A briefly manic treatise on Walmart, football, and dumb jokes

Submitted by CarrIsMyHomeboy on

[For the tl;dr crowd:

ABSTRACT:Moral of the story: There are larger fish to fry, man. Why attack a "Walmart Wolverine" when you could attack someone equally vulnerable yet more worth attacking?]

I don't understand the intermittent disdain for and/or laughs at the expense of college football fans that shop at Walmart (Sparty monomania? Are you there? I can smell ya).

So, they shop at Walmart. Why? Because it's convenient; because it's frugally necessary? Both? That's a riot, I'm sure.

I am additionally sure that making fun of these folks is damned easy and comes without much repercussion, especially if done from the unpunchably safe and familiar confines of... whichever sad, isolated island (bereft of women and Scotch and chocolate) that person sits while they self-hatingly beat at their keyboard.

Since I obviously don't get it, I'd like to talk about it. Since, I think it's mean, nonsensical, and ineffective as a joke, I decided to spark a conversation. Ah, the pejorative Walmart Wolverine meme. Here goes nuthin'...

Regarding the Michigan fanbase, for instance, there are multiple sects. The fanbase is diverse. As an **abbreviated** example of this diversity, I give you three groups of Michigan fans cartooned by generalizations that are far from fabricated:

(1) There's a whole mess of lower and lower-middle class fans in the state of Michigan; yeah, in-state primarily. Many of these have not the annual salary to visit Ann Arbor even once in their lives--especially these days. They aren't always intelligent and articulate and complex, but they can surely suprise you at times. They shop at Walmart. They get Michigan gear there. It happens to be cheap and plentiful, in a big maize and blue mountain, even.

The members of this sect watch the games, every one, every minute. They make "Michigan Rah!" youtube videos in which they sit before a webcam. Some of them drink too much during games. That's usually off campus because, again, not infrequently, they've never been able to visit. They never consider rooting for another team. They show up to bowling alleys in rural Michigan wearing Walmart Michigan gear in droves, packing those alleys 80% full of the apparel. They are fans. Often good fans, even. Sometimes not. Sure. But they sure do care. They sure do try.

(2) There are a whole bunch of w[h]ine-and-cheese types, a large concentration of which live in Ann Arbor. They are socialites, yuppies, wannabe socialites, and wannabe yuppies. They have lots of money, or they pretend to have lots of money. They oft resemble Gerald Boflovski in the South Park episode "Smug Alert". These types tend to follow football and attend games for posterity's sake, alone. A palpably large cross-section of them feel that the University of Michigan's possession of a football team (historically an exceptionally successful one) is merely a necessary evil of being an exceptionally successful institution in other areas: graduate study, engineering, biomedical research, art, eclectic mix of cultures and languages on campus and off, etc.

"The University of Chicago had the right idea, but I bet we could quit football even more ostentatiously, yet" probably isn't an uncommon conversation starter. You know(?), that is to say, when the conversation absolutely *has* to involve CFB. Their "tailgates" consist of wine in dainty glasses, wheels of cheese with tiny funny looking silver butter knives, hors d'oeuvres, and discussions of [Dance] coaches, [dermatological creams for ridding under-eye] sacks, and that unbelievable offensive line [uttered by the waitress at the Gandy Dancer that "Obviously, didn't know her place"].

They wear polo shirts and khakis to games in summer and cardigans under pea coats in winter. They stay home when it rains. Oftentimes, they don't even wear school colors citing the difficulty of finding a matching Maize handbag. And if the aforementioned wasn't "fanatic" enough for you: They tell those standing in front of them to sit down--even if they are healthy enough to stand and in their 40s, to boot. If they are older than 40, they ask the ushers to remove the recidivist standers from the premises. Yes, really. Their self-importance is surely fanatical.

