thef155 - Tumblr blog

thef155 · 6 days

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The Internet Tifosi

an informal reflection of online fan spaces by me, a recent member of the tifosi.

I love being part of the tifosi. I love the colour red. I love seeing the passion of the tifosi at races. I love Charles. I love Carlos. I love watching races and highlights from old team lineups I love the greats like Schumacher and Lauda and Prost I love Ferrari.

My path in f1 didnt start with Ferrari, it started with McLaren- my dad is a huge McLaren fan, he introduced me to Lando (and Carlos but primarily Lando) in lockdown and sure it didnt click with me right away; I watched some races with him, he showed me the highlights from the races I didnt watch with him (including several videos of Grosjean's infamous crash) and despite the fact that I wasn't heavily invested it gave us something to bond over. That September when I left home for university it gave us a reason to call each other. When I developed a genuine interest (after I decided I wasn't coming back home after I graduate university) my dad wasn't bothered by the fact that I had shown up at Christmas with a Ferrari hat on, in fact he took it off my head and tried it on himself; "do I look good as a Sainz fan?". From my dad introducing me to Lando, Carlos was the natural next step in immersing myself into the fan community. From Carlos, we found Charles and the Tifosi. I don't have many (or any) friends in real life with the same level of interest in Formula 1 that I have developed, naturally I found myself creating this blog hoping to find a community within online spaces that wasn't available to me in the digital world.

My experience within the tifosi has been... unique, to say the least. I have been engaged in online fan spaces since I was around 14- I made my Tumblr account in 2016 to talk about supernatural, before moving on to buzzed unsolved, and marvel and so on as my interests developed and changed. Within each of these communities I have found a group of people that I felt comfortable around enough to call them genuine friends. some of whom I still keep in contact with despite the fact that our interests have changed. that hasn't quite happened to the same extent with the internet's Tifosi; and there is a multitude of reasons why.

The 'Versus' Predicament

To be rather blunt for a moment- I have never been part of a community that has been filled with so much vitriol for other members, and I was part of the Marvel fandom when Civil War was released (team cap). In fact, it seem that the tifosi are constantly engaged in a Civil War of their own- devoted fans of Charles as the self-labelled Lecfosi and Team55 practically always appear to be at odds with each other. And publicly so.

It is natural for people to have a favourite driver- we've just discussed how ive come to find myself as a devotee to Team55. But as with other areas, fan spaces have seen negative impact in communication due to internet dependancy in recent years.

From my perspective, the issue appears to be a mixture of cancel culture and virtue signalling. Now cancel culture is in itself a manifestation of virtue signalling in which creators or whomever else face mass criticism and attempted deplatforming as the internet becomes aware of potentially problematic past or present behaviour; however given its internet context and usage I've elected to view it as a separate entity.

Internet fan spaces have regressed to a state of defensiveness- in order to promote and validate your approval of one subject you must justify why in comparison to another. This is where the effects of cancel culture come into play. Cancel culture reached its peak performativity during quarantine as the internet and social media became the primary method of protesting and spreading awareness of activism whilst maintaining social distancing and quarantining requirements. As morality became monitored and policed by a younger and younger average user base, it is natural that there was a bastardisation of the phenomenon resultant in the mass cancelling and calling out of any person who spoke or acted in a manner that wasn't deemed correct; not necessarily related to politics or activism at this point, I myself received an influx of mass hatred and cancellations to the point where I was borderline shunned by an entire gaming community for making a joke about everyone hating one of the event mini games ('whats everyones favourite game and why is it not buildmart').

This same mindset is so visibly present within the Tifosi today- both extremes find themselves comparing one driver to the other in order to justify their favour. For example, tensions have been high with Lecfosi and Team55 almost in a panicked state looking to justify why they chose to support their favourite driver with 'Carlos is gifted every achievement Charles would have beaten him if he wasn't held back ' and 'Ferrari fired the wrong driver' filling the comments of Ferrari's Instagram and Twitter posts. This has prompted fans to flock to defend their preferred driver, often in ways which contribute to the animosity. Drivers face this pseudo-cancellation as a result with twitter bios seeing additions of 'Carlos fans din' 'if you like CL16 unfollow me' after every race. Criticisms of the drivers themselves increase, they are placed under heavier scrutiny as the violence between fans increases leading to a never-ending circle of driver-to-fan hatred. it is seen as almost a moral failure within fan spaces to support the wrong driver.

