There was a time, not so long ago, when England fans could gather under a big screen to watch their team at a major tournament and not go home soaked from head to toe in beer.
Everything changed in Croydon, just south of London, four years ago. All traditions have to start somewhere, and this one started in the summer of 2018 when Gareth Southgate’s England were busy reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup. Hundreds of fans would gather in a place called Boxpark to watch the games, and every time they saw their team score or win, they celebrated by throwing their drinks in the air, as frothy as possible.
Suddenly, this is how England’s successes were celebrated. Every time the Southgate team scored, the footage emerged and immediately went viral. A goal would go and the $7 drinks would fly. Chances are, if you’re online enough, you’ve seen this ritual take place during this World Cup as well, and not just from this one location. The idea was copied and adopted. This is, indeed, a learned behavior. All of this footage has taught us that this is how goal celebrations are supposed to look, so we’ve adjusted our reality accordingly.
Something similar happened with the way players celebrate goals on the pitch at this World Cup. Throughout the group stage, it seemed almost every goal was met with the same spectacle: not only were all the players on the pitch rushing to congratulate the goalscorer, but all the substitutes, wearing their bibs as well, spilled from the bench. cheering.
There was a time when this kind of celebration was the preserve of only the most dramatic goals: the delay and the last gasp, the turning point of the game and the defining of the season. Now, it’s just as likely to be the reaction to the second of three goals in a routine win. It’s not necessarily a critique – it’s more of a values-neutral development – but it’s a lesson in how what we see affects what we do, how a pulse of virality infects our lives , the power inherent in the sense that even elite athletes, players at a World Cup, have a very specific role to play in making sure everything is as it should be, as they saw it.
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