We are entering the season of awards programs. Each week until the Oscar ceremony, there is a similar ceremony each with any number of categories and each category most of the time has five nominees to choose from. Some more, a few less. And of course each ceremony has in the days and hours prior to the ceremony, a series of little ceremonies oft times called "the red carpet." In this ceremonial atmosphere both nominees and associated non-nominees dress in their finery and parade benignly before adoring fans with cameras and phone devices along with the professional camera jockeys amid squeals of delight, pleasurable gushes, and much outpouring of emotion. Back in the studios of the broadcasters, the commentariat hired for these events, gather in numbers of two to five both male and female and talk about what the viewer has just seen proffering approval or tut tutting less than approval so the viewer herself can make the appropriate judgment so desired by the broadcaster whose advertisers are paying for it all.
But everyone is in on the act so that in the hours before and in the hours after judgment upon judgment is heaped, sifted, sorted and presented and the comments by the anonymous and non anonymous both are also part of the event. And commenting upon commenters comments both for and against rage hour after hour oft times overlapping with the next set of awards, thundering along in tweets and Facebook postings and whatever else as if there is actual thundering and not the sound of keyboard clicks. Did I mention that these ceremonies are accompanied by so much snark that it is impossible to hear one honest expression?
And why is everyone in on the act. It's cold out? Nothing to do? There is a need to be heard? The human psyche likes to root for favorite things? Well it's that last thing rooting for something that I think is the crux of what I am trying to say. Because it's not just the awards ceremonies going on for this window of time, but every season seems to bring some kind of award need. Let's examine sports, for example.
We are in the process of finishing up the college football awards. The "fifty" odd bowl games if you tried to watch them all and each with a rooting interest on your part might just drive you mad. Except everything is already decided for the big one in a week or so. The endless sports interview programs. More broadcaster commenters commenting. The secret knowledge that you, yes you, know for sure how the win will be achieved. And you fearlessly comment yourself on these matters. And then there's the thundering keyboard clicks of the Twitter and the Facebook.
This week the MLB hall of fame nominees are in and thus much speculation about who will be awarded the honors are being bandied about with associated like and dislikes not to mention statistics gleaned from a myriad of sources.
Now the professional NFL awards games have begun and it will roll in like a gathering storm and ultimately spin about like a cyclone and end in a hoopla of everything I've just said. And on and on and on. March madness. NBA finals. The NHL. Then baseball. Ultimately everything ends with an award. Or maybe it ends with turned over cars, fires, shootings and arrests.
And then we start all over again.
And did I leave out politics? Tsk tsk. The Presidential race awards are coming up in less than two years and so far we've had a few teasers to get our juices flowing or our tweets tweeting and our Facebooks defacing in those moments when we're not engaged in the other associated award shows and events.
And of course we do have liberal/conservative endless debates that never end, never provide an award and ultimately never have a result. Yet there we are rooting for one POV or the other. Yes there we are once again rooting for something.
What is this fundamental need that we who do not directly participate in these endless games and shows and presidential elections (remember that little thing called the electoral college?) must glean from them some kind of joy or thrill as if the award itself is a badge we wear? Is the award itself on our mantle? Because our candidate has won does that mean we are now in control? Do we have that Super Bowl ring? That player who has five World Series rings are those rings ours too just because we rooted for the player?
What is this "rooting?" Wishful thinking made real for the moment? The fear of being by oneself with one's thoughts? The worries and concerns that up till now everything you've done is wrong? Your death. . .which will come? Maybe death can be postponed while you root? Or maybe we're just looking for a fight. Or maybe we just want to say: nyah nyah I'm better than you, you who rooted for a loser. I rooted for the winner.
Oh fan. Oh fanatic, contemporary life has come down to this: either we're the lonely man/woman in the desert raising our fist and cursing the stars or we're the sideline chorus egging on the performers. In every case we suffer for our inauthenticity. We have lost all meaning and our own true experiences are nothing.
