Imagine if Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Paris Hilton, and the cast from The Hills all loved soccer. Now imagine that the people who like the aforementioned all liked what you like. Imagine they showed up at matches, sat next to you at pubs during games, and called into your favorite talk shows … oh, I’m sorry, podcasts. Imagine that Generation Teen Cribs, a generation that craves for attention, loves feedback, and wants to take people on tours of their parents’ houses as if they are responsible for all the glory that surrounds them took an active interest in soccer. I’ve got to say, I kind of like things the way they are.
You don’t want to be popular just because. You want to be popular in the right way. The wrong way will lead to a bastardization of soccer culture in the United States that looks like … MTV. Those, my friends, are the facts of life — you take the good, you take the bad.
Anyway, it’s about time someone started a Facebook group to campaign against this encroachment on the sport we love. Don’t do it for me, do it for the kids. And yes, I do understand the irony of wanting to use Facebook to fight Generation Teen Cribs. But sometimes you’ve got to pick up weapons and engage where the action is.
Hip hop is rapidly spiraling out of control, and news has turned into pop culture summaries and partisan bickering between people who are hardly qualified to be student government representatives in a high school. I need to draw the line somewhere. All I ask is for people to leave my soccer alone. Am I just being a stubborn old man? Absolutely. But I find stubborn old men kind of endearing.
Blindly craving additional supporters for the US soccer movement creates all sorts of problems. We need to be careful of creating fervent crews of supporters blindly chanting about things they don’t really understand. I mean, just look at the Tea Party Movement. It leads to a whole lot of embarrassment; embarrassment that should be avoidable.
Heidi Montag: Soccer is, like, the world. It like includes everything. And music too! (… Harkes-like silence … ) Like!
Paris Hilton: And they wear those cute little shorts and tight shirts!
Hilton and Montag (in unison): I know!!! (Giggling uncontrollably.)
I can do without that. Chappelle said it best: “I want some answers that JaRule might not have right now!” Well I feel the same way about my soccer as Chappelle feels about his news. I don’t need Heidi Montag’s opinion on goal line technology … ever. Really, I don’t.
So, please don’t pee in my pool, Generation Teen Cribs. You stay over there, and I’ll stay over here. I won’t go see Bieber in concert, and you leave me and my ball alone.
