okay i never actually post on here but i saw something yesterday on @illegalferrariengine page and specifically one of the tags set me off on a rant to @daniallricciardo during my class yesterday, and i am now going to form that rant into an incoherent tumblr post bc im bored at work and still mad about this
so here it goes: a two part rant about f1 fangirls and DTS fans; and why the f1 fandom is actually ostracizing itself and harming the sport it so very much loves, because of how it treats female & new fans
basically, what fully set me off was a tag along the lines of a lot of “fan girls” go into full seb vettel f1 knowledge mode when talking about history, and even know more than a lot of guy fans, and as a new fan, this is something i have noticed in myself. i’m a pretty big sports fan in general, but im new to f1 and unlike any other sport i watch/follow, with f1 i dove head first into not only the current grid/era, but also the general history, which i have not really done for any other sport. (i’ve been watching tennis since i was like 8 and i could not tell you anything in detail that happened on either the men’s or women’s tour since like, pre 2005, i just never cared to learn). but with f1 i did. and for a long time i chalked that up to “its a new sport to me and im fascinated, and my adhd hyperfixation really set in (during a time when im living alone and have nothing else to do)” and i went wild with it.
but yesterday really got me thinking, did i just become so into the knowledge because of how much i like the sport (and don’t get me wrong i LOVE f1 now) or did i get so deep into the knowledge because the general online discourse (especially on twitter which is its own toxic ecosystem) is that if you’re a female fan, you have to prove that you’re a fan of the sport and not just a “superficial fan girl” and like THATS SO PROBLEMATIC. i realized yesterday (and maybe this is a super obvious thing and my brain was just slow at fully grasping) that even subconsciously, i know that i would be categorized as a shallow fan girl unless i proved my knowledge, especially since, i am a girl! and i am attracted to these silly attractive men driving fast and being silly in press conferences! sue me! but i shouldn't have to justify being a fan of sport!
i was trying to compare this to tennis and soccer (my other two fave sports) and while obviously there is still bias and misogyny in those fandoms as well, it really does not reach the levels that i’ve seen in the f1 fandom. personally i think that because there are so few drivers (in comparison to soccer and tennis where there are literally thousands of athletes) so we know more about each driver and really get to know their personality (at least the public personality that they portray), which makes the connection feel more personal. it also doesnt help the inherent bias that , yea , a lot of the drivers are conventionally attractive and could probably be models if they didn’t want to be driving. but it just doesn’t sit right with me that i’m being forced to become an encylopedia of f1 knowledge just to show that i am in fact into the sport because i enjoy the strategy calls, the on track drama, and the absolute power that is the merging of a man and machine to create basically a hyper-athlete. you don’t get that in any other sport and i think thats the genuine beauty of f1.
the other part of the toxic f1 fan culture that has frustrated me is the perception of fans that got into the sport because of drive to survive. now, i didn’t get into f1 because of the Netflix show. i started watching because i had a friend who was a huge fan, and she convinced @daniallricciardo to put on a few races, and i decided to stop making fun of the fast cars going in circles and watch a few races with her. and it got me hooked (this is my formal apology to my boss who i used to make fun of relentlessly for watching f1, you were right Doug its a great sport). but i digress. just the fact that i feel the need to clarify that i did not get into f1 because of DTS is PROBLEMATIC IN AND OF ITSELF. to quote @daniallricciardo “it feels like a badge of honor that we got into it without DTS and it SHOULDN’T”
the point of drive to survive was to attract new fans to the sport, and guess what! it worked! shocker! but the fact that fans who have been watching f1 for years before the Netflix show consider “DTS fans” to be fake fans literally contradicts the whole point of the show and the sport in general. f1 will only continue to succeed as a sport if the fanbase continues to grow. more fans mean more money which directly correlates to the ability to put on races and provide the entertainment that we sign up for as fans of the sport.
this whole rant basically boils down to: misogynistic f1 fans who reject new DTS fans as “fake fans” are literally ruining the sport they claim to love so much. not just by creating a toxic community, but even in a more tangible way, they could end up affecting the f1 bottom line if they continue to ostracize fans in the way that they currently are. i have never felt more insecure as a fan of anything in the way that i have found in the f1 community. and while i will admit that i also love the knowledge side (seb is literally one of my absolute favorite people so a part of me wants to be just like him, f1 history wise), but i wish i could just enjoy randomly knowing who the 1984 wdc was (niki lauda - of course), without thinking that knowing that will put me in better standing with the f1 community.
this all seems like, super obvious and not at all some kind of big breakthrough and i recognize that. im not pretending to say i got to the root of toxicity in the f1 community and now in gonna work on solving that. but i think, at least for myself, i needed to put this out there, so that, personally, i can start overcoming the internalized insecurities i have about being a fan in a new sports community which has a very interesting little ecosystem, unlike any other sports fandom ive encountered.
if you got this far 1. im sorry that i took up 1.2k words of your time and 2. thank you for letting me rant, i def needed it