(3) There are students, alumni, staff, and faculty of the University of Michigan that don't fall into group 2. They can be exceptionally well or poorly informed regarding Michigan football and the sport of football, generally. They brag too much about their school's academics and their team's history--not too much for themselves, mind you. They just do it too much for the non-Blue-blooded visiting 'others', the likes of whom would like to keep their Chemoreceptor Trigger Zone untriggered, would like to keep down their dollar hot dog--the one for which they waited 15 minutes in line outside the stadium. "Stop with the boasting, and I'll stop with the gagging, thank you very much." But their mouths persevere to fountain off pride, nonetheless.

Those that no longer live in Ann Arbor suck up Saturday satellite TV signals at homes and bars in every city in America, not to mention ones in Istanbul, Johannesburg, Singapore, Santo Domingo, London. Point your finger to a map. They all know what a sling box is, and they are all weary of the day that it becomes their last, unreliable resort for watching football.

Those lucky ones with access to tickets: They tend to be loud and active during games, irrespective of whether or not they know why they are being loud and active during games. They drink from hidden flasks. They wear funny masks. They eat "Popped Maize" and boast uniquely screen-printed t-shirts. Did you know that Tressel drinks wine coolers? He wears Uggz, too, don'tcha know? Well, he does. It was codified on a girl's T-shirt, and she looked worth believing. I've also been informed that Zoltan Mesko is the Space Emperor (Of Space); it's good to have a guy with that kinda cachet on our side.

Regaining focus: This group tosses around a huge, beige, inflatable penis on which is scribbled hilariously & regrettably unwitty phrases. E.g., "Tressel's mom's". They orchestrate an annoyingly complex stadium "wave" that detracts from the game. They astutely follow to the leaderly beat of the unexplainably well distributed 1-cowbell-per-section. All of which help them as they consistently fill the nation's largest stadium. And in so filling that, they regularly over-fill State Street and Hoover for at least one mile in length, well beyond the sidewalks in width. From western porch stairs to eastern porch stairs, more specifically. The number of bushes they trample on this route, in a place named "Arbor", is ironic if not poetic.

They walk beneath 4-story beer bongs, beside a myriad dozens of house parties, and below messages scrawled-on-old-bed-sheets-&-stretched-from-houses'-third-story-windows: Rosenberg punches dolphins. Dooooosh-bag. Sometimes, they trip because there are too many of them in too small a space. They fill that space well, though. They fill it with song, The Victors, dance, The Victors, cheers & illegal public consumption of beers, The Victors, and shoulder-to-shoulder camaraderie/opponent-ribbing on a scale that it is literally impossible for any other college town to replicate (by their virtue of not having the nation's largest stadium and its singularly popular, iconic walkway). Their loyalty and passion and fan turnout hasn't wavered since the mid-60s, and that streak shows no end of stopping. Mostly good-n-great fans are they.

Of these, groups 1 and 3 spend the most time posting on message boards online. There are quality and crappy posters among each group. They mourn the offseason and their weekly moods rise and fall sinusoidally as does the barometer of Michigan football.

Of these, group 2 spends the most time forgetting college football exists--during the offseason, during autumn days not named Saturday, and during those sissy tailgates.

I am quite certain that exactly one of these groups deserves excessive ribbing and mockery. However, that deserving group isn't the graduates who care and try at home and abroad. It isn't the poorest among us who root the most indefatigably for a win should they be unlucky enough that a putative win invariably claims the trophy: Best Three Hours of My Week. It isn't the group that--gasp!--didn't graduate from Michigan because--"No you didn't say that!"--you don't think they can be real fans.

It's the pretentious pricks, damn it!!!!

The pretentious pricks deserve more mocking. How is that not obvious? How can the unethically opportunistic jokers be so oblivious? Why aren't the pretentious pricks the butt of most anti-"culture of Michigan" jokes? Why don't rival fanbases line up for figurative miles for the chance to belittle the sect of the Michigan fan base that is not only the most repulsive to talk to and the most insouciantly aloof to the subject of college football... but also damned idiosynratic--as far as I can tell--to the Michigan fanbase and this fanbase alone? If you want to hit the institution of Michigan football in a soft spot a decrepit spot (like stomping over-ripe banana flesh with a cleat), then hit 'em here.