I, personally, have witnessed arguments between fans in comment sections on tiktok- the most memorable being a 'share your favourite driver and why' tiktok in which a Carlos fan received comments of 'Well you know Charles is actually better because x y z'. (I'd like to point out this is not an antagonisation of Charles fans, but this is what actually happened nor am I excusing Team55 from the ability to make similar comment). The notable point here is that Charles was never mentioned, yet the mere fact of someone else preferring the wrong driver in this commenter's eyes lead to them purposefully targeting another Ferrai fan to chastise them on their decision effectively boiling the interaction down to 'you're not allowed to support this driver because I don't like him'.

This is where virtue signalling comes into play. For those unaware, virtue signalling is the public expression of opinion with the intent of alignment with a moral correctness. The internet especially in fanbases weaponises that frequently through the examples of 'dni of you support x' as discussed prior. The followup to that mindset is the feeling of requirement to discuss. For example, when a driver races poorly or is subjected to penalty, fan spaces will see an influx of posts demanding fans to defend their driver (How can you support him when he drives like that), mass criticising the driver (he doesn't deserve his seat why isn't he fired), or public statement of disapproval because of the social requirement to misalign yourself with the incorrect actions of another person without genuine belief behind the statement as oftentimes excuses will be made for their preferred person in a similar situation. At times it appears that the primary interaction of some people within the Tifosi is to engage in critical commentary on their disliked drivers.

Criticism? Or extreme negativity?

With call out and cancel culture leaving the political sphere it has severely impacted the positivity of fanbases as criticism becomes a primary, almost necessary, aspect of fan culture. Of course we talk about critical consumption in which you are able to analyse and evaluate the content which we consume and become aware of its biases and flaws, however this has snowballed to become criticise everything you consume. Thus, the animosity of the fan spaces rises once more.

Of course every driver is bound to face warranted criticism- the majority of the grid are socially unaware rich white men, they are destined to say or do something Wirth criticising. but that does not mean every single one of their actions are worth dissecting under the microscope. And the prevalent attitude of analysing drivers mannerisms, behaviours emotions and heat-of-the-moment radios doesn't display the analytical eye a lot of people think it does.

A lot of attitudes in the 2024 spaces that I have personally seen have centred a Carlos negativity- there have been dire criticisms of the journalistic bias towards him across the first 3 races of the year. Of course, if you don't like him then you're bound to be tired of hearing about him. But what I found interesting was the theories being circulated that he was paying his way into the media or that there was a behind-the-scenes scheme to keep media interest on him. Now, a lot of people perceived this to be a theory based on the culture surrounding Sainz's family wealth and his father's influence when in reality it was likely to be because of the increased interest around his circumstances going into the season- no seat for 2025, rumoured negotiations with several teams, surgery and first non Red Bull win of the season. to analyse this situation critically is not to say 'well there must be a secret reason and I will investigate' but to recognise that journalism is reliant on attention grabbing headlines- a man with no job and no appendix winning a race while still in the post-surgery recovery period is exactly the kind of narrative that will garner clicks. It would have been the same had it have been any other driver in that specific set of circumstances. There is a difference between critical thinking and assumptive analyses and oftentimes they can become conflated in the desire to prove a point.

This is the issue- a lot of people engage analytically with media in order to suggest a particular narrative. Every person is subject to bias, and when that bias is unchecked it can lead to a lot of analysis that are reliant on theory, speculation and assumption in order to maintain the subconscious perspective of the writer. This is why we see a lot of people ruse demeaning nicknames towards Charles on twitter an simultaneously view Carlos as undeserving- the highlighted points of their perspective on the driver rests on the moments which will develop their narrative view of the driver as the lesser. Critical engagement cannot rest solely on one the positive or the negative, otherwise you failing ti engage critically by cherry picking a perspective in order to maintain a narrative. That is tabloid journalism at best.

