Lost in Translation
November 29, 2007 5:00 PM
I'm becoming more and more aware of the evolving way our society interacts and communicates. There seems to be a strange dichotomy present in today's world, brought on primarily because of technology. We have before us seemingly infinite ways to communicate. We have cell phones, email, text messaging and blogs, to name a few. If you have a message to share, you can broadcast it using a blog or podcast, or narrowcast it with a text message or Facebook post. The famous scenario of an infinite amount of monkeys with an infinite amounts of typewriters is becoming closer and closer to reality, which I suppose, makes me just another primate (I think my girlfriend would concur with that statement!).
And yet, something is missing from this era of ubiquitous communication. When I take the bus home, half of the commuters have headphones stuck in their ears, a quarter are banging away at a Blackberry, and the other quarter are playing a portable video game. The truly gifted ones are somehow managing all three - clearly an evolutionary trait that will see them succeed in the 21st century. My point is, we have so much information available to us now, that we don't need to share and discuss it anymore. We just need to read blog posts, watch YouTube clips, and listen to podcasts to obtain every angle and insight that's out there. For example, as wonderful as Facebook is, I don't actually need to talk to anyone on my network - I just simply need to read their status and check out their latest pictures. What we've gained in immediacy, we've lost in intimacy.
Taking this into the sporting realm, I see a similar trend occurring. By Thursday of last week, I had nothing left to say about England's defeat because I had already heard or read it all. And that is troubling. As sports fans, we need time to digest events like this. We need time to be angry, time to reflect and time to discuss. We need time to play manager and fix all of their woes. It makes us feel like fans, like we have something at stake here too.
I suppose that is just the state of our hyperactive information overloaded world. But, I'll tell you what: nothing can take away the moments that you spend with a group of hardcore fans. You can read all the pre- and post-game analysis. You can use your high definition DVD recorder to record the match, watch it on your giant plasma television with surround sound, and dissect every minute of the action. But despite all this technology at your fingertips, you will miss the very essence of the match entirely. That essence can only be found where fans congregate. I was at Library Square Public House for the England-Croatia match and the place was packed with England fans and even a few dedicated Croatia supporters. The place was a zoo. When Crouch leveled the score in the second half, the windows could have shattered from the noise. And equally, when Croatia scored the decisive goal, you could taste the pain of ever England faithful, like is was the special sauce on the hamburger.
So perhaps the biggest lesson I came away with from that England loss (other than to never accept the England post unless you have a suicide wish!) was that you just can't replace being amongst fans, regardless of the outcome. The internet, cell phones and Blackberries are phenomenal at spreading information. But they don't hold a candle to a local pub in terms of spreading emotion.
Posted By: Ryan Mckee on November 29, 2007 5:00 PM
