This Week In Schadenfreude: It's Chemical Burn Time in Ann Arbor

scha·den·freu·de

–noun

satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

[Origin: 1890–95; < G, equiv. to Schaden harm + Freude joy]

On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.

It was sort of like The Horror last year: Michigan takes on a ridiculously overmatched opponent, finds itself trailing late, gets a last-second chip-shot field goal to redeem themselves, and blows it. Also bloggers started posting mushroom clouds.

But they didn't stop there. The Hoover Street Rag busted out this scene from Fight Club:

What is this?

This is a chemical burn. It will hurt more than you have ever been burned, and you will have a scar.

Uh... yeah. Michigan, you are the Tears of Unfathomable Sadness award recipient.

The rest of the week in spleen after the jump.

BIG TEN

Michigan. I guess I should mention the chaos and strife going on on the homefront: MGoBlog currently has a Civil War painting foremost, describes the Wolverine-on-Wolverine violence currently engulfing the Michigan internets, and then perpetrates some of its own:

I assure you that every Michigan fan was angry on Saturday, and every one had second thoughts about this New Era thing. Some of them chose to swallow that anger, and some chose to give it to someone else. What's the adult thing to do? What would those people in hats have done in 1935?

They would have sucked it up. So suck it up, you pansies. It hurts. Act like a man about it.

Elsewhere, Genuinely Sarcastic calls Michigan fans "gutless" and Varsity Blue declares M fans to "really really really really suck."

I expect a minor ethnic cleansing in the next six weeks.

PAC 10

Washington, mercifully, had an off week, so we must turn our attention elsewhere. How about 2-4 Arizona State, fresh off a 28-0 loss to USC? The mood on the ASU boards is decidedly mean:

Any more Rudy apologists out there???

He is a an absolute joke. All talk, no play. Don't even try to blame the line, no pressure and he throws is right to a defender.

I can't believe he is going to be the statisical leader of ASU's Qb's. He has no place anywhere near Jake, Danny White, hell even Andrew Walter.

Nothing like a random dude on the internet calling a starting D-I college quarterback a "joke." Unless that's Sam Keller, that's probably unwarranted.

Actually... is that Sam Keller? If I was him I'd certainly run around Arizona State message boards posting "lolcarpenter" as fast as humanly possible.

Also: there is a thread titled "hyper-obsessed rat loser," which immediately became a popular name to bestow on your Rock Band outfit.

Aaand let's check in once again on UCLA, losers to Oregon. Bruins Nation, what say you?

And no matter the result, I'd take that [a surprise onside kick Oregon recovered] over a coach that called plays even a 6 year old could've predicted.

Aw, hamburgers. I miss Karl Dorrell.

SEC

Auburn fired its offensive coordinator midway through his first season and then lost to Arkansas after losing to Vanderbilt and beating Mississippi State 3-2, at which point the Joe Cribbs Car Wash had a bonafide psychotic break:

Welcome to ahotpictureofBritishactressLucyGriffiths.com? Would you like to see a hot picture of British actress Lucy Griffiths? Here's one!

[Picture redacted so we don't get sued; hit the JCCW for, well, a hot picture of British actress Lucy Griffiths.]

We hope you liked it! Please check back if you would like to see the hot picture of British actress Lucy Griffiths again!

Football? No, at ahotpictureofBritishactressLucyGriffiths.com we don't know anything about any football.

When I get around to writing my book Ways In Which Football Bloggers Deal With Humiliating Defeat, "pretend you're living someone else's life and post a picture of a hot chick/kitten" will get its own chapter.

LSU lost to Florida, prompting completely reasonable things on LSU message boards like "Saban's players gone=Mediocrity" and "We shouldn't be happy with Mediocre." What is it with LSU fans and big-m Mediocrity? I don't know. I do know this, uh...

I love Les Miles... with that said we should not be happy with thrashings like that of saturday. We should not be happy with 9-3 seasons. Yes it wasnt too long ago that we were 3-9 but i lived through the nineties and was diehard lsu even then, but it hurts to see a schalacking like saturday. We deserve better as fans than to witness the lack of spunk and discipline that is a staple to LSU defenses for the last several years.

