I’m no sports fan, so admittedly I’m no expert on this, but I really have to question a person’s motivation to dress up in some outllandish way in order to show their support for a team. What, really, is the point? Will your team win if you and your friends paint the letters of the team names on your pale, hairless chests and stand throughout the game? Will they lose if you fail to shave your chest hair first (in the case of male fans) and then stand in the wrong order, spelling out “GO SCUB?” It won’t make a
difference, but you might get your picture in the paper, or show up on the evening news.

What then, is the real point? Why, to get attention.

In college, I went to a football game to cheer on my team (the ever-hapless Oregon Ducks). Actually, I went to the game because there was nothing better to do and I might as well sit in a freezing rain with a bunch of other idiots, drinking in the parking lot and attempting to sneak in a few cans of beer down the sleeves of my down parka. This was before stadium officials got wise to young women carrying in the beer, and it didn’t stop the frat boys from sneaking in an entire keg in the papier-mache’ belly of
a Duck “mascot figure.” 

Anyway, during the game there was a heavy-set guy leading cheers from the stands with a big green “O” painted on a white background with yellow highlights on his large belly. He had a heavy beard but not much chest hair, which appeared to be shaved. I ended up talking to him for a while between cheers; he had no name, he was simply known to fans as “Fat Guy With A Beard.” Actually, he did have a name – he gave me a business card and was in radio sales or something slimy like that. His entire personal life revolved
around appearing in any kind of weather clad only in shorts and body paint. He was a true fan, which meant he didn’t care if we won or lost, but he was determined to raise people’s spirits and get them yelling. Starting a group cheer, or getting a wave going, was his measure of a successful game. It was really sad.

Some years later, I was living in Seattle, and an acquaintance had an extra ticket to the Seahawks game against Oakland. As it happened, the perennial-losers and the bad-boys from Baghdad on the Bay were that week’s Monday Night Football pick. So all the special weirdos came out, in addition to the regular weirdos. I spent the entire time not watching the game, but watching a woman sitting a row in front of us who was all decked out in big blond hair, tons of makeup, a torn up Seahawks T-shirt with cleavage bursting
out as if by pneumatic pumps under her harms, and the smallest portable TV I’d ever seen. At the time, there was a fad for feathers that dangled from cords or leather thongs that were clipped to your hat; she was wearing a cheap-looking cowboy hat with dyed ostrich feathers cascading down her back.

She’d positioned herself where she could easily be seen by TV cameras that were on “crowd duty,” looking for interesting fans to put on the screen during the many pauses in the action on the field. She would watch to see if one of the cameras was pointed in her direction, and when she caught sight any landmark near herself, she’d leap up and start shakin’ her pom-poms to try to attract the camera’s attention. She’d also watch where the cameras were pointed; she’d use binoculars to see if a cameraman or one of
the spotters was looking at her. Her sole motivation was  to get herself and her spectacular boobs on national television. Why? I have NO idea. And yes, she wasn’t watching the game at all, and only “cheered” and pumped her boobs up when the camera was on her.

I’ve never been the sort of woman to put myself on display, so I really can’t understand this behavior at all. As a young woman, on my best hair day ever, I’d never have dared such a stunt: I didn’t have the boobs or the self-promotional BS for it. I guess I had neither the frontery or the effrontery for that kind of display, so there was no way for me to understand why other women would do that.

Every now and then I see a picture of a sports fan in some weird get up and wonder just how into the game they can be if they constantly have to be checking if their face paint is on straight, or if the bucket on their head is at precisely the correct jaunty angle (which prevents them from seeing the big play, naturally). For instance, this photo has been on the Trib front page for a couple of days now:

And then there’s World Cup fans – now that is an entire universe of weirdness.

Related European weirdness: Tour De France fans aren’t really evil, they just dress that way. Or at least this guy does, for almost ten years now.

Again, it’s all about getting your face, or your bucket, or your horns, out there in the papers. And again… why? Why? Will people have sex with you more often? Unlikely, as body paint is not really that much of a turn-on (sorry, “Fat Guy With A Beard”). Will you become rich? Also very unlikely, although you might get a few free drinks out of it if you’re recognized at a sports bar.  Is this attention whoredom bad? Possibly, if you spend thousands of dollars on airfare, sports tickets, rainbow wigs, and
bail money.

Now, I’m a science-fiction fan, and I’ve been to a convention or two. When someone takes the time to create a really great costume, and they also spend time thinking what character their body type would be the best fit for, it’s a beautiful thing to behold. I once went to a Star Trek convention in Seattle where there were people in extremely impressive and detailed Star Fleet and Klingon costumes; they made me fall back a step
and feel something akin to awe. Rather than mocking these people, I was grateful to them and admired them for giving fantasy a few hours of living, breathing reality. The very best costumed character-enactors completely submerged themselves for the day in their chosen role. One Klingon warrior I saw, for instance, totally embodied ferocity. He was getting noticed, all right, and he was also getting a ton of R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

But I can’t apply that same kind of gratefulness or awe to sports fen; I think their passion is not for their sport, but for being noticed.