[Note, all text by Saito, opinions expressed are his own, enjoy!]
Quotation marks dedicated to Mike M.
Parentheses dedicated to myself.
It’s funny how haters share a similar language. They often talk of origins, definitions, and morality. Replace the various nouns in Adam’s “Hater’s Perspective” (oh no, the hater’s anonymity has been shattered!) with suitable nouns from early twentieth-century Germany and you get the rhetoric of the Third Reich (or with hot nouns of today and you get the rhetoric of Bush America). Yeah, it’s an exaggeration but you get the point. Sure, Adam might claim that his words are rhetorical and sarcastic, but I would argue that this mode of expression is a reflection of the exclusionary self-defense mechanism of a hater (Adam characterizes his own post as “controversial” and “polemical,” two words that describe the effect of his post while attempting to put some distance between his post and his true beliefs).
I mean, should disc golf be hated because it’s not a sport but rather a “novelty game” as Adam calls it? Is being a sport one of the necessary attributes of liking an “athletic” activity (well, no doubt Adam will deny the “athletic” nature of disc golf in the next installment)? Who decides what is a sport and what isn’t? As with any debate over definitions, isn’t it all arbitrary and, therefore, cultural (cultural=room for haters)? If we take Olympics as a guide for what is considered a sport, then I certainly would say that disc golf is a sport, and I think that everyone would have to agree (prancing is a sport according to the Olympic committee as long as enough people do it). Doesn’t the need to deny disc golf the status of being a sport reveal a fetishism of a nay-sayer over the word “sport”? Does calling something a sport and denying others this label—a process of exclusion, which employs a similar rhetoric to that of the recent national discussion over what constitutes a marriage—imbue the object of this label with sacredness? Is this sacredness produced to make people feel better about the “sport” that they play? And why must the question of origin influence one’s opinions of a “sport”? As Harry Potter teaches us, it doesn’t matter if you are a muggle as long as you are a good wizard, no? Yes, disc golf is a bastard child. But don’t most “sports” share this fate? What about American football or baseball? After all, aren’t most if not all sports about putting it in the hole, hitting it where they ain’t, killing the other guy, or some combination of the three?
Granted, disc golf is an exceptional case (golf with Frisbees), and its name suggests its “unoriginality” (we don’t call tennis ping pong with bigger paddles, but, oh wait, we do call it table tennis), but I would argue that it is this “unoriginality” which foregrounds the subversive power of disc golf. Disc golf offers to us over-the-hump former athletes (or so we like to believe) an alternative to “regular or ball golf,” as disc golfers like to call it (no doubt to Adam’s amusement/disgust). Disc golf doesn’t require purchasing acres of land off that poor farmer whose crop didn’t fare too well the previous season nor does it require cutting down numerous trees upsetting the tree huggers toward whom Adam, to my surprise, is so sympathetic. We don’t pay exorbitant amounts of money to corporations to play in their nicely groomed playground. Instead, we use previously unused areas of parks and we play for free for the most part. Whether adequate or not, disc golf offers the best alternative to the most consumerist, exploitative, capitalistic, and “establishmentarian” sport of them all, precisely because disc golf and ball golf are similar in the skills they require. Yes, all this is pretty commonplace. I’m sure Adam has heard it all before so let us move on.
Back to Adam’s argument: I think that Adam is partly correct in his characterization of disc golf as a product of “the loathsome big-business commercial exploitation” and “pure capitalist commodification” that has destroyed a “meaningful form of anti-establishmentarian cultural expression.” He is incorrect in that us disc golfers do/have done nothing (at least to my knowledge) to prevent people from throwing “saucers” to conjure up UFOs. We don’t go looking for people throwing “saucers” for fun to beat them up. In fact, we often look like we are calling UFOs when we are on the course. If these so-called “tree-hugging hippies” don’t throw round plastic objects anymore, then I would say it’s more of the fault of the X-Files than of disc golf. He is also off the mark when he calls Wham-O a “big business” and repeatedly uses some form of the word “corporation” to describe the disc golf companies. No doubt, the disc companies would love to become big corporations who would be hated by a culturally conscious critic such as Adam. They would be flattered if not elated by Adam’s likening of disc manufacturers to Nike (when he jokes of Nike producing “thousands of slightly different kinds of Hacky Sacks”). In reality, though, these manufacturers (the top three being Innova who also makes Millenium and Wham-O discs among others, Discraft who also makes DGA discs, and Gateway) are nothing but a slightly more athletic version of your local “mom-and-pop” store or a potter who sells his wares out of his home studio (for the record though, there is a company who makes discs in China). Consisting basically of a professional disc golf player, his friends and family, these companies in no way are corporations, as Adam claims. They are barely making ends meet. They produce discs not by the millions but more like hundreds and thousands, at best. This state of affairs, of course, trickles down to the players. Disc golf is a sport whose top professionals must take on day jobs so that they can go compete on the weekends.
