[ SECRET POST #2718 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2718 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.
[Mayim Bialik]


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.


__________________________________________________



11.


__________________________________________________



12.


__________________________________________________



13.
[Pacific Rim]











Notes:

Might be another 12 am day. Response time will be slow, sorry.

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 016 secrets from Secret Submission Post #388.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - this is getting spammy now ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

World Cup

[dethtoll]

this is a tl;dr so for the sake of people who hate reading or hitting their page down keys my post will be in a comment

playing with balls

[dethtoll]

So the World Cup starts today. Fuck me, right?

So I get to look at soccer bullshit on my Facebook feed and all the video game sites I visit for an interminable amount of time, or I can unplug my internet and never leave the house 'til like August. Not great choices. Wouldn't it be nice if all this money going into what's essentially a glorified Super Bowl for Soccer went into something that actually did something that mattered, like curing cancer or maybe even helping poor people in Brazil?

Yet another flashy, advertising-driven black hole for money and time all about who can sports better than the other guys. If you sports really hard you are the sports champion and you get a trinket to show everyone how good at sports you are. World Cup, the Olympics, the Super Bowl, whatever, it's nothing more than a stage for people to go "woooooo i am best athlete" while everyone else screams and screams and screams.

What I love is every time I bring this up, someone's like BAW BUT GTA5 MADE A BILLION DOLLARS BAW BUT CALL OF DUTY BAW BAW BAW. Bullshit. "False equivalence" turns up valuable results on Google, give that a try? Video games are a medium of art and expression. There's nothing artistic about a bunch of overpaid athletes playing a children's backyard game.

We need academics and art and culture. Nobody really "needs" sports. I mean, sure, people need exercise, children need play. That's not the issue. What's the issue is we've made athletics into a business, we've made athletes into superstars. That's not exercise. That's commodification of physical skill applied for... what, exactly? Other peoples' entertainment? We've got books, we've got movies, we've got television, we've got comics, we've got video games, we've got posting on forums, we've got having sex with each other! Are you not entertained?

Moving on...

The film industry made $10.84 billion dollars in 2012.

The video game industry made $10.5 billion in 2009.

The sports industry in the United States alone was $422 billion as of 2012.

What's wrong with this picture? Why are we paying taxes for stadiums that get people thrown out of their homes?

In the United States we've turned professional sports into a life goal for young black men, almost to the exclusion of everything else save being a rapper, leading to harmful stereotypes.

Sochi is still reeling from being run roughshod over the Winter Olympics.

And of course as this handy-dandy chart shows, we tend to value athletics over academics in the US.

And in Brazil, soccer was used as propaganda for many years -- and it seems to be happening all over again.

Professional sports are a cancer. They're distorting priorities, draining resources, blunting our culture, and corrupting the political process. They're a massive waste of money that disproportionately goes into advertisers' pockets (and the stadiums themselves are big drains on tax dollars that could be better spent on things like improving schools and infrastructure, while whole neighborhoods of largely lower-income housing are razed to make room for these ridiculously huge complexes) to build a shrine to very specific physical skillsets, all in the name of a form of entertainment that teaches nothing, inspires nothing, and means nothing.

All the physical acumen in the world isn't going to build a rocket, write a book, or give children an education. And still we give a few hundred men a lot of money to kick a ball around for our entertainment. This is the world we're leaving for the next generation.

What a waste.

Re: playing with balls

[diet_poison]

I generally agree with you, but I find your attitude to be a bit extreme. There are people who LIKE sports. Some people like it more than art. Just because you or I don't like a thing (and as I've said, I find sports pretty boring) doesn't mean it has zero value.

I do, however, agree wholeheartedly that we pour way too many resources into sports. Especially considering that the highest-paid public servant in pretty much every US state is a college basketball or football coach. And considering that pro athletes make MILLION of dollars a YEAR. That's a lot of dollars. A LOT.

Re: playing with balls

[dethtoll]

I'm okay with my attitude being extreme. I think our glorification of physical ability over that of academic or artistic ability is killing society, and yeah, I DO judge people who like sports more than art for that reason.

