Don’t pretend you aren’t interested.
Vince Young has had a rough month. First there was the MCL sprain. Then came the suicide scare. And that’s to say nothing of the subsequent media storm, stoked as always by the sensibilities of those suckers who read the stories.
Misery loves company.
The flip side, of course, is that company also loves misery.
This is by no means a lecture. I’m not accusing anyone of malice here, and I won’t pretend I haven’t followed the saga in Nashville. But to conform is not to condone. If we’re going to wallow in the gutter, we at least ought to be brave enough to take full stock of the risks entailed.
All empathy is obliquely voyeuristic.
Then again, all voyeurism is inherently empathetic.
However hardened you believe yourself to be, you can’t stare too long at pain without suffering a few wounds of your own.
- B/R Ticket Guide
Being a fan means celebrating success. It also means gawking at failure. That’s neither a good thing nor a bad thing—it’s merely a thing, a product of some morbid itch to which none among us is immune. The only catch is that amorality makes a poor substitute for virtue, and scratching morbid itches never did anybody any good.
When bad news happens to you, it’s a hardship.
When bad news happens to someone famous, it’s a headline.
If you let the tabloids tell you where to look, you’re liable to lose sight of the truth beyond the trivia.
There’s something enthralling about human ruin. That’s why we can’t turn away from train wrecks or Entertainment Tonight—and why wayward quarterbacks will always generate search-engine traffic. The ugly truth about Vince Young is that we can’t get enough of the ugly truth about Vince Young. Whether the prognosis is bleaker for him or us is a puzzle for the mystics and MRI techs to pry apart.
VY's song sounds more like a dirge than a ballad, but the rub is still the same for a Thin Man:
You hand in your ticket
And you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you
When he hears you speak
And says, How does it feel
To be such a freak?
And you say, Impossible,
As you change the channel, and turn up the volume.
Because something is happening here and you don't know what it is—or maybe you do, and maybe you'd rather simply shut your mouth than run the risk of only just saying, is all...
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about 1 month ago
so what does it all mean? The guy is just another head case.
from about 1 month ago
And why shouldn't he be? VY has had trouble living up to the expectations due to the conservative nature of the playcalling. He is still adjusting to the league. This is only his third year. Cut him some slack. Give him some room, and just let him play football, and don't expect him to be superman.
from about 1 month ago
ryan...you cant give him that much slack. he's a grown man who can't handle the league fans or media....maybe he cant handle the nfl
about 1 month ago
You are quite the wordsmith sir... POTD.
about 1 month ago
Is this article about something? I hope no one paid him for this...
from about 1 month ago
Your mother. Or my mother. Somebody's mother—this article is definitely about somebody's mother. I think.
about 1 month ago
This article is trite, banal and stupid. Of course, trite, banal and stupid is this article. The mephitic author, enamored of polysyllabic platitudes, suffers from logorrhea.
That being said, and it had to be said, let's focus on Vince Young.
He can't throw a football, and he is mentally challenged. This is not part of the NFL toolkit for success.
Wouldn't you be blue if you made a lot of money playing football, knew you were a fraud and were finding out that others are catching on? In a business where they can just let you go? And where guys who can throw the ball and memorize more than two plays are coming up every year? And if you got to thinking..."What could I do to make a living in the real world?..." wouldn't you be down?
about 1 month ago
This was dumb.
I wrote an actual article about vince young if anybody gives a damn.
about 1 month ago
I am impressed by your venacular. However, I don't care about rich peoples feelings, no matter how long I look at their "suffering". Maybe I'm the messed up one by I replace empathy with apathy. The bigger you are the harder you fall. This has always been the way the world works. If they don't know what they are getting into then I care even less about how they feel. I am sure he can cry himself to sleep in one of his 12 cars.
about 1 month ago
I hope he clears his head. I felt, coming into this year, that this was his year. He's put it all together and have a breakout season. I think it's a tragedy. I'm not sure of the type of person he is off the field, but he's a dynamic person on the gridiron.
about 1 month ago
I stopped reading here "This is by no means a lecture. I’m not accusing anyone of malice here, and I won’t pretend I haven’t followed the saga in Nashville. But to conform is not to condone."
Uuuhhhh...dude, in this instance, conforming IS condoning. This is how the media makes its money. If you don't read the articles or watch the segments, then the advertisers would stop buying ad space. If the advertisers stop buying ad space then the media would have no money.
from about 1 month ago
Fair point—I'd forgotten that "Ryan Alberti" was such a coveted demographic. In penance, I canceled my subscription to SI and turned all the TVs I own to PBS. The Golden Age is undoubtedly nigh.
about 1 month ago
Dude..Give it up.
about 1 month ago
So... who's Queen Jane?
As for the other comments, I'm still debating about Alberti being mephitic and I'm not sure I agree. Flagitious, perhaps, but mephitic? God, that's almost rude.
from about 1 month ago
Can't say I know Queen Jane, but I did run into Tom Thumb once. It was raining and Easter time and—well, you know how it goes in Juarez.
BTW: It's always nice when you have to crack a dictionary to figure out that you're being insulted, if only because vocabulary-building and self-loathing make such logical bedfellows.
from about 1 month ago
It must be a great feeling to know you're causing people to expand their horizons; by the end of the year you might even be getting insults in obscure and archaic languages.
Anyway, you're right on VY, solid article. There's something amazing, almost optimistic, in watching a high-status figure fail quickly. I don't know if it's some evolutionary-created reaction or just an addiction to the news, but it's certainly there.
about 1 month ago
Hey Ryan,
As always, great read. It would seem from the majority of comments thus far, you seemed to have touched a nerve my friend.
Well done.
Oh, is 'Entertainment Tonight' still on television? And without tabloid headlines, how is anyone to avoid going postal waiting in line to purchase tailgating supplies while some artful shopper sorts through their pouch of coupons?
Lew
from about 1 month ago
True enough about the perils of checkout lines—Lindsay Lohan may well be the only thing standing between us and utter anarchy. I guess callous inhumanity really does have its upside on occasion.
about 1 month ago
Don't listen to them Ryan, you're a brilliant writer.
about 1 month ago
haha, why is it when u mention VY people get all jumpy and stuff. anyways, good as usual.
about 1 month ago
I had a question have they even found Vince Young?
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