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Kayfabe and professional sportsPosted: 01/09/2025Yesterday I found myself waiting for my friends at the train station. It was Hannah's Birthday and she had planned for a group of 10 of us to take part in a Sci-Fi themed immersive theatre experience in London. I had arrived at the train station early, I noticed that the station had put up temporary barriers everywhere and the place was humming with activity. Whilst I was brewing ideas about my character, backstory, gestures I might affect, a train pulled into the station completely filled with football fans all wearing the same Brighton & Hove Albion top. I never understood football fans, I never understood what got people that excited, but at that moment seeing the horde of uniformed supporters move from one train to the next I really related to their excitement. Putting on a costume, banding together with your friends and feeling the ecstasy of each milestone achieved. This is exactly the same joy I get from roleplaying with my friends. I feel like people tend to downplay the joy you can get from suspending your disbelief, as it’s “not real” or inconsequential. Crappy films, wrestling, rpg’s are just so much fun if you engage with them as if they are reality. The feelings they can elicit if you let them are very real and hold real weight, so why are they treated so differently to sports? |
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Coming away from the bridge command experience I thought on this again, I had earned a “promotion” to sub-lieutenant in the game, but I knew that that promotion didn’t actually hold any weight. They supposedly track your progression when you come back and play again to give you more immersion, however I am still getting the train home knowing I didn’t actually go to space. I feel like professional sports are really just as fabricated when you break it down, all the promotions and drafts and sales only hold weight because of the importance and reality that people give to those decisions. I couldn’t think of a tangible difference between the two experiences other than when I get the train home I know I didn’t go to space, whereas a sports fan knows that their team is going up in the leagues. |
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At the end of the day, I’d rather have fun playing pretend star trek with my lovely friends than playing pretend with strangers about the consequences of millionaires kicking a ball. |