kolby Jack

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I don't dislike sports. Hell, I actually like a few of them. Hockey and American Football in particular. They're pretty fun to watch. Some of my fondest memories are my Dad taking me to watch our local hockey team's games, and I actually got into it. But I have other hobbies I prefer over following any team or season (it's quite a time investment). I do make a point of watching the Superbowl if I'm able (it also gives me a good excuse to gorge on buffalo wings; "it's tradition!"), and no, not for the commercials, for the football.

I will say this, I don't like ALL sports. I know how stereotypically American this is, but soccer is BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING. To counter-act that overtly American attitude, let me also say that baseball is even MORE BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING. I hate going to baseball games. Basketball I'm not really in to, but it's not because it's boring, just because it's a sport I don't understand all too well.

I think the disconnect is that nerd activities and sports are too major time investments to really be a part of both in any deep way and most people suck at time-management, myself included. In the end, I think painting your face, fantasy teams, and batting averages are just as nerdy as cosplaying, RPG parties, and +1 bonuses to dexterity. It's just a matter of perspective.
 

newuser0x0

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Kenbo Slice said:
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?
Why don't you go to a sports themed website and talk about sports there? I visit sites like this because I want to talk and read about video games. I wouldn't go to ESPN's forum and expect to have a conversation about video games, it just wouldn't make sense. Non-sports fans will talk trash about sports normally only when it invades their space. I don't recall seeing a topic made on a video game site just to start a sports trashing party. Usually it comes from someone putting a sports reference in their signature or avatar for the purpose of eliciting a response which, of course, usually turns negative and leaves the OP with a sour taste in their mouth.
 

Kenbo Slice

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newuser0x0 said:
Kenbo Slice said:
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?
Why don't you go to a sports themed website and talk about sports there? I visit sites like this because I want to talk and read about video games. I wouldn't go to ESPN's forum and expect to have a conversation about video games, it just wouldn't make sense. Non-sports fans will talk trash about sports normally only when it invades their space. I don't recall seeing a topic made on a video game site just to start a sports trashing party. Usually it comes from someone putting a sports reference in their signature or avatar for the purpose of eliciting a response which, of course, usually turns negative and leaves the OP with a sour taste in their mouth.
Because that's not what I'm saying. I was just asking a question. I wasn't saying we should all be talking about sports.
 

wAriot

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I like sports. I play basketball and soccer with my friends from time to time. I do weightlifting as a hobby. I am planning to start doing some martial arts when I have the time.

I just don't like *watching* sports (with maybe the exception of basketball). I think it's incredibly boring to sit there for two hours waiting for something to happen just to be excited for a few seconds. I think it's an incredible waste of time and energy to memorize dozens of names, points, dates, awards, for something that you aren't even doing. And, to be honest, most of the people I know who are actually knowledgeable about sports can't talk about anything else: it's the only thing they know (but of course, that may just be me).
So when someone starts talking to me about how cool X player is or how well Y team is doing this season, I'll roll my eyes and start nodding distractedly.

PS: most of this also works for e-sports.