Of course, not being a corporation doesn’t prevent these disc manufacturers from playing the corporate “game.” They are certainly no saints: they steal ideas, copy designs, and, as Adam claims, exploit the consumers. They work very hard to produce value through differentiation, churning up similar discs one after another under the slogan of “newer and better.” But can you blame them? If it weren’t for these companies, we will have no discs to throw. For them to stay afloat, they need to make money. To make money, they must create a demand among the consumers. Let’s say for argument’s sake that we only need one disc to play disc golf (more on this later). For “corporations” like Innova to produce this single disc, they will need to produce a lot of something else on the side, for it is easy to imagine what would happen to their business if their product consisted of a single disc. While they may play that corporate game, it is the capitalistic system within which we must all survive that ultimately dictates the game plan.
This is not to deny Adam’s claim that I have become a victim to their sneaky strategy. I have no problem with Adam characterizing my disc collection as a display of “intense fetishism.” I am a hoarder, but in my own subversive way. I only collect discs (must be cheap, old, or beat) that no one else wants. I go against the fad, rejecting the top-of-the-line plastic that these manufacturers push so hard. Sadly, this is the extent of my “anti-establishmentarian cultural expression,” I guess. But then again, I am just one player. What about Dave who Adam would surely agree never buys anything unless he absolutely needs it. Can he really argue that Dave too has become a victim? It is true that disc golfers display an above average fetishism toward their discs than that displayed by players of other “sports” (although I don’t really see a difference from a tennis player who goes through rackets month after month or a runner/soccer player looking for perfect shoes). If you take a peek at the PDGA (Professional Disc Golf Association) forum, you will quickly see the amount of discussion allocated to the question not only of the differences between specific discs but also of the differences between specific runs of the same disc. For example, the much-coveted Nightshift Orc (supposedly named as such because the disc was produced by the nightshift crew of Innova) is, in theory, no different from the Tulsa Special Blend Orc that Ben got from his Santa, but the former is said to fly “sweeter” and thus, sells at a much higher price. Such example seems to support Adam’s claim of corporate manipulation, but, at the same time, one needs to realize that such display of fetishism is also a result of the small-time nature of the disc golf companies who do not have the money to ensure quality control over their products.
In the end, whether having various discs is a form of pure fetishism that is devoid of any functional advantages must be decided by Adam himself when/if he plays a round or two. Perhaps, he will be one of those guys who can excel with a single disc, but if he feels the need to change discs for a specific shot, then he will have rejected his own theoretical opinions. My belief is that while his stubbornness will surely get in the way, he will covet and love different types of discs, much in the way that he covets and loves different types of orchids. After all, Adam, like me, is a scholar, and what do we do in the end but to produce value=meaning through differentiation (and this goes back to his “fetishistic” categorization of what constitutes a sport), just as disc golfers argue how different the first-run Z Buzzes fly from the current run of Z Buzzes, leading to the first-run Z Buzzes (originally $10-15) selling for over two hundred dollars on EBay.
But sadly enough, my feeling is that Adam will remain a hater. Yes, it would be fun to play a round with him once a month or so, considering that most of us never see him except once or twice a year, but if he doesn’t feel the need to spend some time with his closest friends, then there doesn’t seem to be anything more to say. Perhaps, his critical mindset will forever resist the bastardized and commodified non-sport that is disc golf. Its questionable past will no doubt haunt him in his sleep if he were to pick up a piece of plastic (the closest one since it matters not to him) and, god forbid, hurl it without the intention of communicating to alien forms of life. Yes, he will remain steadfast in his hate, being the moralist that he is. Can we really expect anything less from a hater who is also a soccer-loving intellectual? Oh soccer, that “pure sport” born in the great “Great Britain” whose popularity is founded upon its imperialistic ventures throughout the world in the glory days of old (for the record, people have been kicking balls around all over the world well before the dark ages). That “sport,” or rather the opiate for the masses which gives the illusion of social mobility to the disenfranchised youths in ghettos all over the the still-imperialistic and growingly-corporate globe (yes, basketball can be said to be the American version of it). That “sport” where billionaires who’ve made their money on lucrative capital ventures like oil drilling purchase players as if they were Frisbees on a display rack. I’m not saying that I hate soccer or “football” as they like to call it. While I don’t play soccer, I enjoy watching it. I guess this is where Adam and I differ. I love a sport for the competition it invites, the physical skills it requires, the mental challenges it brings, and, most of all, the camaraderie among and appreciation of human beings it fosters. If this makes me a “willing, if oblivious, participant(s) in the broad social erosion of cultural values,” then I guess I will just have to live with it. Anyways, since when did upholding “cultural values” become “anti-establishmentarian”?
