re: Self-Loathing & The Psychology of South Louisiana

I mostly agree with the OP's premise.

How does it relate to LSU football, tigerdroppings, etc? We all have our opinions.

I think a good parallel is Bud Bissinger's description of "Id" fans in his 1994 book "Bringing the Heat."

LSU has a lot of "Id" fans ... those who have the aforementioned "self loathing" and thus find most of their self-worth in the teams they root for. Consequently, when things get bad, their personal life becomes traumatic.

BB described it thus:

Richie and Norman and the players preferred fans who rooted rationally, who showed up Sundays decked in green and silver and cheered their heads off and then--buoyed by victory or disappointed by defeat--returned to their lives refreshed, pleased with the memory of an exciting afternoon.

Norman was convinced most fans were like this. But the most visible and vocal fans were those whose self-worth seemed to hang on the Eagles' fortunes, fans for whom winning was not just a preferred outcome on a fall afternoon, but something owed, by the players, the coaches, ultimately by Norman Braman himself, presumably in return for the cost of their tickets, or for the hardest cases, a Philadelphia birthright.

The Id-people came out on game day, thousands of them, for some primitive venting ritual. They howled abuse and hatred at the enemy--anyone they perceived as an obstacle to victory. They reveled in the violence of football, would cheer when hated opponents (or sometimes hated members of the home team) were carried bleeding, mangled or unconscious from the field.

They were like the throngs who cheered the dismemberment of Christians in Roman coliseums or who turned public hangings into social events. The sheer unthinking brutality of these fans connected vaguely with Norman's Jewishness, summoning disturbing ancestral echoes of murderous mobs, of pogroms, and Kristallnacht.

LSU has a lot of ID fans--with a nuance. We don't have a lot who show up at the stadium screaming these days, they are more the spoiled type Bissinger described. They show up on message boards more than the stadium these days.

I have to admit two things regarding this psychological paradigm:

1) The ferociousness of Tiger Stadium in its glory days was due in large part to this south Louisiana self-loathing Pimp described. But combine that "underdog" feeling when Ohio State, Notre Dame or Southern Cal came to town, with alcohol freely snuck in the stadium and LSU not being on TV every week ... and you had the most intimidating stadium in the country.

Our fans don't have the sense of "going to war" anymore, but as a group we sure feel entitled.

2) I'll admit that--while I don't think I'm a pure "Id fan," I am indeed more than the casual fan who can walk away from a loss unaffected.