Honestly, I'd rather overhear talk about the sports ball match than the homophobic and misogynistic bullshit I usually hear. At least racism isn't also usually included. I get enough of that from online gaming.
This is said pretty often on the internet but as a sports fan I don’t get it.
Like, if I wear my favourite player’s jersey, I don’t wanna portray them in any kind or form. It’s a show of support and a form of tribalism, really, that can easily be mocked without wildly misinterpreting it.
I wanted to find a good analogy but first came up with wearing colours to sports events, ha! But really it’s like wearing a band shirt on a live show; nobody’d call that cosplaying.
Edit: of course there’s full kit wankers but in decades of visiting mainland European footie stadiums I’ve only ever seen one. Seems to be a British thing. Let’s not talk about them.
I love many spectator sports, and pretty mainstream ones at that… but, ummm, have you met many of my fellow sports fans? The reaction described by this meme is, shall we say, understandable.