Re: playing with balls

[(Anonymous)]

So do you judge a beiber fan less harshly than you judge a sport fan?
Artistic ability does not make someone a more worthwhile person than physical ability.
Example: You have to go out drinking with either Dwayne Johnson (Professional wrestler) or Robin Thick (Abhorent musician) Or Tracey Emin (professional artist) or Richard Dwarkin (Academic who seems to have self satisfied smugness down to an artform in itself)

You see what I'm getting at, right? All of those people are overpaid and over esteemed in their respective disciplines, why then label any one of those disciplines inferior?

Re: playing with balls

[diet_poison]

I think our glorification of physical ability over that of academic or artistic ability is killing society

yes? I definitely see where you're coming from, but I don't see how that means everyone ever is supposed to hate sports now and liking sports is suddenly a bad thing. Hell, there are so many people (myself included) who need to do more physical activity for the sake of health. Human bodies are meant to be active.

and yeah, I DO judge people who like sports more than art for that reason.

That is a really, really extreme reaction, and yeah I know you're ok with being extreme but I would go so far as to say it's a harmful reaction. Peoples' personal preferences don't deserve to be judged. There's a difference between finding sports more entertaining than art or academics, and refusing to support the latter or insisting on pouring finances into the former. The second group of people is merely a subset of the first.

Re: playing with balls

[rubbertea]

an argument could be made that sports are a part of culture. some sports are old as balls, like rugby and pilota; the olympics were originally a cornerstone of western culture. it's not just exercise.

Re: playing with balls

[dethtoll]

Sure, but why are we spending so much money on it? It may be part of a cultural fabric we're never going to get rid of, but what advances does it bring us today? I'm not saying we should ban children from kicking a ball around in the backyard or playing street hockey, but I am saying we need to start converting stadiums into music venues, disband organizations like the NFL and FIFA, and stop spending so much money on advertising.

Sports stops being exercise when you get paid for it and people spend money to watch you. Then it just becomes entertainment. If people want to be entertained, maybe if we educated them better they'd be able to be entertained by other things. Oh, right, the high school football team needs new jerseys every year. Update the textbooks? I don't understand the request!

Re: playing with balls

[surferofdreams]

Actually, as far as stadiums as music venues go, the basketball/hockey stadium in Raleigh, NC is frequently used for musical and comedic performances. I get the impression that this happens in a lot of places like this.

Re: playing with balls

[rubbertea]

so? people spend money to watch people do things all the time. how is it any different from musicians, stand-ups, or even circus acts?

i also disagree that people only like sports because they're uneducated. there are sports that are more popular in certain categories of people, but people from all backgrounds and levels of income like sports. a friend of mine's dad is a super rich engineer and a really big fan of golf. some of my college professors are regulars at the local gym and sports clubs. one of them even played competitively for a while.

Re: playing with balls

[(Anonymous)]

Bread and Circuses.
We spend money on it because entertainment in all it's forms is vital for people to be able to keep slogging through the rest of the shit people slog through day in day out without rebelling and setting fire to shit.
Some people listen to music, some play videogames, some watch feats of physical prowess. I anesthetize myself with video games, personally. I don't see what people get out of sports, but I'll tell you what, I don't think my circus is contributing anything more into society than the sport lovers do.

Re: playing with balls

[cushlamochree]

Sports can be evaluated in the same aesthetic terms as video games. I'm not saying that they're an art form, but there is certainly beauty in whatever sport you care to look at. They're justified for the same reason that video games are, and just because you choose to care about one more than the other is no reason to denigrate it as shit. Nobody, at the end of the day, needs video games or books; we could live without them. But IMO they provide pretty much the same things sports provide: most days a little bit of entertainment and distraction (how many games, after all, are actually art); occasionally something really beautiful and transcendent. And it's arrogant as hell to say that one form of entertainment should go away because you don't like it.

Yeah, a lot of the institutions in sports are massively fucked. FIFA and the IOC are completely and totally corrupt, the NCAA is a shit, and the politics around stadium funding are scandalous. It's absolutely true. But the reason that those situations are allowed to sustain themselves is because sports hugely matter to a lot of people. And they don't matter for no reason. It is not wrong that they matter. It's not, like, an arbitrary choice. People who like sports are not basically idiots, any more than people who like any other form of entertainment are idiots. They like them because they're likable and because they embed themselves into our lives and take on meaning and become associated with communities and causes and because we build relationships with them. And that's not arbitrary and not meaningless. That's why there's so much money in it, for the same reason there's money in the movie industry or the video game industry, because a lot of people really like it.

