Pity the Smark: the sports fan who claims to care so much about his team and to know so much about the game that he can never enjoy supporting either for the rest of his miserable days.
In this era of 24/7 sports radio, social media, unchecked online forums, and TV pundits clawing at relevancy in a nuclear arms race of obnoxious broadcast lunacy, there emerged a classification of extreme fan that cannot simply enjoy sports. He must instead prove the indisputable insider knowledge that elevates him, his intellect, and his opinions beyond that of Joe Six Pack and Suzy Temp.
Tragically, the Smark can only establish his bona fides through complaining daily and identifying endless problems with the sports world entities he came to love once long ago.
The term emerged from con game terminology and the earliest days of professional wrestling. Originally the now-billion-dollar industry was a circus sideshow that relied on believability. The wrestlers played it straight, and the crowd could never know a match’s outcome was predetermined. Wrestling promoters and athletes alike put on a good show for the incensed throngs, but they termed their supporters “marks” as they made away with the gate money.
Today, the world knows full well we’re taking in a highly athletic entertainment production when Da Crusher takes to the squared circle. Wrestling supporters must suspend disbelief when they watch faces and heels “compete,” but the butts in the seats are still affectionately called marks by today’s bookers and in-ring performers.
However, those are always those viewers who sprinkle extra obsession on their fandom sundae — followers who read the dirt sheets and pry into every behind-the-scenes detail of pro wrestling to the point of ruining the illusion entirely. They were the first to gain the prejudiced moniker in question, “smart marks” (obviously abbreviated to our term of the day). The branding asks why someone would pretend to love a show he can’t wait to dissect and shred into every intimate, ugly, and vulnerable detail.
Of course, a human of any gender can be a passionate sports fan, but Smarks tend to be men, especially guys who played a given form of athletic competition in their greener days and fell short of certain hopes or expectations. That’s often an important component of the Smark’s self-image and personality. Because the given specimen was a backup guard at Sacred Heart of Jacques Marquette Junior High School for a half season, only he truly understands why Jason Kelce has a great motor and should’ve down-blocked to the B Gap on the RPO.
The point of embarkation from the kind of fan who would merely schedule his daughter’s wedding around a preseason NFL game to an elevated Smark fully shrouded in his monkery occurs when the test subject invests the entirety of his ego into his knowledge of his team and the competition in question.
In this Age of Narcissism, when only selfies matter in the vacation slideshow of life, it’s not enough for a Smark to kick back on a warm Saturday afternoon in the bleachers to watch his hometown nine play. He can’t rejoice in catching a puck before the second intermission among his fellow sweater-adorned goons. The Smark must be superior to all of them. He must know more about the interworking of his favorite franchise and about the games they play. That perceived superior knowledge makes him special in his own eyes in a manner he so desperately needs.
You can hardly blame the poor dope. He watches ESPN and Fox Sports make media superstars out of oafish loudmouths who get that initial foothold on notoriety with devoted daily displays of verbal jackassery. The louder, the angrier, the better. Smarks wonder why they couldn’t somehow cash in on that model.
You’ll hear Smarks scratching that dark notoriety itch when they call into the daily sports talk radio shows they inflict on their coworkers in the office or shop. Regularly dialing in like an unpaid co-host, the Smark throws premium-grade know-it-all gasoline on the fire of the hour before verbally patting the longtime host on the head for almost knowing as much as him.
The Smark is further fueled by the unforgiving gladiatorial realms of social media and online forums. Once the Smark establishes his online personae, the war of intolerant attrition matriculates from mere observations to insults to eventual alienation from folks who otherwise have a better time watching the same events. Support and camaraderie are out of the question: Once the Smark finds this prime hunting ground, the Darwinian race is underway to establish himself as the Ubërfan. He can’t just be one of the boys with his face painted and his hand inside a foam finger smelling of Miller Lite. He must display divine insider knowledge of both team and sport.
Indeed, for the Smark to become immortal, there can be only one. That’s where the Smark so tragically snares himself in Dante’s Circle of Halftime. No modern human being ever established authority on a given topic by merely expressing enthusiasm and approval. The naked emperor’s true path to unearned expertise is paved with green-eyed criticism. Therefore, the Smark must hate what he once loved.
In his prison of self-worship, the Smark vents his hatred for the owner who never earned enough money and refused to spend the fortune correctly. If that billionaire would only check in with the unheralded genius brooding in the upper deck corner, they could finally fire up a dynasty.
He mocks the general manager for failing to flag every top prospect during a multiround draft against 30-plus other franchises covering hundreds of potential picks. The Smark made better choices in the fantasy draft of the six-owner league he almost didn’t finish last in a couple of years ago when those guys were still his friends.
He knows better than the head coach who apprenticed at every level of instruction over the course of a decade. Though the man in the highest pressure crucible mastered elaborate play calling while exploring how to juggle the psyches and personalities of athletes so entitled it borders on sociopathy, the Smark knows every incomplete pass should’ve been a run. Every substitution was mistimed.
Finally, no player on the field, court, or ice is the performer the Smark would’ve been. He sits on high like a vulture on a sagging desert power line and waits as the guys in his preferred colors submit to their humanity by way of error. Once proven to be fallible, that player must be jettisoned like flotsam, but only after submitting himself to Romanic levels of public humiliation.
This era of staggering pay for athletes only fuels the Smark’s intolerance for imperfection. To him, there’s an inverse ratio between an allowance for mishaps over a long season and the number of zeros in a contract.
What gets so sadly lost in the Smark’s recipe for bile stew is the fact that sports is supposed to be entertainment, a diversion. Win or lose, the game is out there to offer distraction. Presumably, the Smark came to sports because it brought him excitement, hope, and relief. As other aspects of life ground him down, as they do us all to some extent, he carried those cuts and bruises over to sports, hoping to bandage his wounded pride by proving his expertise in the realm of stick and ball games. Once his emotional identity is invested in teams and leagues that don’t know he exists and couldn’t possibly care less about this happiness or fulfillment, true contentment is forever beyond his reach.
Pity him. Then pick up a book and go read it outside on a sunny day. There’s a hell of a lot more to life than sports.
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John Scott Lewinski is a freelance reporter whose work has appeared in Forbes, Barron’s, and the BBC.