"To be fair, pro sports are an obvious waste of valuable time and attention."

Ha ha ha - this is so funny.

If this comment is not satire, then I think I just made my point!

I hope that readers here realize how fairly uncommon (and elitist, i.e. everyone is obviously wasting their time) this kind of statement is. Surely, a lot of people don't like pro-sports, but most are not so antagonist about it.

My gosh, if you want to connect with people from anywhere, the first thing you can do is talk about sports!

I only wish I cared about sports, it would be so much easier on sales calls and hanging out with regular people!

>My gosh, if you want to connect with people from anywhere, the first thing you can do is talk about sports!

Exactly the social crutch I was lamenting. This phenomenon is indeed real, and it’s pathological.

pretty sure that was a joke

lol man. I don't watch sports but I guess you don't play video games, watch netflix, etc.? All are equally wastes of time.

Netflix and video games don’t directly promote tribal bullshit, and they generally don’t infect the workplace with career-impacting social expectations. I have seen the latter in various workplaces, indeed nearly all of my prior workplaces. The former is just patently true.

> Netflix and video games don’t directly promote tribal bullshit

They most certainly do, at least games anyways. Clans for example have a fairly tribal sounding name.

I’ll believe this when I see riots in the streets where the local clan win a championship, and/or when spectators with no relationship to the players routinely come to blows over which clan is better.

/r/iamverysmart is on reddit, not HN.

Good reading for people with this worldview (which at one time included myself): “Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports”[1]

“https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/cultivated-disinterest-in-prof...

I come to my disdain for pro sports honestly, it’s not an intellectual virtue signal. I played baseball, basketball, and (later) American football from childhood (~5yrs old on) through high school. I think the sports themselves to be great, with the exception of some obvious problems with football. They help build so many hard and soft skills, and in their best forms they really help build character.

All that said, pro sports culture is basically a social cancer for various reasons, including some that are illuminated directly in that article. The “but how will you relate to the working class” argument is weak, and gives the reader permission to use social crutches rather than useful, generalizable social tools. Indeed, the idea of “becoming” a pro sports fan to be able to socialize with a certain class of people is rather condescending.

The New Yorker is an obvious waste of valuable time and attention but I don’t hold that against an entire region.