...is... uh. YOU WON THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP LAST YEAR. SHUT UP. SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

BIG EAST

Syracuse 6, West Virginia 17. Cue the crying child:

Later, rinse, repeat.

BIG TWELVE

At this point Oklahoma boards are mostly filled with anti-schadenfreude backlash instead of the actual stuff. The best item was from some guy on Soonerfans with a kickin' bald eagle/american flag icon giving it to the whiners. This is also a variety of reverse schadenfreude:

Much to the happiness of a few of you losers, this is my last post in this place. Too many whiney *** losers here. You cry like little babies and make all kinds of excuses for why OU loses a game. ...

So have fun playing with yourselves. Some day, you'll have to step out from behind the keyboard. And then someone will throat punch you little babies back into oblivion.

Throat punch!

Tell me you haven't wanted to do that to people on the internet. If there was a throat-punching virus you could install on people's computers that would be rad.

We've also got some examples of schadenfeud, wherein the anger is directed at some incompetent media hack. In this case it's the Oklahoman's near-illiterate Berry Tramel:

One of the first lines in the "article" was: "This was an historic game from which you couldn't avert your eyes."

Is it just me or does this sound like the opening line of a 10th graders english exam about his favorite sports team. ...

They have the nerve to even video this guy...I dont want a guy that looks like he just rolled out of a dumpster after taking a bong hit representing Oklahoma.

Dude, I'm with you on that one.

ACC

Ding, dong, the freude is dead at Clemson, as the Tigers have just sacked Tommy Bowden halfway through the season. Reliable TWIS feature blog Block C will presumably be taking the rest of the year off and speculating wildly about who will take over.

But let's get one for the road, huh?

I think it's sort of like pissing yourself and being all angry and confused at first and then just settling into resigned melancholy, being like "Hey, yeah, I pissed myself. Oh, well. Here I am, all pissy and smelling vaguely of popcorn. Aw, now it's starting to get cold. Well, here I am."

Thanks, Block C. Your service to the cause has been appreciated, and good luck with whoever the next guy is.

Oh, what the hell, let's do one more, this from Sporting Gnomes:

Me: How would you like to suck my balls?
Tommy Bowden: What did you say?
Me: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Actually, what I said was...
[picks up a megaphone]
Me: HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SUCK MY BALLS, TOMMY BOWDEN?

Bowden's new answer is "somewhat, depending on how much you'll pay him."

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-13-2008 @ 4:37PM

Doug said...

MGoBlog also has you describing in your own words how you threw a bottle at someone booing at the end of a game. Are you frigging kidding me? Michigan fans should be allowed to be upset - stop telling them they're idiots and wrong if they are.

Also, stop throwing bottles at people. Give me a break.

10-13-2008 @ 11:17PM

Brandon said...

Michigan fans are pretty much broken into 2 groups right now.
1) Pissed off people who can take it.
2) Pissed off people are convinced that a 2-4 start is a sign of the apocalypse, or worse: not playing in a bowl game
People who are calling for RR's head already need to be hit with something. Anything. Just give them a good slap in the face and tell them to get a grip

10-14-2008 @ 10:57AM

Olaf said...

He threw a bottle at a guy. Clearly he's upset too!

10-15-2008 @ 10:36AM

Randy said...

I think it was a water bottle. An empty one, actually. Not exactly a handle of vodka, y'know?

10-15-2008 @ 12:05PM

argus99 said...

It's really embarrassing to see the over the top histrionics displayed by my fellow Wolverine "fans" regarding RR and the team. I used to think we were a classy, knowledgeable fan base...funny how adversity always weeds out the weak. 40 years of consistent good..occasionally great football teams and these douchebags go to water over 1 toss-away season during a time of great transition. This is a wake up call or the "wine and cheese" crowd to the walmart wolverines - get real or get lost. I'm with brian...if I ever see anyone booing those kids out there at the next game they are gonna lose some chicklets. Gutless...

Argus99

10-16-2008 @ 5:48AM

Mike said...

Unfortunately, Michigan is the recipient of bad karma. Not their's, but the coach's. After such a classless move, such as the one he pulled at WVA, one can not help but feel that he got what was deserved. Sorry to all the wolverine fans, but sometimes you just get caught standing too close to the real target.