“The white-zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I need to address a rather disturbing trend of “fans” wishing death to a sport they claim to “love.”
Before I dive into this, let me say upfront what it is I am not saying: I’m not saying you can’t criticize NASCAR, I’m not saying you can’t criticize the leadership, I’m not saying you can’t say the leadership needs to change and most importantly, I’m not saying that Benjamín Mendoza y Amor Flores didn’t attempt to assassinate Pope Paul VI on Nov. 27, 1970. I say this because I know if I didn’t, someone was going to read this title, jump to the comment section without reading the piece and say “WHO R U 2 SAY I CANT CRITICIZE NASCRAP?!!!”
With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s begin.
There’s been a trend on social media that’s disturbed me lately. I’ve been seeing many people post on Facebook “I hope NASCAR dies,” “I hope NASCAR destroys itself,” “I hope NASCAR goes out of business” and etc. I’m paraphrasing those posts of course because some of them were rather offensive and racist.
I don’t understand the logic of “fans” wanting a sport they supposedly “love” to die, just to send a message. In no other sport do I see fans go to the Facebook page of that sanctioning body to wish death upon it.
When someone dies, they don’t come back as a better version of themselves. They pass on. That person will be no more. They’ll have ceased to be. They’ll have expired and gone to meet their maker. They’ll be a stiff. Bereft of life. They’ll rest in peace.
This reminded me of a story I read in high school called “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. It’s told by the narrator who’s trying to convince us of his sanity while describing the murder of an old man with a “vulture eye.” He claims that he loved the old man and that he was never wronged by him.
A more modern example comes from an anime series called Sword Art Online. In episode six “Illusionary Avenger,” the main characters Asuna and Kirito investigate the “murders” of Kains and Yolko despite being in a “safe-zone” where such an action should be impossible. Kirito discovers that they faked their deaths in order to draw out Schmit, whom they believe is responsible for the death of their guild leader Griselda. He also discovers that Kains and Yolko were set up by Griselda’s widow Grimlock to draw out the remaining members of the former guild “Golden Apple” to her gravestone to be eliminated by a murder guild named “Laughing Coffin.” Kirito thwarts the attempt and sends the murder guild on their way. Asuna follows suite with Grimlock and explains that it was he who murdered Griselda. They suspected that he did so for a rare item that she wanted to sell. However, he had an entirely different motive for killing her. He did it because the woman he was married to both in the real world and in the game had “changed” and he couldn’t stand the thought of it.
But just like the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart, Grimlock never loved her. He wanted to control her and was driven mad when he realized Griselda was no longer submissive to him.
What I’m insinuating here is that “fans” who wish death upon NASCAR because they’re unhappy with the state of the sport; those people never truly loved NASCAR. If you wish death to NASCAR, you’re no different than the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart or Grimlock in Sword Art Online.
The bottom line is that if you don’t like the state of the sport right now, that’s fine. If you think NASCAR is going down the wrong path, that’s fine. If you think the leadership needs an overhaul, that’s fine. If you think there are things in the sport that really need to change, that’s fine. But if you’re just going to sit there and say NASCAR should burn to the ground, then I kindly suggest you go to that corner of the internet that fondly remembers your utopian NASCAR heaven that never existed.
At least with the narrator and Grimlock, they had an emotional breakdown and realized the error of what they had done. If NASCAR goes down, you may laugh at the surface, but deep down, you’ll feel empty and hollow when the fourth Sunday of February rolls around and there’s no Daytona 500 to watch at 1 p.m. on Fox.
If that day should ever come, I’ll laugh at your stupidity with a smile on my face.
My plane is about to take off so I must wrap this up. Until next time, I’ll leave you with this fact. The “pound” key on your keyboard (#) is called an octotroph.
