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tleeaves · 8 months ago

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Folks going "WHAT they made a show about the Fallout franchise?? I've been hearing people say Bethesda messed it up, but I haven't watched it myself, so I'm going to trust the word of other people -- some of which also haven't finished watching it" is driving me insane.

Being a hard core fan of something obviously brings with it a lot of passionate feelings when adaptations come into play. Of course, there's going to be people going "but in 8 episodes of the first ever season they made, they didn't explore Theme C or D, didn't introduce factions E and F and G, and because the source company is notorious for its scams, we and everyone else who's a TRUE fan should hate it".

The Amazon Original series Fallout follows the videogame franchise of the same name. It is a labour of love and you can tell by the attention to detail, the writing, the sets, and YES THE THEMES ARGUE WITH THE WALL. It's clearly fan service. I mean, the very characterisation of Lucy is a deadringer for someone playing a Fallout game for the first time. She embodies the innocent player whose expectations drastically change in a game that breaks your heart over and over again. Of course, she's also the vessel through which we explore a lot of themes, but I'll get to that.

There're some folks arguing that the show retcons the games, and I gotta say... for a website practically built on fandom culture, why are we so violently against the idea of someone basing an adaptation on a franchise that so easily lends itself to new and interesting interpretations? But to be frank, a lot of what AO's Fallout is not that new. We have: naive Vault dweller, sexy traumatised ghoul that people who aren't cowards will thirst over, and pathetic guy from a militaristic faction. We also have: total atomic annihilation, and literally in-world references to the games' lore and worldbuilding constantly (the way I was shaking my sister over seeing Grognark the Barbarian, Sugar Bombs, Cram, Stimpaks, and bags of RadAway was ridiculous). Oh, and the Red Rocket?? Best pal Dogmeat? I'm definitely outing myself as specifically a Fallout 4 player, but that's not the point you should be taking away from this.

The details, the references, and the new characters -- this show is practically SCREAMING "hey look, we did this for the fans, we hope you love it as much as we do". Who cares that the characters are new, they still hold the essence of ones we used to know! And they're still interesting, so goddamn bloody interesting. Their arcs mean so much to the story, and they're told in a genuinely intriguing way. This isn't just any videogame adaptation, this was gold. This sits near Netflix's Arcane: League of Legends level in videogame adaptation. Both series create new plots out of familiar worlds.

Of course, those who've done the work have already figured out AO's Fallout is not a retcon anyway. But even if it was, that shouldn't take away from the fact that this show is actually good. Not even just good, it's great.

Were some references a little shoe-horned in to the themes by the end of the show, such as with "War never changes"? Yes, I thought so. But I love how even with a new plot and characters, they're actually still exploring the same themes and staying true to the games. I've seen folks argue otherwise, but I truly disagree. The way capitalism poisons our world, represented primarily through The American Dream and the atomic age of the 45-50s that promoted the nuclear family dynamic -- it's there. If you think it's glorifying it by leaning so heavily into in the adaptation, I feel like you're not seeing it from the right angle. It's like saying Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck glorifies the American Dream, when both this book and the Fallout franchise are criticisms of it. If you think about it, the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout is a graveyard to the American Dream. This criticism comes from the plots that are built into every Fallout story that I know of. The Vaults are literally constructed to be their own horror story just by their mere existence, what they stand for, what happens in each of them. The whole entire show is about the preservation of the wrong things leading to fucked up worlds and people. The missions of the Vaults are time and again proven to be fruitless, unethical, plain wrong. Lucy is our brainwashed character who believed in the veritable cult she lived in before she found out the truth.

