A very subjective look into AWFC

I don’t watch them often but depending on my mood, the day or the result, I will watch some of the fan reaction videos. I’m talking about ones NOT involving Arsenal, but only men’s squad matches from say Spurs. To be clear I don’t even know of AWFC fan reaction videos, or any for women’s football for that matter.

Also, I’ll preface this by saying I have never, ever seen any of these videos from my Arsenal friends and thought the same thing I think about other clubs, which I’m gonna explain in a second. Albert Umoh and James Johnstone for example to amazing watch alongs and they are just great people.

For those of you that don’t know, there’s a term in German called schadenfreude: The experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, pain, or humiliation of another. It is a borrowed word from German; the English word for it is “epicaricacy”, which originated in the 18th century.

As much as I enjoy the entertainment of it and as much as I feed my ego by knowing/hoping I am not one of those people, there’s something that is truly alarming to me which is the reason why I don’t really watch them too often.

A lot of these men have a real hard time controlling their emotions and I’m sure lots of them punch walls and I am concerned for their partners. The way they behave, how they insult their own players and managers, is appalling.

Anyway, I’m just really happy this isn’t a thing in women’s football. We don’t need that, not now, not ever. The growth of the sport cannot mean the masculinization of it. Anger, insults and uncontrolled physical or emotional responses cannot be part of our game because those things aren’t positive for the players, let alone ourselves as fans.

You can see more and more how the social media landscape in women’s football is becoming toxic, for many different reasons. One of is how sets of fans just love criticizing another set of fans. That’s just boring to me and it gets to tiring after one comment. And don’t get me started on the Lotte/Russo/Toone chants thing. My goodness is that a waste of time for everyone involved.

On to tomorrow… I’m expecting a resounding win which means it’ll be in reality a tight match against a low blocking side. But I am expecting the usual… I want a certain lineup, Jonas does the opposite etc etc etc.

But honestly, I would be shocked if the girls don’t win by 4 goals.

d ❤

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