If there’s a lesson to be learned from the Club World Cup so far, it’s that images of nothingness can still generate strong reactions. Empty seats – which are apparently a festering scourge upon the game of football or a tragedy representing the plastic bankruptcy of American soccer fandom and/or the Club World Cup – have been commonplace in the competition’s opening dozen games. Social media is awash in panoramic photos of empty banks of seats, informing you that this image, so obscene in its emptiness, was taken a mere 45 minutes before kickoff – or (gasp) even closer.
Why do we care? What is it about the sight of a whole lot of plastic folding chairs with nobody in them that inflames our passions? Since when did we all become Clint Eastwood at the 2012 Republican National Convention?