So then consider the Brotherhood of Steel. I really don't think it exists in the story to glorify the military. We see just how much the Brotherhood has brainwashed people like Max (also, anything ominously named something like "the Brotherhood" should raise eyebrows). Personally, I don't like Max, but I am intrigued by his characterisation. I thought the end of his arc was rushed the way he "came good" basically, but [SPOILERS] having him embraced as a knight in the Brotherhood at the end against his will -- finally getting something he always wanted -- and him grimly accepting it from all that we can tell? Him having that destiny forced upon him now that he's swaying? After he defected? If his storyline is meant to be a tragedy, it wouldn't surprise me, because Fallout is rife with tragedies anyway. And a tragedy would also be a criticism of the military. That's what Max's entire arc is. It goes from the microcosm focusing on the cycle of bullying between soldiers to the macro-environment where Max is being forced to continue a cycle of violence against humanity he doesn't want to anymore because a world driven to extremes forces him to choose it to survive (not to mention what a cult and no family would do to his psyche). Let's not forget what the Brotherhood's rules are: humankind is supreme. Mutants, ghouls, synths, and robots are abominations to be hated and destroyed. If you can't draw the parallels to the real world, you need to retake history and literature classes. The Brotherhood is also about preserving the wrong things, like the Vaults (like the Enclave, really). They just came about through different method. The Enclave is capitalism and twisted greed in a world where money barely exists anymore. The Brotherhood is, well, fascism plain and simple.

Are these the only factions in the Fallout franchise? Hell no. But if you're mad about that -- that they're the main ones explored, apart from the NCR -- I think you're missing the point. These themes, these reminders, are highly relevant in the current climate. In fact, I almost think they always will be relevant unless we undergo drastic change. On the surface-level, Fallout seems like the American ideal complete with guns blazing that guys in their basements jerk off to. Under that surface, is a mind-fuck story about almost the entire opposite: it's a deconstruction of American ideals that are held so closely by some, and the way that key notion of freedom gets twisted, and you're shooting a guy in-game because it's more merciful than what the world had in store for him.

I mean, the ghoul's a fucking cowboy from the wild west character he used to play in Hollywood glam and his wife was one of the people who helped blow up America in the name of capitalism and "peace". There are so many layers of this to explore, I'd need several days to try and keep track and go through it all.

The Amazon Prime show is a testament to the Fallout franchise. The message, the themes? They were not messed up or muddled or anything of the sort, in my opinion.

As for Todd Howard, that Bethesda guy, I'm sure there's perfectly valid reasons to hate him. I mean, I've hated people for a lot less valid reasons, and that's valid. We all got our feelings. But the show is about more than just him. My advice is to keep that in mind when you're judging it.

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battleangel · 2 months ago

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Hallucinatory & Dreamlike: Problematizing the Balletic Violence in the NFL & NCAA

I have never been as emotionally affected by any piece of media whether it be a film, novel, album, television show, documentary or otherwise as I have by a recent video I just viewed by former NFL lineman Jared Odrick entitled “Am I Crazy? – Damar Hamlin Prelude”.

Please, give it a watch as it is only 3 and a half minutes long.

Jared’s description of the prelude is as follows:

“Why are we so willing to ‘live & die by the games we play’….but then so quickly abandon the game’s importance when someone’s life is threatened? What is the value of making heroes out of players if we know they’re just playing a game that doesn’t really matter? Well - I’d argue that it does matter. Whenever a tragedy like this happens in #football, I take it as an opportunity to reflect on my current #CTE investigation. A tragic event like this helps us all reassess value, tone & messaging when trying to connect with football families looking for answers. I’ve asked myself a lot of questions since leaving football behind. Flying private with foes, in emergency rooms with friends - but most recently, sitting silent in my house watching a heart attack on National TV…”Am I giving consideration to all the various elements at play? Risk. Disease. Resilience. And the acceptance of Death.” Sometimes during a tragedy like this, when very little information is being released - but even less medical information…pop-media struggles to assess the underlying meaning of football….”What are we doing & why?”

Certainly, with Tua suffering yet another concussion which caused yet another fencing response resulting in him having to be stretchered off the field after a tackle by Damar Hamlin, who we just saw die live on our TV sets on Monday Night Football two seasons ago, and this is Tua's fifth concussion in as many seasons — two of which Tua played through just last season — and Tua's obstinate refusal to even consider retirement and, far from it, him standing at attention on the sidelines during the entire Dolphins game this past Sunday — I'm sure what Tua's concussed brain needed was NOT a stadium full of 70k screaming fans, bright lights, constant noise but who cares, right?

Tua is there to captain his troops.

And now with Brett Favre announcing his Parkinson's diagnosis at 54 which he testified in front of Congress today he believes was caused by the hundreds, and very likely, thousands of concussions he suffered during his NFL career.