Besides, I mean, well, duh: Jokers that joke about a fanbase's poorest sect as though it's funny/meaningful are a bit of a joke themselves.

So, yeah: An individual with anti-M aspirations could get a lot out of the practice of better aiming his/her ire and laughs. And there's plenty of each to be had regarding one of these group's exquisitely cheesy whine. That's for damned sure.

[This was long. You probably didn't know.]

MWW6T7

January 11th, 2010 at 6:41 AM ^

Interesting thoughts and a nice post but your title is misleading. It says "briefly" in it. Probably better served as a diary but interesting none the less.

Rasmus

January 11th, 2010 at 8:37 AM ^

I think I'd add, as a sort of corollary to group #1, pretty much anyone who grew up in Michigan as a Wolverine fan, especially in the Detroit-Ann Arbor area, regardless of class. They're the most diehard of all. When you're a fan as a kid, the roots run deep* -- the players are mythic heroes in a way that just doesn't happen when you're older.

* This often extends to the children of group #2, much to their parents' horror!

buckley

January 11th, 2010 at 9:27 AM ^

Anybody ever seen one? We talk like they exist, but I've never been witness to one as described here. I have seen imported beer and Zingerman's sandwich tailgates -- would this fall into Group #2?

A Case of Blue

January 11th, 2010 at 11:38 PM ^

In Wisconsin, not too far from Madison, there's an outdoor theater where they put on a series of plays, all Shakespeare, during the warm months. For obvious reasons, it's kind of an intellectual (read: sometimes geeky) crowd to begin with.

Before the evening performances, it's not uncommon to bring a picnic. When I was last there with my family, we sat next to a table of academic-types (and I did humanities grad school, so I know my academics). They had brought organic marzipan and Kashi crackers to snack on and a phone-book-sized copy of The Complete Shakespeare to follow along with.

I think they had wine, so I'm considering that a tailgate.

loosekanen

January 11th, 2010 at 9:55 AM ^

Should have tl;dr immediately but I actually got into it. I, for one, am all for the school being allowed to take the damn trophy wherever they want a la the Stanley Cup. If Bama wants to parade the damn thing around at Wal Mart (or sell a clause to Dr Pepper that states they can) good for them. Some other ideas for trophy distribution if won:

USC: Could cut a hole in the bottom of the trophy whereupon fans that are wannabe agents could slip large checks to fund star recruits' hangers-on with all kinds of amenities.

Texas Tech: Could lock the trophy away in a broom closet and then tell the fan base that the trophy had a sense of entitlement with the media clearly against everything the honest decision makers stood for.

Florida: Urban could take it to the beach with him daily during his "sabbatical" whereupon he makes dozens of daily recruiting calls while sipping fruity girl beverages until the sun goes down

Michigan St: Players ritualistically pray to the trophy before hauling it into dorm hallways rife with multicultural freshman interest groups and using it to smother any student dumb enough not to be caged in their room like an animal... brah.

Make your own! It's fun!

BlueVoix

January 11th, 2010 at 10:08 AM ^

I'm a pretentious prick that is an alumnus. But I post on mgoblog and get drunk at games! I look down upon other people. But I help the wave when the game is in hand and threw tailgate house parties!

Oh noes, I think I broke the system.

NRK

January 11th, 2010 at 1:34 PM ^

I enjoyed the diary, but I think there's definitely some groups missing:

I consider myself a (very) knowledgeable football fan, and pretentious. I think a lot of younger alumni (such as myself) probably have a bit of the pretentiousness found in #2 but coupled with spots of the #3.

And Zingermans is good. But it's not essential. Especially when I dont feel like spending $40 for two sandwiches. Beers are good if they're good, who cares where they are from (I get the point).

Just stay the F away from cheesewheel. Honestly, has anyone EVER seen a cheesewheel at a tailgate?

Tacopants

January 11th, 2010 at 1:48 PM ^

Hello: generic oversimplified stereotypes.

If you're a fan of #1, instead of Wal-Mart go to a Meijer or K-mart. Support your local(ish) companies that treat their employees marginally better than Wal-Mart!

