NDSU football is an excuse to drink and post on social media

During the tailgating on Saturday for the UND game my feeds were filled with individuals drinking “in celebration of the game” from seven in the morning until the early hours of the following day. Most of these posts were expositions in stupidity and were meant to show how exciting game day is. Do you know what I didn’t see a single post about: the actual game itself.

NDSU is a school that prides itself on its football team, and yet, the culture surrounding game days have far more to do with getting wasted and posting Instagram pictures than they do with actually watching any football. 

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m aware that a huge part of any sport’s culture has to do with drinking. However, the level to which students end up disregarding the game, coupled with the unbelievable amount of underage drinking that occurs on game days, paint a picture that’s far more depressing than what should be expected.

There are always people who get so inebriated that they don’t remember how they ended up in their bed the next day, let alone the game. Or those who find themselves at someone’s Snapchat story slumped over in the fan section at the game. My favorite are people who spend the entire game Snapchatting their experience, looking like the picture of enjoyment, who don’t actually watch a single play.

It’s gotten to the point where it’s impossible to avoid the drunken stupidity when attending a game. Regardless of age, it is the odd individual out who is not under the influence. Especially since posting your drunken stunts on social media seems to be a requirement for proving you had the full game-day experience. 

This past weekend NDSU went viral, and not for the plays at the football game, but because of an elderly man caught on camera and shared over social media. My own feed was filled with videos of a man, who could not have been younger than sixty, dancing in a crowd of college kids. While this might have been a funny anecdote, it took a darker turn when this same man was caught on camera making out with a college-aged female. 

This sort of drunken escapade should seem unbelievable and unlikely. However, I’ve heard stories of several drunken brawls, people getting arrested for public indecency, and have witnessed a large group of men peeing on a tree right outside of West Dining center. All of these stories weren’t heard over the course of my time at NDSU, these are just things I heard about happening this past weekend. 

People seem to equivocate chugging Tito’s on a snap story as showing off Bison pride when really it’s just broadcasting your undiagnosed alcoholism for all to see. What social media rarely shows is those individuals ejecting said Tito’s in the tailgating section two hours before the game has even started. 

Either NDSU students need to spend a little more time watching the sport they allegedly love watching or just own up to the fact that game days have nothing to do with football and everything to do with an excuse to get so drunk they don’t have to face their own inability to spend time with their ‘friends’ and watch a sporting event without getting black-out drunk. 

People just need to admit the dark and unfortunate truth: Bison football games are boring. When people are happy to leave the game after the first quarter, it’s clear that football isn’t the main highlight of ‘game’ days. We’re too good for our own good. There’s no excitement or suspense to the games. So just admit you don’t really give a crap about football and enjoy 4 p.m. hangovers.

One final note on the topic of NDSU football: the “Sioux Suck Sh*t” chant is racist. It’s been said before, but some students seem to continually insist on the innocence of this statement. No matter what an individual’s personal intentions may be when saying this, unless you are a member of the Sioux nation you will never fully understand the impact of what you’re saying. Just because you don’t see it as racist doesn’t mean that it’s not unbelievably offensive. Those that have denied racism in the past are not looked upon kindly by future generations. Don’t take part in or encourage this embarrassment.