It seems like football is always in season. It’s just league after league and then before you know it, the men’s World Cup is on, and everyone around you is sleeping at 3 a.m. trying to catch some random match. It should be clear at this point that everything I know about the sport has been forced on me by our football-obsessed culture. I’ve been a harsh critic of this frivolous preoccupation, at least until I realized I was spending an embarrassing amount of time scrolling through TikTok and YouTube. Videos that I couldn’t recall or summarize hours later.

I’ve been thinking about why we’re all caught up in various entertainment-related chokeholds. Here’s my submission.

1. It’s in our nature

People have been telling stories, drawing, and entertaining each other for as long as we’ve been sentient. Maybe the extent to which we’re escaping into entertainment is unprecedented, but the impulse to entertain each other, to have fun together — we’ve always had that. And while it may not look like it at first blush, football is a story. I mean, why else was that cute picture of Messi washing that little baby everywhere? It’s a story and a good one, too, to hear men tell it.

2. Escapism

This is one of the key functions of entertainment. It’s a way to escape the vagaries of this life. Every day carries with it evidence of how meaningless everything is. You spend your whole life striving, working, accumulating, then you die, and in a generation, nobody remembers your name. Life, in our political and social set-up, demands an exacting price. You don’t ask to be born, but if you don’t work, you will not eat. So, you spend your whole life in a cubicle with cranky co-workers and a mean boss, paying this hefty price. All the while, you watch millions starve and die in senseless wars and genocides as you wait for the evidence of the climate crisis to reach your front door. I want to escape just thinking of it. So, you spend 90 minutes every few days watching men chase a ball, watching a funny girl on TikTok. You laugh, you cry, you forget, at least for a while.

3. Bread and circuses

Bread and circuses is a phrase that originates from Rome. It refers to the way the political class generates public approval not by public service but through diversions and distractions. They use food (bread) and entertainment (circuses) to satisfy the base needs of the population, shifting their focus to that instead of the more serious political matters. If tomorrow, all of our entertainment was sucked up into the sky and we no longer had that escape, there would be a revolution in 5 days max. Imagine all those football men, in a patriarchal society that socializes them towards aggression and violence, suddenly left without an outlet. It would be 3 days to revolution max.

None of us can handle having to face our real lives. So, governments make sure they support entertainment and the arts, keep us distracted, occupied, harmless. It’s why President Moi, a man who put people in torture chambers for criticizing him, publicly supported the comedy trio Reddykyulas even though they were ostensibly critical of him. It was a distraction.

This is the new dystopian society: it doesn’t deny you or forbid you things. It, in fact, gives you an excess: infinite scrolling, forever football matches so that you don’t have the time, much less the mental bandwidth to think about anything else.

4. Vicarious achievement

The thing about capitalist society is that it limits, severely, what you can do with your life, with your time. Very few people have the luxury of doing something they like and enjoy for work. The majority have to do whatever is available to put food on their table and clothes on their bodies. Life is purely work and nothing more.

Entertainment, including football, allows us to be a part of the adventures of others. They win, and it’s our win. Our emotional investment is as deep as theirs. We feel the anticipation, anxiety, joy, grief. We’re right there. Their achievements are ours too. I mean, it is beyond problematic that we can only experience this sense of achievement through the lives of others, but something is better than nothing, right? A win’s a win.

5. Emotional release

I’m not certain if this applies to football as well – you can tell me in the comments. I have a friend who talks about needing a cry sometimes and putting on a show that she knows will get her there. All of life is, to say the least, frustrating, and sometimes you just need a cry – and can’t just burst into tears like a crazy depressed person. So, like my friend, you put on Grey’s Anatomy, and then you cry like somebody died, and then you go to bed feeling a little better.

I suppose with football it would be something like all of life’s frustrations are getting to you, then your team wins, and you experience this huge emotional release. Maybe you even shed a few tears, but in that context it’s allowed – that kid Messi was washing just scored. Of course, crying in that case is the peak of masculinity.

Conclusion

We’ve always been communal, always entertained each other with stories and games. The problem is, we’re not doing it now for the communal element. Now we need it to escape an increasingly barbaric existence or risk losing our minds. It’s unfortunate that our lives are something we constantly need escape from, but hey, you can only play the cards you’re dealt, and we have the worst hand. It’s either that or immediate revolution to change things. Revolution is hard. Scrolling through TikTok and watching that instant replay with your cheeks clenched — that’s easier. So much easier.

Check out

6 Ways To Make Your Social Media Platforms A Healthy Mental Space

The Ways Football Clubs In Europe Have Increased Their Fanbase Globally

Kicks, Flicks, And Epic Tricks: What’s Hot In Football Right Now

What Your Man’s Football Team Says About Him

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