And the NFL's own actuaries confirming in a study that they predict that 1/3 of NFL players will be diagnosed with a neurological condition or disorder — that is NINETEEN TIMES the average of non-NFL players.

And finally, a study was released yesterday that found that 1/3 of former NFL players believe that they have CTE.

I wanted to ask — what does the violence we see every Saturday & Sunday mean?

What happens if we problematize the balletic violence we are presented by the NFL & NCAA every single weekend?

What is it about the violence in football that is so alluring, so balletic, so much like a dark ballet or opera?

What is it about the violence, bodies in motion, athleticism, feats of courage, physicality, athletic grace that is so magnetic, exhilarating, cathartic, devastating, addictive, atavistic & mythological?

How might we filter that violence through a different lens than what the NCAA & NFL presents it as and see it for what it truly is?

I have always felt that the moment of a football tackle — a hit — was devouring.

In Josh Begley's "Field of Vision: Concussion Protocol" montage of every concussion that occurred during the 2017 to 2018 NFL season slowed down and in reverse, Josh said in an interview with The Intercept that he felt that the moment that a concussion occurs is "devouring", however, I've always felt that the so-called "normal" and routine everyday violence in football — the typical tackles inherent in football itself — were devouring, violent, brutalistic, unrelenting, merciless and inhumane.

As you may imagine in our football obsessed society, my protestations of the brutalistic violence inherent in football itself were dismissed as hypersensitivity.

Despite this, I always felt that the "normal" tackles often occurring in the open field at 20 to 25+ mph with human beings literally smashing and crashing into one another at full speed was inhumane no matter how much the violence was normalized during every broadcast of every game, sanitized by the network's presentation, sanctioned by the overly legalistic rules of the game and embraced, rationalized, handwaved, justified & eye rolled away by the ever rabid and bloodlusting fans.

I have done extensive research on tackle football, concussions, brain damage, CTE, neurological conditions & disorders (Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia & ALS), chronic pain, opioid addiction, early deaths, suicides, mental & physical trauma, PTSD and more resulting from playing the sport of tackle football for nearly ten years. I have read hundreds of scientific and academic research articles regarding the same as well as former NFL player autobiographies, blogs, interviews and more.

As my research deepened, so did my concerns and cognitive dissonance towards the NFL as an organization and the sport of tackle football itself. I eventually ended up researching, reviewing and reading former players and players families lawsuits against the NFL, NCAA & Pop Warner as well as contacting non-profit organizations, player advocates and attorneys regarding these lawsuits.

In addition to the above, I also started writing articles regarding my observations, thoughts & musings on the above mentioned issues as well as the NFL's very well-earned and deserved reputation of League of Denial. I'm constantly doing ongoing research into these issues and have about 100+ browser tabs open at any given time in my mobile browser.

While researching the NFL being a bloodsport, I came across the documentary I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, "Am I Crazy?" by former NFL lineman Jared Odrick.

Specifically, the Damar Hamlin prelude video.

I instantly started sobbing towards the end of the video when the football tackles were slowed down, reversed, pixelated, distorted then the players were shown disintegrating with haunting background music playing over the almost hallucinatory dream-like sequence and disturbing imagery.

This is what football violence is actually like slowed down and reversed without any of the pageantry or sanitized presentation with men in suits with microphones presiding over the carnage.

To see the slow damage that befalls many football players who later succumb to neurological disorders like CTE, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lewy Body Disease, ALS and dementia from the thousands of subconcussive head impacts they endured throughout their football careers artistically represented by the violence the players were dishing out in terms of hard hits and tackles while other footage showed players on the receiving end of devastating hits and ferocious tackles reflected in the prelude by the players themselves becoming distorted and pixelated, their images slowly disintegrating similar to what progressive neurological conditions actually do to former NFL players which is slowly deteriorate and disintegrate them and break them down over time to the point where they are broken shells of their former selves and it was hits just like the ones shown in the prelude to the documentary – the thousands of hits endured by players from Pop Warners to the Pros that leads some players to a debilitating and disabling cognitive decline which they never recover from.

I was so used to people telling me both in real life and online that I was being overly sensitive or that I was just plain wrong about how disturbed I've always felt by the violence in football.