Speaking of which, having moved out of Michigan, not having a Meijer is a serious annoyance.

clarkiefromcanada

January 11th, 2010 at 1:55 PM ^

This was an interesting diary; I think your categorizations are pretty expansive. I suspect the fanbase is remarkably fragmented and likely impossible to categorize. That said,I for one was remarkably troubled you didn't put in group 4 which is "obsessive angry Canadian based fan".

Despite my thinking it is impossible to categorize the fanbase I am going to give it a shot, anyway. My sense is that there are two distinct groups in the fanbase who both donate money (well, some anyway), both groups buy merchandise (various outlets) and both support the team (in their own way).

Group A - Internet Savvy fan (see MgoBlog crowd)

Group B- Mainstream Media/MGoBlue/Freep Informed fan

The MgoBlog crowd is by far the most informed of the Group A fans linking to pretty much all of the rest of the Internet savvy fans. This group is more reasoned and less over the top than the GBW crowd also. We (because I fit here) tend to obsess over minutiae in recruiting, scheduling, coaching, game planning/execution (no ufr at the freep) and all things Michigan more generally. For what it's worth the younger generation is very very connected, I find.

The second group is the Mainstream Media informed crowd who might surf the internet to look at MGoBlue or ESPN but tends to get their analysis from the various talking heads out there. This group is older, tend to always sit in front of me with nice seat pads and a couple of attractive blankets (not maize or blue, mind you). This group reads Rosenberg and discusses his material during games. They yell at the 18 year olds, the play calling and know crap all about recruiting (the news of it comes every February in the freep). This group believes it is their god given right to win every game 13 to 10, 3 yards and a cloud of dust and disdain the dreadlocks (a lot). They also leave early for any reason.

As an informed Internet fan it is difficult to mix with the uninformed Freep/MGoBlue/Talking Head ESPN followers because it's like every thing they say is two weeks old to you. This is my experience.

CRex

January 11th, 2010 at 2:53 PM ^

What I don't understand is the intermittent disdain and/or laughs at the expense of those who shop at the Ann Arbor Meijer stores. For example the Carpenter Road Meijers is often mocked as the low class Meijer.

I assume most of the people that shop there are denizens of Ypsi, frugal out of necessity and lured there by the convenience of having a tanning salon and a nail salon on that little second floor annex. Really it's weird that Meijer has that. I assume that the Carpenter Road Meijer has a veritable treasure trove of the goods favored by the local denizens: Mad Dog 20/20, Wild Turkey, Colt 45s and a guy parked over by the McDonalds dealing rock. The pejorative “Eastern Michigan Student Coming To Our Parties, Drinking Our Beer and Trying To Pick Up A Sugar Momma” comes to mind. Yeah Eagles, show up wearing your green, we’ll just assume you’re a Sparty and proceed based on that assumption. You ever had an autographed Jack Johnson stick shoved where the sun don’t shine? Kill Jack Kill!

Regarding the Meijer shopping crowd, the fan base is diverse. As an abbreviated example of this diversity, I give you three groups of Meijer shoppers cartooned by generalizations that are far from fabricated.

1). There’s a whole mess of lower and lower middle class fans in the State of Michigan. No wait, we’re hovering around 20% unemployment, so by whole mess we mean at least 1/5 of the state. These days if you’re getting 30 hours of work per week you be loaded by our standards. Many of these people lack the annual salary to own a car not made in the 80s (yet oddly can afford rims that exceed 20 inches in diameter and a sound system audible in Toledo). They aren’t always intelligent and articulate and complex, but they can surprise you at times. Like right after you use an ATM on South U or Forest, then they’ll surprise the fuck out of you (plus cellphone, wallet and mp3 player). Or like that guy running around robbing student housing with a shotgun. Seriously, that would only happen in Ann Arbor. Try that shit up at East Lansing the football team will roll up on you, but I digress. They shop at the Carpenter Road Meijer. They get booze there, it happens to be cheap and plentiful. It dulls the pain of the government owning two of the Big 3, the Lions, the Wolverines and the fact that they messed up their rental rims when they slid in a curb last time it snowed. They never consider shopping at different Meijer. They can’t afford that fancy GPS to find one of them. They show up to urban and semi-urban clubs wearing fake jewelry they bought at the Carpenter Road Meijer. Sometimes they’re not good people, sometimes they let their kids run around Meijer screaming, but they try.

