#i literally have zero idea if they have alps in schwaben

[todaviia]

"Schwaben" & "alps" somehow doesn't compute. I realize there's Bavarian Swabia, but are those people concerned by "Schwabenhass"? Weren't that the Stuttgarters? Oh the complexity! I've to admit, though, as a fan of a not-so-successful German club, I, too, get a little weary of the Union "Kultklub-Gedoens". They're all Kultklubs, dammit! Journalists seem conditioned to invoke the word "Kult!" wrt Union. Werder is a Kultklub. So is Dynamo, so is Bochum. FCN is actually Der Club. (RB's not a club).

(oh okay, he wasn't targeted by the Schwabenhass. Should have read it first. FWIW, I've made some great personal experiences with Union fans and more bad than good ones with Hertha fans, but the annoyance about the general fuss remains a bit... Like with the mia san mia Gedoens. The others are themselves as well, aren't they? (Gedoens is such a great word!))

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1. I’m SOOOOO annoyed but the whole “Kultig” thing too. That said, I’ve literally NEVER heard it from any Union fan. It’s something fans of other clubs use when they talk abt us. And like I get that we’re sometimes self-righteous. It’s a thing when being a football fan. If you don’t think your club is the best, why are you a fan??

But the thing that really irks me about it and makes me go pissy is that it’s usually in relation to things that... we only did bc the alternative was bankruptcy. Like the blood donation thing and the stadium building thing are a) objectively cool af and b) done because we were broke. Like every other East German team - and when I say East German I specifically don’t mean Austrian dependences.

And so its like... it was insanely hard for us to go up to first league. We were the first East German team to manage that in over a decade. We did it without getting a sponsorship from a Sheikh or China or Russia or Qatar (like a lot of the clubs whose fans now are like “ugh they’re kultig, how annoying”). Instead we did it as a club where part of the self-understanding is that the club is OURS, which means fans feel comfortable doing stuff like... groups of people breaking into the stadium for a spontaneous singing session on Christmas. Which is where the Weihnachtssingen comes from - that then has been copied by a lot of other clubs (who are less kultig bc for them it’s then been organised by a marketing agency and it wasnt technically breaking and entering)

and I knoooooooooow we’re not perfect. We’re still participating in the capitalist corruption world of Pro football. But we’re also the club with the 2nd lowest market value in the Bundesliga (and the next higher club has 50% more than we have). We’re playing with a special permit for our stadium (that we only got bc we presented contracts showing we will upgrade it) bc it doesn’t have a sufficient amount of VIP lounges and seats - our capacity is fine, but we don’t have enough seats bc seats are usually more expensive both as tickets and to build and we’re a poor club with a mostly poor fanbase.

soo like its a bit hypocritical when clubs that are like “oh we’re so pro fan culture” mock a club for having fan culture only bc that club... happens to be from an economically disadvantaged area and therefore it’s cringy and self-righteous. 

But yes, ideally they’re all Kultclubs!!!!

2. I mean I would absolutely target him with Schwabenhass tbh. By now “Schwabe” is just stand-in for “gentrifying Wessi.” If you ask East Berliners, the vast amount do not have more than a slight notion where Schwaben is and what it consists of, anyway, after all this is deep Wessi Hinterland.

So even if his particular village is located in some other meaningless backwater, it does not change the fact that he’s a Schwabe, because he wrote a text like that.