I had never before seen someone express what I have always felt since I was 14 years old in 1996 watching Chad Pennington get knocked around like a human pinata — that the violence in football was inhuman and inhumane.

Hard tackles would bother me for days on end and I would play them back in my mind without meaning to – I would randomly just get the images and they would play in my mind during the course of my day.

The artistic and haunting presentation of the violence in Jared Odricks “Am I Crazy? Damar Hamlin prelude video” distorts and defamiliarizes what is all too familiar – a hard violent football tackle – and thus problematizes what is presented as totally ordinary – a good old fashioned football tackle or a nice, hard hit as any football fanatic would say.

It made me cry so hard my eyes hurt. The every game, every snap, every down violence that at all times is simultaneously and paradoxically denied, legitimized, excused, endlessly consumed, defended, handwaved, sanitized, commodified, commoditized, packaged in plastic, Photoshopped, presented in cinematic 4K glory, sanctified, glorified, Americanized, militarized, consecrated and presented to the viewing audience for mass consumption while almost never being actually questioned had finally been not just questioned in an intellectual, academic and scientific way but in a humanized, empathetic, emotionalized, artistic, haunting, disorienting, hallucinatory way.

Maybe what adrenaline, pain, the rush of 70k roaring fans, smoke-filled tunnels and hysteria feels like.

I was honestly so affected by the “Am I Crazy? – Damar Hamlin prelude video” that after sobbing, I immediately woke my husband up at 1 am when he had work later that morning and forced him to watch it.

My husband is a South Jersey born Philadelphia Eagles fanatic who is a simple dude that just wants his football, adrenaline rush, spectacle and pageantry. It's his weekly escape and he's not really trying to "get that deep with it" outside of my numerous articles, text messages, IMs, emails and countless conversations with him regarding the disturbing violence that is inherent to the sport of football itself which he does read in their entirety and he does give me his honest thoughts about but rest assured it did not keep him from watching Eagles Saints this past Sunday.

As anyone who is honest I think can admit, once you start to actually look closer at the actual violence in football, it gets harder to just turn your mind off and "get ready for some football" once you actually think about how the sausage is made so to speak.

I have yet to watch the entire hour long plus “Am I Crazy?” documentary by Jared Odrick but I plan to do so later this month when I have the time to really sit down, watch, digest and contemplate the documentary in its thought-provoking, artistic and emotionally evocative entirety.

Just from viewing the prelude videos, it is clear that “Am I Crazy?” delves into the sport of tackle football and the interplay of capitalism, politics, militarism, patriotism, masculinity, exploitation, violence and other intersectional societal factors.

Although I have very rarely ever watched college football – only when someone else had it on and I was visiting their house – Jared Odrick’s Youtube short for “Am I Crazy? Episode 3” literally haunted and disturbed me so much.

In fact, the picture at the top of this blog post are screencaps from, "Am I Crazy? Episode 3".

I attended Rutgers from 2002 to 2007 and the football team was doing very well during my last few years of attendance and definitely by the time I graduated.

I absolutely refused to ever attend a Rutgers football game despite my husband, at the time my boyfriend, being a fanatic and attending all their games.

As you can read above, I have always had cognitive dissonance towards the sport of football as well as a natural aversion towards the violence inherent in football itself.

But college football literally disturbed me on a different level from the NFL and the Jets games that were always on at my parent’s house – uninsured athletes making their schools billions who are left to pay for their own injuries out of pocket was a different level of exploitation that made me feel literally physically ill.

When 86% of NCAA Division 1 football players are below the federal poverty line yet their coaches are paid millions and are some of the highest paid employees in their state, we do have a fucking problem.

During the time I attended Rutgers (2002 to 2007), this was before NIL so not only were those athletes not paid but they couldn’t even make any money off of their status as college athletes as their schools were disgustingly able to do with jerseys, videogames, licensing deals, network TV deals, streaming apps and more.

Only .06% of NCAA Division 1 college football players ever actually play a down in the NFL. Not practice squads. Actually suiting up and playing in a game. You know. The dream?

.06%!

Put another way, there are 100k NCAA college football players every season.

