Is Football Fan Behaviour Getting Worse? The Alarming Rise of Toxic Crowd Culture
Has crowd conduct gotten worse recently? There is undoubtedly a wealth of evidence from all facets of society that certain behaviours are carelessly unpleasant.
Theatres are discovering that patrons frequently ignore the stage in favour of their phones, even conversing on them or yelling at actors while a play is in progress.
To everyone’s dismay, some people show up to those well-known musicals intoxicated and begin fighting or yelling the songs at the top of their lungs.
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The gig filmmakers come next. Since many artists are prohibiting phones because people simply disregard their verbal requests, it appears that only those who engage in it are not irritated by it.
They seem to be unable to resist the urge to record life rather than experience it. Then there are the talkers, for whom the gig appears to be interfering with their chat.
The abuse, which was most recently witnessed during the Ryder Cup, comes next. Can you imagine acting that way? I know Americans who felt ashamed of such clumsy, thick-necked, and foolish behaviour. Some of our football fans aren’t any better, though.
The flare-up-bum was just the tip of the iceberg. It’s common to see groups of men drinking cokes and yelling obscenities at anyone.
At every level, we have all witnessed it. It was exactly like football when I was enmeshed in an Edinburgh Oasis crowd. Heedless chanting, urinating in gardens, and hammering on passing cars. It was reminiscent of the 1970s.
Some blame the present political climate of intolerance and hostility, some blame the division caused by culture wars, and yet others blame it on people trying to make an impression on social media.
Without hesitation, I would label the grotesque, frog-faced, big-mouthed skid mark on the nation’s pants as a purposeful inciter and facilitator of intolerance and ugliness.
I’m always in awe of those who fail to recognise the dishonesty of a blatant charlatan and frustrated by the media’s inability to investigate him.
Although he and others like him have made things worse for everyone, much more intelligent, less self-centred, and larger, more prejudiced minds have travelled the same route numerous times before and had comparable responses.
Nothing is new about it. We shall go against it once more, as we do in the past. One could be tempted to believe that it’s all a modern problem, and there are undoubtedly contemporary expressions that only appear in this highly charged time period.
As any number of stadium disasters will attest, however, certain people have always acted terribly in crowds, revelling in their anonymity.
To attend a match in the 1970s was like joining a front-line combat unit in Vietnam. Because working-class people led brutal lives filled with violence and abuse on a daily basis, you took it for granted and didn’t give it any attention.
You developed your running speed and planned escape routes and “safe” spots. The preferred intoxicant may have been pints of Cameron’s Strongarm rather than cocaine, but it nevertheless caused aggressive behaviour.
The behaviour that I refer to as “hey, we’re here too” is where things have shifted. Reports of people acting as though they are in their front rooms rather than in public are common.
People in the post-Covid generation are thought to have forgotten or failed to learn how to react in public, leading them to act in a way that shows little consideration for others.
“Screen individualism” is so prevalent that it permeates dysfunctional socialisation, where you and you alone are important and at the centre of every circumstance.
On the other hand, as anyone who has watched the Stones’ 1969 Altamont film can attest, there were numerous instances of audience behaviour going out of control, including individuals yelling “Judas” at Bob Dylan 60 years ago.
Not to mention that the great majority aren’t acting in a horrible manner. We’re also here.
We have generally experienced a less repressive scenario over the past 30 years, which is, I believe, why it feels so new. With a few significant exceptions, things had improved.
However, those who ostensibly “want their country back” have been burning hotels in the name of free speech in recent years.
These individuals, who are the most fervent flag-shaggers, appear to be unable to express what they protest so strongly that they are unable to say, and they have seen their opportunity to return to the ideals of 1973, their ideal world.
Horrible, self-loathing people like Joey Barton openly try to avoid detesting themselves by making money off of hatred and miserabilism. They believe we are blind to the grift.
They feel freed from the constraints of forty years of “political correctness,” which prevented them from mistreating those they liked while they liked them. That is referred to as oppression.
That is, the typical egotistical, naive twats. Everything about it is really a phase. This too will pass.
