Abstract
Entertainment is an activity that emerged with capitalism. With intense working conditions and unbearable lives, people who live in the city are made amazed by entertainment techniques. In factories or on the production line, it was necessary to entertain mechanically constantly-working masses in an easy and inexpensive way. The football, which is used for this purpose, has an important role in organizing the time of leisure and leisure. The interest of the broad masses of fans has made football an interest of advertisers. Many products are marketed in color. Shaped shirts and sporty products are the most important ones every year. All the products of the team are turned into a part of the football game, which is trying to sell all the products of the team. Not just fans going to the match; old, young, child, adult, female, male - everyone is walking around on the match day like a billboard.
TopThe Concept Of Fanaticism
Having fun means not thinking about something all the time and forgetting the pain even where it is shown. What lies behind this is weakness. This is indeed an escape (Adorno, 2007, p. 78). Mankind has been interrupting the routine in daily life with entertainment since the first ages of history and has been experiencing catharsis. Thus, people can get the energy to turn back to the daily routine with these short breaks in their lives. Entertainment has transformed into a form of professionalism with capitalism. The unbearableness of urban life is made bearable by entertainment techniques. Fake pleasures are offered to the masses who are constantly working in a mechanic way in the factories or in some parts of the production line to restrain their perception of hopeless emptiness (Modleski, 1998, p. 198). Therefore, after industrial revolution, city centered activities were given importance for physical discharge. Football has been life-saving in this sense.
Capitalism sees organized sports, especially football, as the most obvious choice for the colonization of the entertainment and leisure time outside work (Erdoğan, 2004, p. 13). This is because football is an area of interest for millions of people. Like in the statement by Eco, however radical it may be, no revolutionary group occupies the pitch on a Sunday when there is a football match (Trifonas, 2004, pp. 68-69). The essence of purification is the discharge of tension or rage (anger) in an expressible form (Oskay, 2010, p. 372). In this sense, football games serve as a social discharge area.