The Alligator Army Weekly Open Thread, Vol. XCVIII

Am I going to make sure that Volume 100 of the Weekly Open Thread drops to begin 2020? You’d better believe I ... am going to try.

One of the things that isn’t fun about being a sports fan in 2019 is that everything you do for the consumption of more than your own self is subject to the review of the entire Internet. In this way, because schadenfreude has become the coin of the realm, the miseries you suffer are bound to be greater and longer-lasting than the joys are.

This is backwards — and I’m not just saying this because Florida’s losses to Georgia on the field and Florida State on the hardwood are bound to be the kind that linger in the memory as meme-able ones.

My mom is fond of (and has memorized, because that’s what old people did before cable) a poem from Robert Frost called “Happiness Makes Up In Height For What It Lacks In Length.” The poem itself is pretty good, but the title is a thesis I think of a fair bit, because I’ve found it’s largely true.

And in sports, it’s very true. Flags fly forever. The good times are better than the bad times are bad, generally. The mountaintop is a wonderful place to be.

But the introduction of social media and the rise of an interconnected world in which every sorrow is ours to bear and our capacity to combat it does not grow has made for a lot of pain being distributed and redistributed. No one’s joy can exist without shade; Twitter abhors a lit candle.

I hope that changes at some point, that the lives led by those who need to tear others down and be cloud cover rather than a silver lining improve to the point that that practice goes out of vogue.

Until then, though? Catch me with cotton balls in my ears, I guess.

Oh, and I know I’m behind on a bunch of stuff. Catch me catching up over the next couple of days, hopefully.