2). There are a whole bunch of whine and cheese types, a large concentration of which live in Ann Arbor. They couldn’t tell you where the hell a Meijer is. They wouldn’t be caught dead in anything lower class than a Busch’s. That one time Busch’s closed and they had to go to Krogers (they say it Kro-Jeh) to get some wine and cheese they moved through the aisles commando style, terrified someone would recognize them. When they finally hit the U-Scan they panicked, having no idea what do when there isn’t some lower class drone there to bag their groceries. As the line of normal people queued up behind them, they broke out into a sweat, fumbling with their bottle of St. Julian, frantically hitting buttons on U-Scan until it started flashing and switched over to Spanish. Worst moment in their lives, at least since they got rejected from all those Ivy League grad schools. Additionally their little electric cars lack the range to reach any of the local Meijer stores. My godfather was one of these people, really. He worked for the University, fairly high up and has since retired to New England. I’m sitting there over the holidays, he has a fire going, a big hairy dog and his New England saltbox home looks like it was ordered straight out of an LL Bean warehouse. As we were drinking and watching football, he was lamenting how the state of Michigan was banning affirmative action, how it was key to the University’s goal and all that. Later in the night he advised me only to shop at Plum Market, because “the prices keep the riffraff out”. I was tempted to ask if that was the philosophy behind the Michigan out of state tuition as well.

3). There are students, alumni, staff and faculty. Well not faculty, they make grad students do their shopping, but anyways, that don’t fall in to Group 2. A lot of the staff are really either poorly paid maintenance workers (Maria, our janitor in South Quad was grossly underpaid considering the amount of vomit she had to clean up on the average Sunday morning) or rich little snotty assholes. So they’retty pretty much a Group 1 or a Group 2. The alumni has mostly gotten out of the state because they need a job, so they really aren’t around to shop at Meijer. This just leaves the students. They can be exceptionally well or poorly informed regarding the local Meijer stores. For example many students have no idea about the Meijer at Zeeb Road and I-94 (my personal favorite) or the times you cannot buy liquor (fuck you Sunday mornings, I need my whiskey before the Lions come on). The students brag too much about their ability to mainline ramen or the fact they have a car and can actually drive to Meijer. They’re terrified of the Carpenter Road Meijer because they’ve never seen so many minorities before and it scares them. Rather they prefer the Meijer out behind Briarwood. You have a Target and one of the best Japanese food stores across the street (the Japanese food store is in the plaza to the south of the Target). They suck up beer like it is going out of style. They all know what Natty Ice and how cheap it is as Meijer and dread the day it becomes their last resort. They also have some Zima or Schmirnoff Ice hidden away in their fridge, but they’ll claim it just for their female friends (unless of course they are female). When they shop at Meijer they only have to go down two aisles, beer and Ramen baby, then straight to the U-Scan.
The question is who do we mock though? First off Group 1 is out. They’re packing heat man and have nothing to lose. Just avoid eye contact and keep walking man. Keep walking. We’re so going to the other Meijer next time.

The second group is already mocked. They’re our professors, our snooty academic advisers, those assholes who need the fancy box seats at the Big House, thus destroying Fielding Yost’s original vision of the stadium. When Bo and Yost rise up, those people will be the first up against the wall in the glorious revolt (see the WLA for details). The third group is students, dirt poor, stressed out from class and reduced to the point of hooking up with anything after they whiffed their way down the bar skank batting order. Their lives are already terrible, why heap more abuse on them?