I Am In Misery

It is also just not healthy for you as a fan to consistently engage in negative commentary and discourse. I mean that seriously this is a PSA if your fan engagement sees your negative criticism and commentary of your disliked driver outweigh the time you spend enjoying your interest then you need to take a step back and reassess how you want to participate because that is not sustainable for your mental wellbeing.

This is not to say that you must never hate, you must never criticise or say anything bad about someone we all do it- it's natural. But you have to ask yourself if you truly enjoy using another driver to uplift your favourite. Aren't his accomplishments enough to validate him alone?

Ive noticed a complete lack of will to celebrate- in my inbox right now are maybe around 15 asks all talking about how I shouldn't be happy with this weekends performance or else I dont understand F1. I argue the inverse,

I understand F1. I understand that this weekend was not the best performance Ferrari had to offer. I understand the impact of the team racing each other and Carlos' aggression during the sprint. And I have mentioned as much. However, I choose to focus on the positive aspects of the weekend. The tyre management from both drivers was impeccable to gain 2 positions each and maintain them finishing on tyres that were 40 laps old. They made an excellent recovery from the mishaps in qualifying that ultimately earned the team and themselves more points. We maintain 2nd in the constructors championship and 3rd and 4th in the drivers. There are issues that need to be discussed and resolved but ultimately this is not the worlds worst performance.

F1 is entertainment. I want to win, I want to succeed but I also want to be entertained. My mental health has seen a series uptick since I decided to directly seek entertainment. Sure, the drivers shouldn't have been racing the way they were, it had the potential to put both cars in a detrimental position, but it sure does make things more interesting!!! There's almost a sense of parasocialism within the community- a lot of people are hesitant to look for relief beyond the emotions of their favourite driver, and subsequently view every race as a failure in some aspect (just outside of the podium, on the podium but not p1, could've done better if it wasn't for xyz) and that negatively affects their experience as a fan and for other fans who don't share that perspective. It's almost like people have forgotten to enjoy the race, they're so preoccupied with looking for something to criticise.

Now this isn't to say you're not allowed to enjoy critical assessments of the success of races. But thats not what the majority of us are posting (it might be what some of you think you're posting, but you're not). I love watching video essays on races that are done properly with acknowledgement and awareness of bias. I don't love reading 'why this race actually sucked' because it's not built from an analytical or critical perspective, just a discussion of the race and outcome through a lens of destructive pessimism.

End

Now this behaviour isn't specific to the Tifosi, it's an internet wide phenomenon. But I've chosen to directly comment on it here because as I said, I've never sen a community with so much hatred for itself. As of 2024, we are all on the same team right now. We have the right to hold our own opinions of the drivers and express those. We do not have the right to argue on the validity of other fans preferences, we do not have the right to directly enter fan spaces (ie the main tags) and spread destructive negativity about a driver nor do we have the right to harass blogs for whom they chose to support.

The inherent negativity is so calamitous to the community. It perpetuates the infighting, it furthers the negative narratives we have constructed of drivers, it only contributes to divide the community as both sides earn reputations of being toxic towards each other. And to an extent, yes . It is true, and that is disappointing. Charles and Carlos are both talented drivers, there is no need to drag one down to uplift the other. It is instigating behaviour and I'm sure a lot of people comment that way purposefully.

Be aware of your parasocial connection to a driver. if you find yourself criticising a driver for an action that you would not criticise your favourite for executing ask yourself why you view the action as negative circumstantially. If you are only able to assess races based on what could have happened, what better could have happened then ask yourself if you find this enriching; do you leave race weekends feeling good and excited for the next race or soured because things might have been better under different circumstances. Don't ignore the problems, acknowledge them and say but what are the positives as opposed to letting the failures undermine the successes.

just have a bit of fucking fun once in a while PLEASE .

this is a mass response to the people in my inbox thank you for your patience I didnt want to answer like 15 different asks about everything in slightly different ways

#this is fucking gorgeous #I honestly don’t have enough words in my working vocabulary rn to praise this as I should #I want to quote half of it on every fandom platform I use and maybe I will

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