I mean, your whole argument there about how professional sports are a cancer relies on the assumption that they are worthless. If you take away that assumption, a lot of what you're saying in that last paragraph can be reduced to people acting like they do about anything they care about. The reason people keep bringing up the counterexample of video games to you is because the two situations are more or less analogous; the only difference is that you're refusing point-blank to acknowledge the validity of one.

Re: playing with balls

[dethtoll]

They are not analogous at all. Video games are an art form, same as movies and television and books. Some of it's going to be dumb and of no intellectual value (I certainly play plenty of those, it's not like I'm playing Dear Esther every day, not that I'd want to ever) but that does not mean anything about the medium itself. Just like movies and television. Are you telling me that the live-action Avatar movie means that movies aren't art?

I firmly believe pro sports are worthless, yes, because of their distorting effect on society. And just look how much money is sunk into it compared to other forms of entertainment or even education (which is absolutely more important than sports).

I do believe we need art. That's my whole point. Art is necessary. Sports... well, exercise is important. Spending money to watch other people exercise? Getting paid to exercise? How is that at all equivalent to watching someone act? To listen to someone tell a story? So much of our culture comes from storytelling and expression, which has evolved over time. The only cultural value sports has has has been indirect, and often with unintended side effects.

Re: playing with balls

[diet_poison]

ehhhh. I'd say that books (certainly) and games (to an extent) do provide things that sports don't. It's more than just entertainment when it comes to sharing ideas and expressing ourselves; the human race would deteriorate enormously without those things.

That said, sports also do a thing most art can't: exercise our bodies, which is essential for health.

I'd also say though that the amount of money we pour into sports should be limited. Dethtoll is absolutely right that they drain resources from other things, some of which are arguably more important to society as a whole. And the enormous discrepancy between money made via sports and that made via art is pretty mind-boggling.

Re: playing with balls

[(Anonymous)]

'All the physical acumen in the world isn't going to build a rocket, write a book, or give children an education.'

My cousin is on my countries National Team, and is currently in Brazil right now, and the money he earns from playing football professionally is currently keeping his family in a home, including his child. So that's one child thats getting an education.

I know I'm avoiding your main point and being oversenstive but your argument is so 'I don't like it/understand it so NO-ONE ELSE CAN'. This is the same argument that people come out with against video games and comics and movies.

There are obviously a lot of problems with the sports industry, as you have mentioned, but there are a lot of problems in pretty much every industry. Just because something has problems doesn't mean it's unsalvagable or has no value. Just because it has no value to YOU doesn't mean it doesn't have value.

Sport breaks boundaries. Sport can get through to people where other things don't. There are countless people across my country, and the world, who have felt like they had nothing to add to the world because they were not acadmically bright, and then found sport (in my country probably football) and found confidence and self-esteem through it. My aformentioned cousin is dyslexic I remember specifically where an inner london charity was teaching teenage teenagers in lower income areas table tennis, and they specifically said it was keeping them out of gangs because they had somewhere to go, something to do, instead of just roaming the streets. Sport teaches teamwork, respect, fair play, hard work, discipline, dedication, being gracious to others.

I was a part of the Olympics/paralympics and will be a part of the commonwealth games this year and I've seen the opulence and ridiculous commercialism that comes hand in hand with these two events. But I've also seen a lot of good come from it. Community spirit, investment in communities, disability awareness, racial and minority awareness, philanthropy. Awareness of the world around you and different countries and cultures and how to respect them. There's a lot of bad because it's highlighted but there's a lot of good too.

And it's 1am where I am and I've already taken my sleep meds and I'm not making any sense anymore so I'm just going to post this and feel embarrassed by it forever but for the TL;DR crowd I will summarize: Just because you do not find value in something, does not mean there is no value to anyone.

Re: playing with balls

[(Anonymous)]

Oh wow I really need to read things through before I post them

'My aforementioned cousin is dyslexic and found academics very difficult. He found football and found something he was good at, which improved his confidence and kept him in school for longer, a story which can be repeated numerous times'

At least I think that's what I was going to say, I don't remember. I'm tired. You get the gist.

