Nekochan's Journal

Nekochan's musing of the month (3/97):

Whoopers and Watchers

Last month, I attended the very first live basketball game in my life. The game itself was of moderate interest, but the observations made on the Martian-Venusian saga were quite interesting.

• OBSERVATION 1 = SHOPPING MALL IN@REVERSE: The first observation was that the audience was primarily Martian, with the atomosphere resembling that of a shopping mall in reverse (e.g. rather than Venusians dragging Martians to the shopping mall to sit on benches and wait, the Venusians at the basketball game seemed to have been drug there by their Martian companions to sit through the game and wait).

• OBSERVATION 2 = WHOOPERS 'N WATCHERS: The second observation was the difference in activity. A great majority of the Martian audience exhibited extreme reactions to every slight movement by the basketball players, ranging from whooping to yelling to standing up and wildly shaking their arms or fists. They seemed to be very excited by the whole thing, and it is known that Martians tend to have similar reactions even when games are being watched on television (although the reactions may be heightened somewhat at a live game??). The Venusians, on the other hand, were much less visibly excited by all the activity on the game floor, and, as is often the case, took greater interest in observing other audience members to see what kind of aliens were attending (e.g. what kind of clothes they were wearing, what kind of groups the were with, etc.). The second major activity the Venusians engaged in was waiting in the restroom lines, since the Venusian lines at live events are notoriously long (40 - 60 minutes). During these long waits, there is nothing to do but observe other aliens (and be jealous of the Martian short restroom lines).

...nekochan's musing: generally speaking, the sheer excitement Martians feel at such events is as incomprehensible to Venusians as Venusian excitement over shopping is to Martians.

Back to