There are only 1,600 NFL players.

That is some very unforgiving math.

But beyond the violence, exploitation and straight up racism – keep in mind, that over 50% of NCAA Division 1 football players are Black yet Black men only make up 6% of the US population – the mass hysteria I witnessed on game days at Rutgers fucking terrified and unnerved the living hell out of me.

I would literally be filled with existential dread that would induce physical nausea.

The mass hysteria. The unthinking elation and ecstasy. The screams and school chants in unison by over 80k people.

The face painting. The unthinking crowds. The mobs. The fervor. The pageantry. The spectacle. The tradition. The unrelenting violence.

The feeling it evoked in me was reminiscent of the worst examples of mob violence that I could envision ever reading about in history from the French Revolution to lynchings.

It was insidious, pervasive, pernicious, suffocating, dark and sickly.

The unthinking hysteria that unnerved me to my literal core just walking past the Rutgers students with their faces painted red and black decked out in game day gear waiting for the buses on College Ave to take them to the stadium.

I have never seen anyone else capture the unease, dread and unnerving feelings that the mass hysteria endemic to college football has always induced in me as Jared Odrick does in “Am I Crazy? Episode 3”.

Please watch it – it is less than a minute.

The all white. Like a fever dream.

The men screaming and yelling their faces distorted in what appears to be rage but is pure unbridled unhinged fanaticism.

The students — thousands of them — all dressed in white running down the steps in an extremely unnerving blurred mass of total and complete hysteria.

White white white students – you did catch that, didn’t you?

To watch players — where Black men are way overrepresented as they are 52% of NCAA Division 1 college football players but only 6% of the US population — beat, tackle, hit, collide with and hurt each other.

All for the fans' delirious school spirit. For their delirium. For their unhinged unbridled ecstasy. For their fervor and elation. For their religious orgiastic pleasure.

Who cares about brains being damaged permanently and concussed?

Who cares that college football players — the vast vast majority of whom never make it to the NFL, less than 1% — have a much higher chance of developing neurological conditions and disorders like CTE, Parkinson's disease, ALS, Alzheimers and dementia from tens of thousands of subconcussive hits to the head accumulated over a lifetime of playing tackle football from Pop Warner to the Pros?

Many college players start as children as young as 8, some as young as even 5 – so by the time they are done with collegiate football at around 21, they have already endured potentially 10 to 15+ years of repetitive head impacts.

On average, Pop Warner players (aged 5 to 14) endure 336 head impacts a season.

High school football players endure 600 to 1000 head impacts a season.

College football players endure 1000 head impacts a season.

That is a lot of fucking head impacts even for those players who stop at the college level and never make it to the NFL – over 99% of them.

And the fans deliriously cheer on the helmets clashing & smacking together, the head hits, the collisions, the players running into each other at 20+ miles per hour, the unmitigated violence.

All for school spirit and school pride. All for tradition and spectacle and pageantry. All for emotional release. All for being in a mass crowd. All for hysteria. All for elation and ecstasy. All for religious fervor. All for orgiastic ecstasy. All for mindless indulgence.

All for screaming, yelling, school chants, school songs, school pride, school spirit.

All for catharsis.

All for being one with 70k to 100k other screaming fans.

All for the mob mentality.

All for drinking and getting drunk. All for rushing and storming the field. All for getting caught up and swept up in emotion. All for a cathartic release. All for a vicarious experience.

All for the glamorized violence, the gloss, the marching bands, the cheerleaders, the patriotism, the brightly colored uniforms, the jets flying over the stadiums.

All for students scrambling their brains and minds and breaking their bodies for you.

All for injured students being stretchered off the field.

All for players – most of them still teenagers under 21 – risking life, limb, brain and mind just to entertain you.

Just to give you your school spirit.

Just to give you your mindless escape.

What must that be like – as a player – feeling all that bloodlust, that elation, that hunger, that mania, that mass hysteria, the screams in unison, the school chants and songs, the eruptions, the mob, the screams, the yells, 100k people all dressed in white, the violence, the stadium so much like a bullfighting arena, you the warrior out to give the tens of thousands in the stands and the millions watching at home – they, safe and secure in the stands and on their couches – you, vicariously fulfilling their gladiatorial fantasies.

