Professional Fandom: Donald Trump, Robert Mueller, Sports, and Pop Culture

by with 2 Comments CultureFeaturedPolitics

Last Friday, the most anticipated political moment of the Trump Presidency occurred: The Mueller Report was completed and submitted to the Justice Department. Within minutes of the breaking news, every cable news channel, political blog, and Facebook newsfeed was flooded with a flurry of opinions without any new details. While it is a perfect example of the hyper-polarization of today’s political climate, it is also a microcosm of a much deeper trend that transcends politics. Like our interest levels in sports, music, and entertainment in general, our passion is no longer rational and under control. Due to the global reach of social media with immediate access to anything that strokes our most passionate interests, it is no longer acceptable to be a casual fan. You are required to devote a level of obsession that previously was considered psychotic.

Through social media and advancements in technology, fans of any form of entertainment have access to stoke their curiosity level from casual to knowledgeable to obsessive. There are Facebook groups, hashtags, fan pages, message boards, YouTube channels, smart apps, etc., dedicated to every cinematic or musical genre, sport, team, political candidate, and political or current event. If you are a fan of your college team, there are multiple message boards that provide in-depth analysis, recruiting updates, and behind-the-scenes stories regarding potential coaching challenges that keep you informed before any of it hits the mainstream news. If you are a fan of the WWE, you have an on-demand network that has every match, pay-per-view, or show. If you are a big video gamer, you can play every game online with people across the globe on every gaming console (Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, PC) that matches your skill level and personal tastes. Simply put, if you have more than a surface-level interest in something, you will be exposed to enough material to progress that interest from ‘Intrigued’ to ‘Passionate’.

Like our entertainment options, the same options are available for our political tastes. Whether it’s the cable news channels that unabashedly market to a specific political affiliation, Facebook groups and fan pages devoted to individual candidates or causes, or the pre-determined newsfeed of our Facebook page from the people we associate with, it is nearly impossible for someone with an interest in politics to not make the emotional leap from a responsible voter to outspoken advocate. As one’s interest grows, the pressure from fellow believers is to only communicate and associate with likeminded views while censuring out anything that challenges or competes with that unassailable principle. One’s community is no longer your next-door neighbours or co-workers; it’s the hundreds of people we communicate with daily across the world. In many cases, these ‘friends’ are people we have never met and will never meet in person.

As our created communities become more politically homogeneous, our tolerance for divergent views weakens. If this were a football game, we became ‘That’ fan with our face and chest painted in team colors standing in sub-freezing temperatures heckling every opposing player or fan present. No one questions our fandom, but opposing fans and even some mutual fans, will dodge us to avoid making a scene or listen to a guilt trip for being a ‘Fairweather fan’. As voters transform from the family taking their kids to their first ballgame to ‘That’ fan, the political candidates who best play to ‘That’ fan are the ones that rise to the top. Donald Trump is NOT the cause of this dynamic, he is the byproduct of it.  

President Trump is the perfect byproduct of this phenomena. For the most part, no one is a casual fan or critic of him. He uses this dynamic to provoke the (predictable) reactions from his audience. If this was a neutral stadium, he’s provoking the liquored-up super fans from both teams to go at in the stands. In a vacuum, we generally find this behavior disgusting, but the reality is we all had a hand in this. The reality is we are all guilty of being ‘That’ fan (I am guilty when it comes to A&M football, Spurs basketball, and the WWE). For some of us, it’s politics. For others, it’s a sports franchise, musical artist, or gaming community. Having passion for something is a GREAT thing, but if our passion controls our behavior and character it will continue to poison the well for future generations. 

Similar Read: A Center-Right Response to Climate Change

The Duality of Social Media

by with 2 Comments FeaturedGen Z

Regardless of what websites you use or how you use them, social media is undoubtedly a huge part of our culture today. Today’s generation of teenagers and young adults have grown up in an age of social media and technology expansion like we’ve never seen before. Because social media is such a new concept, there are many things about it that the older generation does not seem to understand.

The way I personally view social media is kind of a love-hate relationship. Because social media has become so central to communication, especially in our generation, it’s almost more of an inconvenience not to have it. It’s like a necessary evil. Now, I don’t REALLY believe that social media is actually evil, but I’ve certainly seen the constant connection and communication have negative effects on people.

With smartphones constantly in our pockets and social media platforms just a click away, it’s nearly impossible not to be connected all the time. Because of this, people often tend to experience a sort of information overload. While staying informed, up to date, and connected is an important part of our world today, being overwhelmed by constant updates can have some pretty nasty side effects.

