A few weeks ago I had the afternoon of Sara: The 49ers were playing the Saints, I bought a DiGiorno pizza, a six pack of Snow Day by New Belgium Brewery, and I had a Saturday night off. All the ingredients were there for a perfect evening, so I settled in to the couch ready to cheer on my team.
For those of you who watched the game, or saw the highlights, know what a crazy win the Niners pulled off. When I came into work the next day, my co-workers were excited to talk about the miraculous win.
“Vernon Davis is my hero!” I said. “We’ve definitely got the talent to go to the Super Bowl.”
This is where my manager Chad (who only watches tennis) interjected: “Why are you using “we?” It’s not like you played in the game last night.”
All season long, he’s corrected me on using the first person narrative when rehashing events on Sundays. For some reason, I’ve had a really hard time adjusting my speech. I’ll catch myself halfway through a sentence and disjointedly redirect my narrative back to third person. After being harassed for 17 weeks during the regular season, one would think this wouldn’t be a problem and more.
But it still is. After the game last week against the Giants, I still find myself saying “we were soooooo close,” and “this was our year.” And why is that? Is it because of my personal history with team sports, or the collective mindset that comes along when rooting for your team?
The closest explanation I could find for my behavior is what experts call deindividuation, which is “the process by which group members become less aware of themselves as individuals and less concerned about being socially evaluated.” Sociologists have used this to describe rioting after games, behavior in a sports venue, and the lack of social constraints occur during some trash talking sessions.
Even though I found many possibilities, I don’t think I can ultimately answer why I use the narrative I do. All can do is hope things will turn out differently for the 49ers and me next season.
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