The Insufferable B.S. of Cubs Fans
Of course this is sour grapes. I am a Clevelander, you jerks. I do what I can to overcome that, but…as Jason Isbell tweeted:
Let me just get to the point. Our national adoration for the “lovable losers” of Chicago reveals as much about how twisted we are as Donald Trump does. There, I said it.
Somehow, millions of working class folks have been duped into identifying with the GOP’s elitist nominee. Trump is a privileged product of a cloistered upper-class that sticks the boot to working people whenever possible. Yet, his support among that class is deep. This fact drives the liberal Twitterati nuts, and they’ve written gigabytes worth of think-pieces speculating on how the working America can be so delusional.
But those same indignant souls luxuriate in the Cubs phony Everyman narrative.
If the sycophant Joe Buck were the limit of this rapturous swoon, I could probably handle it (everyone knows Joe Buck’s terrible, right? He looks at every former player he shares a booth with as though he wants to lick them on the face). Sadly, this isn’t the case. Before and after game 7 (in which God’s 10th-inning rain delay proved his eternal hatred for Cleveland), the internet lit up with exaltations about curses and adversity and multi-generational disappointment.
These people know nothing of such things. Cubs fans are movie stars, yuppies, lawyers, and other status-seeking sports consumers. Everyone else that worships the team have attached themselves to a phony nostalgia.
At no time has this team, with its corporate media-empire ownership, ever really represented the hopes and dreams of the working class. In Chicago, that distinction rests solely with fans of the White Sox. As a primer, this comparison sums up the difference between Cubs fans and White Sox fans.
In the above article, pay special attention to the meditation on class. Who else but the great Bill Murray, the pretty awesome Eddie Vedder, and the intolerable John Cusak (along with some financial advisers and lawyers) could fill Cleveland’s stadium with so much droopy Cub-boosterism? This is a team supported by — and which ultimately supports — the upper echelon of urban elitism.
Today’s identity-politics liberal is always on the lookout for privileged people performing the sin of “cultural appropriation.” Well I’m using that here. When the Cubs’ upper-crust fandom frames its devotion in terms of a working class experience, that’s cultural appropriation. They’re performing working class identity without actually living that life. The “lovable loser” persona is a mask that lets rich and famous folks pretend they aren’t obnoxiously privileged. “Oh woe is me. I’ve been a Cubs fan my whole life they they haven’t won anything. This lets me virtue-signal sadness and heart-felt devotion.”
So be a Cubs fan if you want, but you’re not allowed to attach that fanship to romantic notions of the downtrodden everyman. (I suppose you are, but at least know that I know that it’s crap).
And by the way, now that the Cubs have the championship, you are now basically Red Sox fans. Have fun pretending to be lovable with that identity.
Finally, the Indians need to get rid of Wahoo. That thing is demonstrably racist.