Re: playing with balls

[(Anonymous)]

"Video games are a medium of art and expression. There's nothing artistic about a bunch of overpaid athletes playing a children's backyard game"
You know, I'm going to send you my copy of "XBlades" and then offer to come around to your house and take you mountain climbing, or jogging, or play a game of rounders or something. Nothing is without value, but the videogame Xblades is pretty damn close. You pick your poison as the "Artisic" videogames. Other people pick activities. how about we live and let live, eh?

Re: playing with balls

[dethtoll]

So basically because one game is bad and has no artistic value means that video games as a whole aren't art?

Also, mountain climbing isn't really the same thing as football or soccer or baseball. Neither is jogging.

Another go?

Re: playing with balls

[(Anonymous)]

Except the issue is not professional sports, but the corruption in pretty much all governments around the world.

As long as there are people with enough influence to have their own interests being considerer more important than the needs of others, tax money will be wasted in something that doesn't help at all people with low-incomes.

Re: playing with balls

[nightscale]

I'm not sure I'd go quite as far as you have, people are allowed to like what they like and I don't think people liking sports more than art is a bad thing(it's their opinion after all and while I may not agree I'll respect it), but I do hate just how much money goes into football and how almost everything over here revolves around it. The glorification of players is something I hate as well, like they're skilled at what they do I wont refute that but they do not need to be treated like gods who can get away with doing whatever they want, and the amount they get paid is frankly ridiculous.

So to some extent it's not necessarily the sport I hate but the culture that comes with it and my exasperation with football is greater because it encourages 'laddish' behaviour which is basically grossly sexist, racist and homophobic(I don't doubt that American football also has it's own culture issues that comes with it as well, but I have not experienced it personally so I can't comment on it).

But I don't think sports in general are bad or a waste of time, it's just that often it's presented as though sports are the only thing that matter, and that annoys me.

Re: playing with balls

[dethtoll]

Yeah, my issue with people liking sports isn't quite "I don't like it so other people shouldn't." It's more that at this point in history, liking sports and following sports invariably, unavoidably means buying into the cultural juggernaut that the sports industry has whipped up. I see that as dangerous and harmful. So, "Pro sports is bad for society and people liking it only hurts everyone."

Re: playing with balls

[(Anonymous)]

Professional sports are a cancer

This is why people troll you

Re: playing with balls

[dethtoll]

lol

Re: playing with balls

[(Anonymous)]

I grew up in a house that valued the arts, academics, and sports all at once so I never really understood why I should have to choose. They all have their place.

Sports can be very useful for a child's education. For example, my cousin as a child did horribly in school until one summer his father got him on a baseball team. It provided an outlet for him to get his excess energy out so he was able to concentrate better in school. He graduated the top of his class and he was the football star at his school. He would tell you that if it wasn't for sports he wouldn't have succeeded in school. Sports gave him something, they inspired him to work hard, and they provided him an escape from the emotional (and probably physical) abuse he suffered from his mother. He developed a strong work ethic and he developed some very strong friendships with his teammates that provided him a support group. He learned how to work with others and how to lead others.

Are sports overvalued in our society? Yes, but at the same time that doesn't mean that sports suddenly have no value. Just because you don't find something inspirational or useful doesn't mean someone else will not. There are real problems in every industry: misogyny, racism, homophobia, rape culture, over spending etc. The same problems that exist in sports also exists in academics and arts. I have seen artists and academics who get away with horrible things because they are the best in their fields. That is not a sports problem but a problem with our society as a whole. Sports are what society values most right now so the problems are certainly larger because of that, but really no industry should be spending what the sports industries spend yearly. Yikes.

I do love sports, though not soccer/football in particular so I'm pretty meh about the World Cup, but I also love the arts and academics. They all have value to me. There are athletes who have inspired me as well as many artists and scientists. I feel they all have their place. Just because I love sports doesn't mean that I don't value the other stuff as well.

Re: World Cup

[solticisekf]

Ohh, I hate my money going to footy taxes. It's really annoying and I can't overstate how much.