You being urged on by your coaches not to let the fans down, to make them proud – these people you dont even fucking know and have never even met before yet you are risking your literal health, mind, brain, body and fucking life for – to make your school proud, to go out there and give it every single thing you’ve got, to never give up, to fight, to play through your pain, to play through every injury, to go out there and be their warrior, be their Roman shield…

What is that like for the men who aren't in the stands, drinking, eating, imbibing, vibing, laughing, talking, cheering, screaming, dancing, singing, taking selfies – what's it like for the men on that field risking serious debilitating and incapacitating injury on every single down on every single play – what’s it like for the men on that field risking catastrophic injury and paralysis – what’s it like for the men on that field constantly incurring & accruing permanent brain damage, suffering concussions, risking future memory loss, amnesia, personality & behavioral changes, suicidality, aggression, volatility, mood swings, violent behavior, difficulty swallowing, breathing & moving their muscles in their 30s, in their 40s, in their 50s and will they even live to see their 60s?

What’s that like for the men who can never show even a single solitary ounce of fear or any hesitation whatsoever – as they have been trained and brainwashed not to since they were kids – who have to walk out into the gladiatorial arena – to the mass hysteria – to the screaming mob of 70k to 100k fanatics all decked out in their school’s colors – one hysterical massive blob of flesh all decked out in the same identical school colors – terrifying in its insanity and intensity – yet you as a player have to be a cool customer, a cool hand Luke, never betraying fear nerves or anxiety – cool, calm, collected, confident, cocky – tough, high energy, braggadocious, ready to sacrifice yourself on every down, to give your body up on every single play, to leap to tackle to hit to collide to sneak to lower your shoulder to deliver the boom the hit stick stiff arm to lower your head to gain the extra yardage to run through the wall to hit opposing players and run through them like theyre not even there to play hurt to play injured to be shot up drugged up pills popped wrap it up tape it up shoot it up numb it ice it ice tub hot tub absolutely anything to stay on the field where the gladiators belong…

I think it feels exactly like what Jared Odrick showed in this short for his CTE documentary and what I would always feel when I would see groups of Rutgers students all decked out in game day gear waiting for the buses that would take them to the game.

I felt cold. I felt shivers. I felt nausea. I felt existentialist dread. I felt fear. I felt loneliness. I felt physically sick.

I felt an insidious, pervasive, thick, suffocating, mindless, mob-like, violent, delirious, manic, zealous, bloodthirst, bloodlust, fanatical emotion that was hungry, sick, pulsating and alive.

It felt exactly like Rome with their gladiators.

It felt exactly like a Spanish bullfighting arena with their toreadors.

It felt like bloodlust and death mixed with a sickening excitement and feverish delirium.

It felt like the fever dream Odrick presented in his short.

It felt hallucinatory and dreamlike.

It felt like a dark ballet, a violent opera, a dark pageant.

It felt like death and like resurrection, a public execution, a guillotine in the middle of the blood-soaked streets.

It felt like teen spirit and esprit de corps.

It felt like heaven and hell.

It felt like a nightmarish dream and a dream that was a nightmare.

Between Jared Odrick’s “Damar Hamlin Prelude video” and his “Am I Crazy? Episode 3” short which were both previews of his full-length “Am I Crazy?” CTE documentary, I felt this surreal existentialist moment because I had never before encountered someone – much less a former NFL player – who had artistically and emotionally depicted in a haunting and distorted manner the problematic balletic violence and dark spectacle and pageantry that is so inherent to both the NFL & NCAA.

It unnerved me, made me cry so hard I sobbed & my eyes hurt, as waves of nausea washed over me and I instantly recalled how I felt when I would see the students at Rutgers on College Ave waiting for the bus to take them to the arena so they could see their gladiators hurt and maim themselves and each other for their entertainment to roars of approval.

