Sports, liking something you shouldn't

How do you know if someone doesn't watch football?
Wait until late August, they'll tell you.

It is about that time again, preseason games are starting tomorrow, and soon a large percentage of the country will be gathered around the TV on Sunday watching grown men run into each other as hard as they possibly can.

It is also almost time for those who don't watch it to start letting everyone know about it. I get it, some things aren't for everyone, but why do you feel the need to announce to the world you don't like a popular thing? Seemingly just because it is popular, there are many reasons to not like the NFL in particular, ranging from the impact the college football system has on education to the... idiosyncratic way they approach issues like domestic violence.

The point is, those I see hating on football aren't bringing up any of those issues, they just say something "sport! hur hur" and expect to be.. I don't know admired? I have a similar problem with folks who make a point of telling you they don't listen to modern music, or watch TV, or participate in any largely accepted part of our culture. If it doesn't appeal to you that is totally fine, I am not saying you should love it, or even like it, but this need to make everyone aware of how outsider you are really seems to show how much you really care about this stuff when the majority of people don't give a damn that you like it or not.

And yes I realize that here I am writing multiple paragraphs about this thing that I probably shouldn't care about either, it is more common a tendency than you think.

Anyway, I like football a lot, I have been a fan of the Seattle Seahawks since something  like 1990 or so, basically as early as I can remember I watched the game with my dad on the weekends. But as someone who considers himself a liberal and a feminist ally, the NFL makes itself really hard to like. Being a pretty great example of unbridled capitalism having undue influence on things that should be outside its sphere, as well as the pretty widely publicized domestic violence cases, and the companies response to them, that we saw last summer, especially when compared to other violations like ones for drug use.

I should condemn the entire system, and boycott it, the company surely deserves it if anyone does, but I am not, and I won't, because I really like the game, and I guess that is just part of how I am a slave to the media.