Back in my 20s, I remember caring about two football games. I generally stopped caring about football when I left the marching band after high school, but I still watched with people who enjoyed football because I have social skills. The two games I cared about were my college alma mater, and University of Texas at Austin versus Texas A & M, largely because growing in Austin produced a modicum of loyalty to the home team. However, in 2011, Texas A & M joined a new conference, and the big game of Texas Hill Country ceased to exist. The news recently announced that the big game would be returning during Black Friday this year, and all I can think is how late all of this is, and how it only exists to distract us from everything else happening in the world.
First, there has been almost an entire generation raised to adulthood who never learned to care about Longhorns v. Aggies. The only people this exhibition serves is the older folks who never let it go, and who will undoubtedly care about the outcome in the way of a Second Coming. Second, if this is an attempt at a fundraiser due to the pulling of federal funds, it is highly miscalculated since Central Texas is full of government and university employees–none of whom have benefitted from the party atmosphere that people believe exists. Techies are notoriously tightfisted, pretending that they are broke and then projecting an obnoxious display of wealth.
More importantly, fewer and fewer people are watching football as we are all being faced with rising debt, lowering wages, and the inability to make up for lost financial gains regardless of self-imposed deprivation. Even as people were outraged about Black people on stage–ironically, the only place where we were supposed to be allowed, as entertainment–more people were confused about why the dominant narrative insists on clinging to the old institutions. In short, people losing food stamps, housing, and income are too stressed to be worried about football. This is almost as bad as the alien announcement that everyone ignored because we were all overwhelmed by the economic distress and the obsession with a presidential race. Caring about a new football game is like caring about the Met Gala when people are homeless and mentally exhausted.
Furthermore, the whole “Black Friday” nonsense is overplayed, and has no place under the current regime. Most people are broke, and people are being forced to live in less and less space. How is anyone supposed to feel excited about a consumption extravaganza that used to kill people when most of the workforce is being depleted out of spite? This kind of event is a waste of time, money, and everyone’s energy, and is only being continued because there is a hope of older elites that younger folks will figure out a way to “make it work.” That is, if all the tariffs that are raising the cost of everything fail to bankrupt us, we can all still look forward to obnoxious commercials selling us things no one needs.
All of these attitudes reek of people who have no idea of what people want now, and who are completely uninterested in healthy engagement. The message being sent is this: “Watch sports, buy stuff, and think less.” After all, most of these ill-reasoned endeavors are supposed to inspire people to get drunk during the holidays and produce more babies to buy more stuff. Sober proletariats are not as willing to distract themselves from survival, and maybe if people with control and resources could get over themselves, maybe something better would happen. At this point, good outcomes are highly unlikely, and all the shopping and football games are not working.
Chasing A Dying Empire 