I felt sick as I thought back to how many times I had watched “regular” hits, tackles and collisions in NFL games and I was wholly disturbed by the violence, the sanitized viscera, the glamorized destruction, the devouring violence on display slowly destroying these men in slow motion decades after they stop playing – while it doesn’t happen to all players, we also don’t know the percentage of how many NFL players develop neurological conditions and disorders like CTE, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, Alzheimer’s and dementia from the thousands of head impacts they endure throughout their playing careers – so the truth is, out of the NFL players that the audience is cheering on today – how many and which ones will end up like Junior Seau, Dave Duerson, Andre Waters, Justin Strelczyk, Mike Webster, John Mackey, Ken Stabler, Earl Morall and literally hundreds of others?

Unable to recognize their own children when their wives show them pictures like John Mackey?

Committing suicide like Seau?

Dying in agonizing pain with severe memory loss, confusion, dysfunction, amnesia, emotional volatility, aggression, suicidality, personality & behavioral changes, violent behavior, hallucinations, mood swings, disabled, unable to work, living in a nursing home, unable to walk, unable to feed or clothe or bathe themself?

How many? 10%? 20%? 50%? 90%?

What number of players dying agonizing and excruciating deaths in slow motion oftentimes without dignity and alone is too high of a number for the fans?

What is an acceptable number?

Even if the number is 10% – do those 10% not matter at all just because they are outnumbered by the 90%?

Should anyone willingly sign up – often as a child – for debilitating neurological conditions and disorders that the thousands of repetitive subconcussive head impacts in football have been proven to cause such as Lewy Body Dementia (LBD), Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS and dementia?

LBD, what John Mackey was diagnosed with which led to him eventually not even recognizing his own children, is particularly debilitating, physically painful and agonizing and often leaves sufferers with a severely affected gait, unable to walk, having difficulty swallowing, breathing, moving their muscles, feeding clothing and bathing themselves, and often the individual dies within 5 years of being diagnosed.

It is estimated that NFL players on average live up to 22 years shorter than non-NFL players.

Is any game worth that?

College football is even worse – players are bigger, stronger, faster & hit harder than high school and you are taking 1000 hits to the head every season where high school football is estimated on average to be 600 to 1000 hits to the head every season – but there are no multimillion dollar contracts just a scholarship that can be taken away from you at any moment NIL or not the vast majority of these athletes are not being paid directly by their schools only select Big 10 schools offer direct payment so the reality is often times dictatorial coaches can remove your scholarship due to injury, underperformance, etc. The players fate lies in their coaches hands. Remember, 86% of all NCAA Division I athletes live below the federal poverty line. While the NCAA does have a pooled insurance for certain catastrophic injuries, absolutely everything else is the financial responsibility of the player who as I just stated is usually coming from an impoverished background where their parents do not have benefits so they are without health insurance paying out of pocket for the violence exacted upon them on the field that will not be covered under later insurance plans as it will be considered pre-existing conditions so any broken bones torn ligaments tendons post concussive syndrome migraines dizziness nausea arthritis joint replacement surgery torn tendons injured groin herniated discs broken back neck spine fractures degenerated joints bone muscles neurological conditions disorders CTE Parkinsons Alzheimers dementia LBD ALS is all paid for completely out of pocket by the player and their families.

It is totally exploitative and unfair to the athletes and nobody gives a damn.

Here comes Saturday night!

All that risk, all those hits to the head, incurred by the players alone, never by the fans who cheer so deliriously for the violence they endlessly consume.

College students unlike NFL players also do not have a union to advocate on their behalf so unlike the NFLPA that got hitting in practice greatly reduced to “only” 14 practices a season – college students are at the literal mercy of their coaches who once again can take away their scholarships at any time and there is no enforceable NCAA limit to how much college football players can hit each other in practice so it is left to the discretion of their coaches as the NCAA only issues guidelines that are not enforceable.

Only the Ivy league has had the courage to remove hitting from practices — five years ago and not one college has had the balls to follow suit.

A study conducted in 2017 determined that three quarters of concussions suffered by the college football players studied over the course of one season occurred in practice – those concussions are avoidable if these coaches would show leadership and reduce full contact in practice.

But no one protects college football players.

They aren’t in high school anymore so they are treated as adults yet they have no union to protect them as NFL players do and most of them are under 21!

NFL football. NCAA football. Big 10. SEC.

The dark ballet. The dark seductive pageant. The dark alluring spectacle.

The Roman colliseum.The spanish bullfighting arena.

Your gladiators await…

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