Increasingly more often I see people taking a break from social media, or even deleting certain platforms entirely, for mental health reasons. Bullying can be a huge problem on social media and words can have such a strong impact on people. Social media can present us with an overwhelming amount of negativity at times, which can be very stressful and mentally draining.

Constantly having to read and see what other people are doing can be very hard as well. What a lot of people don’t realize is that people only post on social media in the way they want to be viewed by the world. Posts online are never truly reflective of what’s really going on in a person’s life. It’s so easy to get lost in a newsfeed full of people on tropical vacations, out partying with friends, and achieving great successes. It’s easy to think that others have a better, more perfect life based on social media posts. It’s easy to think that your life is not as great by comparison. This is simply not true. People tend to forget that others live a life outside of social media that we cannot see. You never know what is really going on behind closed doors.

On the other hand; however, social media can also have an extremely positive influence on people. I have seen people connect on social media who would have never met otherwise. I’ve seen friendships and relationships formed online with bonds strong enough to bring people together from miles apart. I have seen people find a safe space where they can express who they are and find a community when they cannot in real life. I have seen people build entire careers and businesses from the ground up, made possible entirely by the breadth of social media’s reach.

Social media has the ability to change lives for better or for worse. It’s important that social media is used as a tool for growth and connection rather than tearing-down and isolation. Let social media be a tool to connect the world and spread information, but don’t let it take over your life. Breaks and time away from the Internet can be crucial for mental health, and it is most important to keep YOURSELF in mind as you scroll through others’ posts. 

Education Inevitably Judges Everyone

by with No Comment Education

There should be no doubt in any rational thinking mind that education is how we separate class. In America, education creates a hierarchy. In India, one is born into that class. Here in America, supposedly, you can be born in public housing and go to a low achieving school and still become a millionaire. All you have to do is work hard and pull yourself up by the bootstraps? Um, let’s be honest… that sounds delusional in 2017.

Education is like a rubric, it will be used to judge you. Here in America education is used by society to create a narrative for one to follow. Being that one’s future is scaled based on acquired skills learned in school, it is imperative we understand that schools are not dumping grounds. Therefore, it is very important that Washington and their delegates revolutionize every demographic area, from inner cities to rural America. We should supply all children with the necessary tools needed to hone their skills in every subject area. Our main goal should be social and academic success, regardless of their family’s income or the location of their school district. However, schools continue to heavily weigh math and reading ability, which doesn’t present an accurate picture regarding a child’s potential. Rating these schools ineffective for not reaching “standards” is unacceptable, and it denies them proper resources and/or more incentives to help give children some form of extrinsic motivation to go to school and do well. Some of these schools are truly ineffective; yet, we see students that require special needs education and students who have poor attendance be the primary focal point for determining what nominal funds will be allocated to their school. Why? Well, you have to make excuses to cut money somewhere to spend it elsewhere.

For example… There are three schools in America within a few miles of each other. One school is failing and ineffective and doing much worse than the other two schools. That failing school is going to be phased out and their students will get dumped into the second school, which performs slightly better than the failing school. Now all of a sudden there are two schools in one building forced to share and use the resources meant for one, which over-populates that school and makes each class size larger, subsequently reducing the teacher’s ability to reach each student. This is exactly how students fall behind. Oh, and the third school performs the best so they’re going to get the necessary funding. Now consider this new two-in-one school and the other school that received their funding; which school is going to perform the best moving forward? Why does performance matter? Well, whichever school performs the best is going to get the Mac computers, smart boards, grants for art programming to pay teachers, and so on. It doesn’t take an advanced degree to figure out that the third school is going to continue to perform the best, and the new two-in-one school will probably do worse if you just consider the larger classroom sizes. But why wouldn’t the new two-in-one school with larger class sizes receive the funding? Surely, they need more resources, right? It’s evident that certain kids are left behind regarding the tools and resources needed to academically thrive and keep pace with their generation. Technology is taking over and experimental learning is the way to go. Standard based testing does nothing but perpetuate a bias system, which allows the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.

The federal government allows states to control the majority of educational funding in an attempt to escape the blame for dismal school systems. So who do we blame… the states, Washington, or both? Bottom line, our school systems are failing many of our children while others prosper and prepare for a competitive job market in an ever-changing economy. Educational segregation is what you call it, and when resources are withheld from groups of people that clearly need them the most we should question leadership and inefficiencies on every level. If education inevitably judges everyone, which seems to the case in our capitalist society, how about we give everyone a fair and equal opportunity to reach their full potential?