Iceberg, I understand your point, but I think the category of those who are rooting for a high draft pick next year needs a little bit of refinement. There are (I think) two types of fans looking forward to a lousy record at the end of the season:
- those who want us to purposely throw the games away (I think this is the group your post was targeted to), and
- those who wouldn't mind the team losing (despite providing an all-out effort) because they have become numb to the season and are desperate for the team to improve next year (like my 16 year old son, who has never experienced a dominating Cowboys team).
But let me address a special sub-category of the first group.
There are those who will be negative no matter what the circumstances - not just negative, but vindictive, poisonous, consistently merciless. This is the group that I believe hit a nerve with so many and prompted your original post. Now I am going to paint with a very broad brush here, and make some wide generalizations to illustrate a point. So, if you have thin skin, and don't like lectures, it would be best to jump to the next post.
I have come across many people with a consistently negative outlook on the events and circumstances that come in and out of one's life. As I grow older (and hopefully wiser), I have found these people (for the most part) to have a common life experience which precipitates the negative behavior. Most of these folks tend to be stuck in a point of life where they have severely underachieved in several aspects of their lives, and have rationalized that life's deck (the system, society, etc.) is stacked against them, and have used this rationalization to give up the will to strive and win. People in this category become bitter and jealous of anyone who succeeds in life, feeling that somehow it is all a game of chance and the folks who achieve victory and prosperity have somehow won life's lottery.
I have found one other character trait among this group that seems fairly prevalent. The need to
create drama and to spend time trying to drag others into their sphere of negativity. Their Viagra comes in the form of a generally positive person becoming locked in an argument filled by negativity. The further they can cause a positive person to become entangled in an argument, the more excited the prospect of spreading their negative world view becomes.
Not every person who has a negative outlook on the team falls into this category, mind you. Some are able to present their points in a logical fashion without personal attack or spitefulness. But be on the lookout for those individuals who's life mission is to spread their rancor out of some perverse sense of fulfillment. Realize in the moment that the energy you expend engaging with such folks is indeed misdirected and in no way will lead to anything positive (both for you, and for the vindictive person, who will rarely change, despite all arguments aimed toward conversion).
Footnote: the "you" referred to here is directed to the general (perhaps younger) audience, not to the original poster. And yes, I understand that this hypothesis sounds arrogant, but by the same token, it is written with the hope that someone reading it will take a life lesson from someone who has learned it the hard way and across several years.
So endeth the lesson.
\soapbox
