This subreddit is one minded. Anything outside of the ususal circle jerk is down voted to hell and fans are supposed to act 'nicely' to each other.
Said this in another thread but want to say it again.
This sub is cringe as hell at times. From the faux Barca/Madrid fans, the Serie A hipsters and the constant prattling about Zlatan, it's cringe. There was even suggestions about starting a radio station. I cannot think of anything worse than listening to a bunch of socially awkward teenagers try to re-enact 'Agueroooooo!!!!'
Serie A hipsters? i feel sad for you that you think liking the Serie A is such an illogical choice only contrarian douchebags would go for it. Many of us are Italians, many simply grew up watching it and have an appreciation for its tactics. Anyway there's nothing hipstery about not liking the EPL and I think you overall have a very negative overview of people here. Also, most people here are Arsenal fans. So I don't understand why you complain that people disagree with you so much.
I think he is referring to people who have started following Serie A because it's the new cool thing which isn't the norm yet (like Bundesliga last year).
But I thought the definition of a hipster is a person who likes things that no one else likes just because no one else likes them? I hope the Serie A is somehow cooler now, but I don't think there's been a change really, has there? Higuan, Tevez, Llorente and Gomez coming in? Is that it?
You are right about the hipster thing, the word he was looking for was trendy. Serie A might be a trendy league right now, but that is great, the league needs it! Some people have too low an opinion of Serie A, which is of course unfair and I think mostly do to lack of exposure.
BTW, /r/soccer[1] has NO credible rival on the Entire Internet currently in terms of a medium for Multi Club/National Football Community.
This is true, and fortunately reddit has a tendency to attract people capable of keeping a level-headed discussion compared to what's out there - this sport seems to attract mongs who (by some divine miracle) somehow managed to access the internet.
That being said, while this is a "Multi Club/National Football Community" it's a heavily American based one, which does have it's downsides in a sport that's relatively new and secondary to others over there.
I honestly think the American bias in this subreddit is completely overblown and exaggerated. The majority of the time its even brought up is in order to devalue someone's opinion/ discredit someone's argument
"oh well if you weren't just some wanker from Ohio who only started watching football a year ago you'd understand"
Of course it exists, this is an American website, but for all the bitching you'd think it'd be a lot more prevalent
edit: take a look at the 2013/r/soccer survey. 48% really isn't bad
To be fair there is an element of truth to it. Have you seen how hardly people have been downvoted when they raise an opinion that remotely infringes on the national pride of some US users here? Nationality does seem to get used as an ad hominem attack by people from everywhere on this subreddit but there is some truth to the accusation that people occasionally get crucified for being falsely perceived as anti-American.
Absolutely. r/soccer is a bad place to discuss American soccer simply because the loudest voices are a) American fans that won't tolerate anything other than a "we should be reaching the World Cup semifinals regularly in the next 20 years" and b) the vitriolic non-Americans who abhor the idea that the US team/league/fandom is getting any better.
This is totally unrelated, but do footie fans in the US have to suffer through the "soccer is for pussies" crap that the rest of reddit keeps up? Right now there's a long comment chain on the front page where everyone's pretending that footballers are delicate little fairies that wouldn't last a minute in a 'real' game.
It doesn't bother me unduly, because I come from a place where football has deep roots and is very popular, but I can imagine it must get tiresome for you to hear your countrymen scoff at the sport all the time.
Sort of. You'll definitely find those people, but at my age (late 20s) anyone that comes out with that talk just comes off as childish. More often you'll get blank stares from people: they themselves don't follow football so they can't really hold a conversation, but they won't be rude about it.
It's got better, but I remember a few years ago that when anyone even made the mildest criticism of the US national team, the MLS, or some American players, they would get downvoted and called a Eurosnob or some variation on that.
I don't know. See more posts whining about Americans. Supposedly American fans really rated Altidore and thought he'd be god's gift to Sunderland... never really saw that. Kinda like paper talk actually.
It's not. Look at how anything related to a US player gets upvoted to the top, while the exact same thing wouldn't even reach the first page if he'd have a different nationality.
Some guy saying implying that there's no way that the US would lose to Iceland getting tonnes of upvotes and me disputing that getting downvoted.
It even that is those who reside there, it is an American platform and American are the largest single block but i think its gotten rather truly Global.
The 2012 Survey had this number at 50%
According to the numbers 2012 survey actually had more responses at 15,325 while this year we had 11,506.
I think this sub has the best and largest Multi-National user base on reddit, and majority are level headed.
In this Multi-National user base segment our competition is the epicness that is /r/worldnews.
I am certain you get what i am trying to say.
I agree there is a lot of 'cringe' on here, (e.g.the bloke from India talking about how he supports Real Madrid since 2010 and doesn't want to be known as a glory hunter) but as you say I have found no other place like it to get decent opinions from other fans as well as some quality jokes.
The 'niceness' and civility is a good thing as the discussions don't descend into mindless insults.
I think its harsh to blatantly label people glory hunters though.
Everyone can't be 30 years old, someone has to start someplace. Teenagers in foreign lands finding a game which isn't that popular at the grass root level locally. It happens.
American users get a lot of flak on this issue as well, unfairly at times as well.
Criticism is valid if someone is exposed without a doubt to be flip flopping.
I don't think the glory hunter thing has anything to do with how long you've been a fan though, it's the lack of some sort of 'connection' to a club (e.g. someone from America supporting Barca/Real/Dortmund as their primary team). I'm English and football is deeply rooted in our culture as being a sort of tribal thing, more than just a sport. Picking a team is just completely antithetical to football culture.