So who we abuse? The answer is simple, me. Why? I live over on the east side of Ann Arbor, yet I shop at the Jackson Meijer (Zeeb & I-94). Why? Because I love the sweet, sweet music that is my eight cylinder engine. Yes, I’m a car whore, fair game people, bring it! I tried to beer once at the Carpenter Road Meijer and they refused to accept my out of state ID. So now I shop at the other one, in part out of an angry and impotent boycott of the east side Meijer and in part because I love speeding down I-94. Great stress reliever, aside from state troop that lurks in the 3 lane section. So what it all comes down is we at Wolverine fans need to come together and mock people who chose a Meijer simply because it lets them spend 10 minutes driving on the highway.

Thank and you and may the spirit of Bo bless you all!

RayIsaac91

January 11th, 2010 at 6:16 PM ^

My wife and I exited Yellowstone into Montana last April and stopped at a local store. There they were, in their own aisle display, the last Zimas on earth?

Edit: The town didn't look like it would have a lot of Zima drinkers (NTTIAWWT), so it could be that the local store received a shipment and couldn't sell them. Since the Zimas were on sale, they may have been bumping up against the expiration date. (Wiki claims Miller/Coors stopped production in October of 2008.)

Ernis

January 11th, 2010 at 2:56 PM ^

First off, I just want to say, man. That was beautiful. Anyway...

The simple answer as to why the Type 2 fan is not often the butt of mockery seems twofold:

1) they are less visible
2) they throw a lot of money at the athletic department

Such is life. A more satisfying, but somewhat dubious answer can be derived from this statement:

Jokers that joke about a fanbase's poorest sect as though it's funny/meaningful are a bit of a joke themselves.

Indeed, there is no need to mock the snooty Type 2 fans because their very attitude is itself a joke; thus, to mock them would be redundant. Right?

Jinxed

January 11th, 2010 at 9:29 PM ^

Yeah.. ummm.. many of the people in the 2nd type that you describe have given a lot more to the university than your typical "type 1" fans. Specially the ones that came from outside the state.

If it wasn't because of the $ coming from outside the state of Michigan, the university would have gone down with the state a long long time ago.

Mock them all you want, but they're a huge part of the reason the University you love but apparently never attended is still afloat.

CarrIsMyHomeboy

January 12th, 2010 at 1:52 AM ^

I'm not sure of the context I miscontexted in my original post. However, I should set the record straight should anyone actually care:

I graduated in 2006; LSA, B.S.: (1) Cellular & Molecular Biology, (2) Political Science. Christiane Amanpour delivered my class's commencement speech, and the stadium was under construction all the while (the *presumably* now complete bleacher restoration project--the sort of presumptuous estimate that is unlikely to make me look silly, unlikely to contribute to my self-imposed rhetorical stultification of sorts).

Where else could I have learned to write so well? Where else could I have nurtured a passion for supporting he who finds it difficult to support himself? Where else could I have captured those game day details, only to lucidly replay them in my mind with notable frequency until, one day, that brand of reverie found me punching this keyboard so as to uniquely tie together all of this paragraph's rhetorical interrogatives?

To bring the story up to date: I don't live in Michigan any longer, which is a little regrettable. I go to PSU, now, in Hershey, PA as a MD/PhD student. PSUCOM has provided me a pretty wicked adventure, so far. An adventure for which I owe my alma mater, my academic mother, much appreciation.

[When I began writing this, I had zero aspirations of dickishness. I'm not sure of the mental mechanism by which some of those dickish phrases snuck themselves onto this LCD screen. My apologies, I guess.]

CRex

January 12th, 2010 at 9:33 AM ^

PSU student? No wonder you come off as dickish these days (sarcasm).

I grew about 40 mins from Hershey and my mother is getting treated there for cancer. You guys do good work. Oh and I also have a PoliSci degree (plus something else so I'm actually employable). How's life in the hell that is PA and its state controlled booze supply?

EGD

January 12th, 2010 at 6:44 PM ^

as my personal favorite thread ever on MGoBlog.

For the record, I preferred the Carpenter Rd. Meijer when I lived in A2. I second the remarks by those who disdain Wal-Mart's sustained assault on virtually every form of social justice, but yeah, Meijer is probably just as bad.

And the Japanese grocery store on Ann Arbor-Saline Road is awesome.