Fanboy Culture

Do we still have fans or we are all just fanboys and you are either in one camp or the other?

If you think about the Messi & Ronaldo debate, for almost 10-12 years no single-player comes close to their greatness, not even one, but each camp can't help themselves in bringing down the other. As a Ronaldo fan basically, you get as much joy from Ronaldo doing well as when Messi struggles and vice versa.

Now I'm not going to pretend that this is something recent as I only have to look at my years as an arsenal supporter when I would get as much joy from united losing as much as when arsenal wins. Obviously I don't care about united now as they are krap but that's how much I hated United back in the day. Even though I was meant to hate Spurs more, I could at least appreciate some of their good players like Ginola but with united I couldn't. I don't even remember any of their good players. I only started appreciating Rio when he retired. I actually bizarrely celebrated when he got the 9-month ban for the missed drug test even though I knew it was a harsh ruling. I honestly thought Scholes was krap. Maybe he was
since apparently Trent is closing in on his assist record but my point is do these things make the sport better or not? Its like the Pep vs Klopp debates we have now, they are quite stupid now and it's even worse on social media where you have 12-year-olds making up things that will genuinely shock you.

People feed of this negativity and some are even millionaires from it (Skip Bayless has a career simply from trash-talking Lebron, Robbie Lyle is a millionaire from feeding of the negativity around Arsenal during the barren Wenger years. Those are just a few examples. The concept is not new, we have seen the likes of Talksport and other trash media outlets make a living from it, but if anything they continue to grow.

Was thinking the other day, other than fan boy culture what stops us from crowning Lionel Messi and Lebron James as GOATs in their respective sports other than the fact that you are either in the Lebron or Jordan camp. Same with Messi who has not only broken all sort of records but has played football in a style and manner that is unlikely to be repeated.

Lebron will in all likelihood barring injury go past Jordans in the NBA’s all-time leading scorer’s chart this season but you can bet those in the Jordan camp will find a way to undermine his achievements. By the way I'm not saying Messi and Lebron are the GOATS, but I am also saying based on what we see with our own eyes, there is little to suggest that they can't make a case other than the fact that you dont like either player. Just 2 examples of players that polarise opinions that I could think of.

I am actually shocked Thierry Henry is accepted almost universally as the best premier league player because under today's culture somebody would find a reason to debate that. Probably some do.

Sports awards are now controversial, I remember people slating Messi for being awarded the best player at the world cup in brazil, like it was his fault. We saw the recent furore regarding the Ballon d'Or.

The question is, is sport in a much better place due to this culture or will things get worse before they get better?