Bashing Bad Norms

You hear a lot these days about norms, mostly because they’re constantly being shattered, and shattering things is often loud. Since 2016 when the orange nightmare first seized our national psyche, we’ve gotten a painful lesson in how fragile was our mutual agreement to not be violent raging assholes in every way at every second of every day. This, atop the hourly shredding of the Constitution and the rights it confers on the people to whom it belongs, has sent pro-democracy forces scrambling to counter the massive and comprehensive assault on pretty much everything decent about this country.

I know my lane, and other than giving money and voting as many times as possible, I can’t do much about the damage being done to our most important and cherished norms (my most cherished norm, comedian Norm Macdonald, died in 2021 and was Canadian anyway so there’s not much MAGA can do to him now).

But two weeks ago in this space I argued for the demise of socially- and professionally-mandated uncomfortable/restrictive clothing, and it dawned on me that in the process I too had taken a shot at shattering a norm, in this case a bad and stupid one. As the lightbulb above my head flickered with ever-waning influence, I managed to glean that this could perhaps be a worthwhile pursuit, for while we’re realizing how important protecting/saving/restoring good norms is to our happiness and well being, how about laying waste to the many norms that just plain suck? I have one here, and it goes a little like this: The richer and/or more famous you are, the more free stuff you get.

In the three years I was the humble sports editor of the even humbler Owatonna People’s Press—a morning daily light years from the socialist hellraiser its name suggests—once in a great while I’d take advantage of my Associated Press credential and go to the big city and watch the Twins or Vikings play. It was the job’s only decent perk, but I was then and remain a child when it comes to sports and so got a huge kick out of the free admission, refreshments, and press box seat. I further enjoyed the fact I was far from alone, as there were often 10 freeloaders for every one working stiff.

This is where I first identified that category of earthly goods humans love above all others: free stuff. No matter how much money people have or how full their closets are with whatever crap’s being given away, we all share this twisted instinct that likely stems from being capitalists from conception. We make so many daily decisions based on profit and loss that when something is offered that frees us from all of that and yet moves our needle however slightly, we never say no. I’m no innocent in this realm, evidenced by the two Washington Capitals 50^th anniversary Zamboni gravy boats that make our Thanksgivings extra special.

Fortunately, the Zamboni gravy boats were an all-skate promotion; none of this “for the first 5,000 fans only” bullshit. That practice was invented by some sociopath who saw in limited giveaways a chance to comingle his two highest ambitions: make more money while pitting humans against each other in Hunger Games fashion. But the greed and general malevolence of your average pro sports team owner is for another screed. Now let’s return to one of American capitalism’s natural laws that seems as immutable as it is imbecilic: The more stuff you have, the more free stuff the world wants to give you.

I first ran across this odd dictum as a high school tennis player, when someone crossed my radar who was so good they were “sponsored.” This meant they got all their tennis stuff for free, occupying as they did the lowest rung of the professional ladder.

And I was reminded of it last month when I caught the end of the Knicks’ crazy comeback in Game 4, because a big part of ESPN’s replay package surrounding OG Anunoby’s heroics was the reaction first of a group of New York Jewish comedians, and then a bunch of other courtside A-listers. We got Jerry Seinfeld looking astonished, Ben Stiller looking happy, Larry David and John McEnroe—sitting next to each other in some special section for the impossibly annoying—embracing in what would be a really weird way unless you knew they were old American white men.

But that was nothing compared to the rest. Tay-tay was there, as was Rhianna, Timothee Chalamet and Kylie Jenner, Sydney Sweeney and a bunch of other really famous people who likely think Bill Bradley was first and foremost a politician.

Patrick Ewing being there threatened to make sense of the whole thing, as he’s an all-time Knick great and never won an NBA title. Seinfeld, conversely, never once in nine seasons set an episode of his show at a Knicks game, despite doing so for the Rangers, Mets and Yankees.

Then there’s the illustrative case of actor Ethan Hawke and his disappearing comped courtside seats. Hawke broke one of the cardinal rules of celebrity row, to wit, he criticized a coach’s firing on national television. Other courtside seat rules courtesy of dickhead owner James Dolan include never leaving early even if the game’s a blowout, never giving the seats away, and above all else, in true Trumpian fashion, always demonstrate total unquestioning loyalty to the team. Hawke, he of the $55 million net worth, fucked up by dissing the team’s move on Jimmy Fallon, then revealed the sad but often true cluelessness that comes with fame on the Bill Simmons Podcast. “They’d always hook me up. And then I called up one time and they said, ‘That’ll be $7,800 (the per game price for two seats).’ I was like, ‘Why is this the first time you guys are charging me?’ And they said, ‘You should have thought of that before you went on the Jimmy Fallon show.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, this is real.’ “ Yes, Ethan, that’s what real life is like for everyone: we get the best stuff for free unless we go on late night and speak of things about which we know nothing.

Or you can be like Spike Lee, who’s spent $10 million over 30 years for his courtside seats so he can do and say as he pleases.

As usual, twas Reddit—the New York City subway of the internet—that provided clarity. “This has always bugged me too,” anitsocialarmadillo1 wrote. “The VPs at my company have a private break room that has a filled pantry and drinks that the company pays for. I got paid $11hr to go pick up the food and put it away. I wasn’t allowed to have any of it because it was for the people making 6 figures. Everyone else in the office had a vending machine they could pay 2-3 times the normal price of snacks.”

I’m not completely naïve about toxic capitalism and its attendant and oh-so-fun attention economy. But I find that, for no particular reason, anything more than a surface scrape is more than interests me, and so other than this passing reference to not really understanding how influencers influence any of this I’m now officially done scribbling on the self-evidently backward practice of giving people who need nothing so much for nothing. Like this piece, I just think it should stop.