Some of the San Francisco Giants baseball team
I live in San Francisco, and although I don't pay much attention to professional baseball, I do on occasion find myself around people that follow it closely, and often these people talk about their favorite baseball team by using the pronoun "we". They say things like, "we have one three games in a row", or "we should trade him (such and such a player) to another team". It strikes me as quite interesting, and odd, that a person should be pleased to be a part of something that offers them so little recognition. While I'm certain that the players of the San Francisco Giants know in a very general way that they have quite a large number of fans in the San francisco area, I'm also pretty sure that they know very few of them personally, while the fans seem to know a lot about the players.
It is, of course, not at all unusual that a member of the general public should know more about a public figure than that figure does him or her, yet rarely would you hear a person refer to themselves and say, a pop singer, as "us". The public does not try to avoid the fact that they are the passive person in the relationship, yet these baseball fans seem quite satisified with, in fact, seem to celebrate, this apparently skewed association.
There's no doubt about the roles assumed in this accord; the fans are the followers of the team, they sit in the their seats at the stadium or in their homes watching the players perform. Perhaps they jump up, yell, or clap on occasion, but they are still passively involved, if at all. They use a pronoun of inclusion, but it is a lie; they are not a part of. They are voyeurs, and to be a voyeur is to be outside of the action.
It is, of course, not at all unusual that a member of the general public should know more about a public figure than that figure does him or her, yet rarely would you hear a person refer to themselves and say, a pop singer, as "us". The public does not try to avoid the fact that they are the passive person in the relationship, yet these baseball fans seem quite satisified with, in fact, seem to celebrate, this apparently skewed association.
There's no doubt about the roles assumed in this accord; the fans are the followers of the team, they sit in the their seats at the stadium or in their homes watching the players perform. Perhaps they jump up, yell, or clap on occasion, but they are still passively involved, if at all. They use a pronoun of inclusion, but it is a lie; they are not a part of. They are voyeurs, and to be a voyeur is to be outside of the action.
No comments:
Post a Comment