Southern White People Ethnography @ 2008/08/15 15:17
In Richmond I am surrounded by the Wrong Kind of White Person. Given lemons, I am attempting to clone them, and grow Super-lemons. In this instance this means carrying out an ethnographic study of southern white people.
Installment I: Sports
I finally get it. I think. About sports. Southern white people treat sports like you or I treat indie music, musical theater, and gaming. That is, they build up a sophisticated array of knowledge specific to a functionally useless subject in order to signal their social prowess and create a commonly-accessible conversational framework.
For instance, instead of a DnD session or a concert, Southern white people will watch a game of football. While you or I might utilize a Broadway show lyric in a bon mot, a Southerner will shout “Dynamite goes BOOM!” Instead of running MC, they will join with their peers in a “Fantasy Football League.” I am currently enrolled in just such a social group for research purposes. However my fake team’s name (Eggplant Wizard) betrays my outsider status and I fully expect to lose, as I can name two NFL players. Maybe. Does Randy Moss still play?
I should also note that this interest in other people playing sports in no way correlates with personal fitness. See relative rates of obesity: http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/20530522
In the interest of fairness, I should also note that interest in DnD rarely correlates with magic ability.
Post updated by sam on 2008/08/15 15:19
Installment I: Sports
I finally get it. I think. About sports. Southern white people treat sports like you or I treat indie music, musical theater, and gaming. That is, they build up a sophisticated array of knowledge specific to a functionally useless subject in order to signal their social prowess and create a commonly-accessible conversational framework.
For instance, instead of a DnD session or a concert, Southern white people will watch a game of football. While you or I might utilize a Broadway show lyric in a bon mot, a Southerner will shout “Dynamite goes BOOM!” Instead of running MC, they will join with their peers in a “Fantasy Football League.” I am currently enrolled in just such a social group for research purposes. However my fake team’s name (Eggplant Wizard) betrays my outsider status and I fully expect to lose, as I can name two NFL players. Maybe. Does Randy Moss still play?
I should also note that this interest in other people playing sports in no way correlates with personal fitness. See relative rates of obesity: http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/20530522
In the interest of fairness, I should also note that interest in DnD rarely correlates with magic ability.
Post updated by sam on 2008/08/15 15:19
A cromulent graph embiggens the smallest idea.
