Thinking of Ben Stiller as a gray-haired boomer gives, I mean gifs me a sad.
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I don’t see .gif files so much as “cringe” as a drain on my limited mobile data 
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I played what I’d guess you call “sandlot” football as a kid, and became a big Denver Broncos fan when I lived there and they had their first trip to the Super Bowl in 1978. I stuck with it until maybe 10 or 12 years ago and found I didn’t miss watching football on Sunday afternoons at all. I tried watching a game last weekend and couldn’t hack more than one quarter, even when fast-forwarding through the many, many, many commercials.
When you’re not a fan anymore, all the CTE evasion, celebrated violence, military/jingoist tie-ins, and municipal extortion over stadiums seems so much worse than any societal benefit that might be propounded.
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That’s another terrible thing about NFL games: the television coverage dictates the pace of the game instead of vice-versa.
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I’m a fan. Was way into it as a kid, played in Jr. High/High School, gradually drifted away through the aughts because of all the extraneous noise around it, the marketing and the stadium grifting and the whole “Our paid ringers are better than your paid ringers!” thing. Got back into it though the last 5-10 years and find I enjoy how the game play has changed… but with a giant exception for the prevalence of injuries caused by the ballooning of size. It’s interesting to see a game from the 60s and 70s, tons of the hitting would be illegal now but not nearly the level of injury and death that would have resulted if it were today’s players. Really they should just institute a size limit. I got injured playing in high school (thanks a lot artificial turf!), and every time I see someone get carted off the field my heart hurts knowing their dream just died a little.
But I almost look forward to the NFL eventually turning to flag football. I’d still watch.
In the compulsion to overanalyze everything, “I just find it fun” sometimes gets lost.
I happen to find taking silly things way too seriously is fun. Whether it’s debating the best way to make a grilled cheese or if a band is good or sucks, or if your sports team sucks worse than mine, it’s all in good fun at the end of the day 'cause it’s obviously silly. Mostly I want to see good play and exceptional skills, but I’ll passionately cheer my team and feel all the drama, and when it’s done it’s back to reality.
Seems to me that excuse for watching people risk life-long injuries and even their lives should get lost.
It should go the way of emperors getting a thrill out of watching fights to the death and people getting eaten by lions.
So should the sick, sadistic thrill of watching a boxing match. I mean, dog fights and cock fights get banned, but football and boxing don’t? Wtf?
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