So, full disclosure. I’m not huge into sports. It’s not a conscious decision — not nowadays, at least. As a teen, back when I still believed you could be Geek and nothing else, it was a choice. But as an adult, I’m largely not into it because my state has no major teams.

I do notice, though, that there is a mentality among some fans that Sports Ain’t Okay. More than that, the fans actually deserve a good mocking whenever possible. There are a few “safe” sports for fans: wrestling and roller derby are okay, and have a lot of visible fan interaction. But if you want to be into one of the Big Four sports, there’s at least a small chance you will be torn down hard.

I was aware of, but not keyed into, this mentality until I heard a major podcaster go there.

I won’t give names, but you can probably guess. This major geek-side podcaster went to town on a co-host looking forward to a major sporting event. He laughed and insulted the co-host’s intelligence to the point that the co-host left the room. The main host and another co-host went on until the shunned one came back, somewhat quieter.

I’m still not sure what got me harder: that it happened at all, or that the interaction was left in.

Multitasking

Having been your typical bullied high school nerd, I absolutely got some flak from the school jocks. Granted, when you go to a Catholic school that doesn’t have a football team, your “jocks” tend to be the cross-country girls. Even so, I’m not coming out of nowhere. There were sport-related moments that left a terrible taste in my mouth as a child and young adult.

Now, as an adult, I tend to witness the complete opposite. The biggest sports fans I know are also some of the biggest geeks I know. Two of my closest friends got me into hockey and baseball when their teams unexpectedly took it all the way (Bruins and Cubs). One of said friends is throwing portraits of Cubs players into her Inktober lineup. An old friend and fellow creative from the anime con scene runs a fantasy football bracket every year. For the most part, my circle of geek friends is either super into sports, or pretty damn amenable to them.

That isn’t to say some aren’t. The ones that aren’t are almost vindictively anti-sport. Mocking fans, using our hobbies of cosplay and tabletop gaming as tools to attack the wearing of team colors and fantasy brackets… it’s all a bit weird. And when I confront people with it, there’s always a Reason. They were or still are mocked by jocks. They have bad memories of those times. They’re “punching up.”

To which I . . . I don’t know. I hesitate. Big time.

That Ludicrous Display

The IT Crowd episode “Are We Not Men?” took jabs at football fandom in the UK, and has become a favorite quote-source for anyone sick of Super Bowl or World Series talk. I personally love the episode, as I do most of The IT Crowd . . . but I also appreciate that it’s really not, as people seem to think, a metaphor for the line between American sports fans and American geeks.

Football culture in the UK is about a lot more than being a fan of sports and not being a fan of geeky stuff. Again, there’s crossover — plenty of fan and fan-industry friends I know in the UK have a team they support heavily. Your team and how hardcore you are for them is also a question of things like class, social status, and region. There’s so much that comes into play that an American won’t have experienced and an English person will already know. (For a deeper geek-side look into football culture, check out Season 1 Episode 5 of the original Life on Mars).

The “Did you see that ludicrous display?” joke has been adopted as an anthem for fans who Can’t Be Doing With Sport, as though Roy and Moss’s distaste for football is a matter of them being too good for it. And that sort of amputates a lot of the context from the episode’s payoff, which is more about the dangers of blindly trying to fit in for the sake of social ease.

An Invisible Line

In my day job as an anime journalist (live the dream, kids), there’s something I run across a lot: anime crossing over with sporting events. Japan’s Pacific League does this a lot, with everything from baseball-themed anime to popular shows like My Hero Academia and idol shows like BanG Dream! (above). And this isn’t even an occasional thing: you can expect anime days during Pac League games on the regular.

To fully appreciate this, you need to remember that being a hardcore anime fan is not a standard practice even in Japan. It’s more common than elsewhere, but it’s still a niche. This would be akin to having Doctor Who Day at the World Series . . . which, now that I say it, I would be all about. Call me, BBC America, I have ideas.

Geek and sport aren’t considered at odds — they’re two different things you can be a fan of simultaneously. And if the two collide, it’s even better. It’s a fantastic philosophy, and it’s sad to see America holding so firmly to the exact opposite. Especially considering there are professional athletes who became athletes after being inspired by their geeky pursuits.

Green Bay Packers defensive end Mike Daniels is such a big fan of Dragon Ball and shows like it that he got his own Crunchyroll documentary (which you can watch right here). He combines his love of powerful shonen characters and their drive to be their best with his own sports career. And it seems to be going really well for him.

If you are one of the people bullied or hurt by a sports fan or athlete in your life, I see you. I get it. Same hat. Really. But geeks attacking sports fans isn’t “punching up.” It isn’t going to fix what other people did to you. And it’s only going to perpetuate animosity between hobbies. You don’t have to personally love what everyone else loves — but standing back and offering them that freedom is a gift, and one I think we’d all want others to grant us in our own pursuits.

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