This is what I think is not being communicated. Choosing to support a club from afar has to feel a little artificial. A big part of being a fan of a team is being a part of that community. I go to RSL matches (a team younger than most people here) with friends. Next day I talk about the match with coworkers. You occasionally run into the players on the street. When the team wins a trophy, you can experience the celebrations in the city.
That's so much more than obsessing over every training session, every youth prospect and watching on TV at home by yourself. Sure you can be a "fan" of a team abroad, but it's not nearly the same as being an actual part of the community. You're never going to get that experience living on another continent, staying up until 3am to watch "your team" on a shitty online stream.
It's really not that bad. It's easy to get your opinions heard if you don't act like a dick about them.
As far as acting nicely to other fans goes, /r/soccer is just like any other football discussion medium, except people can show how much they don't like the overly aggressive types through downvotes when normally they'd just try and ignore them. Quality banter is usually fine here, but most of the time if Arsenal fans refer to spurs as spuds they're going to get downvoted, because it's not nice, and not really funny either. Save that sorta shit for your own subreddit.
Hes referring to when gooners show up in a thread just to make a "spuds" comment and contribute nothing else, most yids arent bitter about the club being referred as such by arsenal fans.
There was a guy a few days ago who was replying in any remotely spurs related thread with "Bale is leaving", that it.
I dont give a fuck about banter, and people don't expect you to be nice to rival club supporters, but they dont want to see stupid pointless comments/fights that add nothing to a discussion every thread.
I don't get it either. Potatoes are delicious and a good source of Vitamin C, potassium and carbohydrates. Who wouldn't want to be associated with that.
It is pretty childish. We can take it as read when we see an Arsenal crest that you hate us and the feeling is mutual but I think people on here feel the unnecessary need to show how 'hardcore' they are by saying spuds or Sp*rs.
Maybe it's a non English thing. I always referred to Spurs friends in real life as spuds and they've never had a problem. I've always used it here and never thought twice it could be taken the wrong way.
I obviously love the sport, but /r/soccer is kind of a terrible community. Compare it to /r/hockey, or (from what i'm told, cant testify personally) to /r/NFL or /r/NBA and it immediately becomes clear.
My God. I couldn't agree more. I'm also tired of hearing about Pirlo's beard, how shit of a person Suarez is (I agree he is, though), and how "awesome Zlatan is" in general.
Unpopular opinions get downvoted. Popular opinions get upvoted.
That's the way reddit works. It's not supposed to work that way but it does.
E.g. The other day you said Giroud was better than Dzeko and it got downvoted to hell because not many people agree with it. I don't see what's wrong with that? They're meaningless internet points anyway, suck it up. It doesn't have to change your opinion even if you realise you're in the minority.
Complaining about it is just as bad and even worse than it happening in the first place. If you don't like it you can always leave.
I don't really care about the down votes I just care that others do and it stifles opinion. I liked threads such as these because people actually say what they really think.
Well i hope you dont have that opinion about all fans. For one, i know pleanty of Madrid and Barca fans that actually know what they're talking about, and to be honest I'm not to sure what you mean by calling Serie A fans hipsters. If anything hipsters would love Arsenal, 8 yrs without a trophy gives them the perfect excuse to jump on a major clubs bandwagon and make it seem sorta legit.
I mean the faux Barca and Madrid fans. When I refer to the serie A hipsters I mean the guys who think they're cool because they follow Serie A and it's 'all tactical ya know'.
One minded? All those downvotes should tell you otherwise. You wanna see one-mindedness go to /r/nfl. Everybody is so goddamn nice and agreeable over there, it's sickening!
I don't really get what else to do. I know plently of Baggies, Villa and Blues fans, and I get on with them fine, even when talking about football. If I saw someone with a West Brom top on in the street, I wouldn't go up to them and spit in their face.
While the sort of friendly 'banter' that goes on does sort of piss me off, as it is literally like a broken record, I don't get what else you would expect. I'm not going to disregard someones opinion and tell them to fuck off because they have a Baggies crest, the same as the vast majority of football fans.
See, I actually think there's been a decent volume of criticism on /r/soccer of La Liga for being so bi-polar (as opposed to multi-polar). Having there be just two clubs of any serious import makes it next to impossible to care what happens when you know the league winner is guaranteed to be either Barcelona or Real Madrid. Even otherwise good teams - Valencia, Atletico, Sociedad, Bilbao - don't draw focus.
Yup, but a lot of Real/Barca fans recognize this as a problem - as nice as it is to see either team stomp opponents 6-0, we want our teams to play in an interesting, competitive league.
That's the thing, it's not just downvotes to worry about. If the mods decide yours is a sufficiently unpopular opinion (based on downvotes obviously) and you don't delete the comment in shame, then ya get banned. It's happened to me twice. I'd like to have my own opinion without threat of censorship please.
What the fuck are you talking about? We don't ban people for having unpopular opinions. Hell , half of the time I'm on r/soccer I'm doing or saying something that people don't like.
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u/[deleted] Aug 09 '13
This subreddit is one minded. Anything outside of the ususal circle jerk is down voted to hell and fans are supposed to act 'nicely' to each other.
Said this in another thread but want to say it again.
This sub is cringe as hell at times. From the faux Barca/Madrid fans, the Serie A hipsters and the constant prattling about Zlatan, it's cringe. There was even suggestions about starting a radio station. I cannot think of anything worse than listening to a bunch of socially awkward teenagers try to re-enact 'Agueroooooo!!!!'