There is something that is guaranteed to happen if an Australian sporting team begins to perform well in an international event like the World Cup, as we saw recently. I’m not talking about politicians putting on merch and Googling “soccer” in order to pretend they like sport, although that’s also true. It’s that with each passing match, more and more people will get excited and begin to join in on the action, tuning in to give their support. This, in turn, will cause some others to become irritated, as they start to accuse people of “jumping on the bandwagon” and not being “real” fans.
Of course, this is not limited to sport – accusations of bandwagoning are thrown around when musicians begin to get more popular, or when TV shows are discovered late. It is a complaint that has always annoyed me, and I’ve found it difficult to understand. Everyone is a new fan at some point! So were you – unless you had a flat screen TV set up in your mother’s uterus where you could watch your favourite team play before you were birthed. So, I’ve heretofore judged harshly each and every person who has complained about bandwagoning. Until recently.
