A message to all the "fans" who call the team "Red Donkeys"...

Thanks Viper and I second your call to have Michael K step down as a RBNY moderator here on BS...

 

Why are we nuts? Because we passionately support our team and Michael K doesn't? Please explain and please don't persuade him... we are better of w/o him...

 

Damn, dude!! There's no [R] in this title, and I've got the match taped.

 

Personally, I'm fine with any fan calling the team "Red Donkeys". They are mildly insulting their team and themselves, but it's still a form of support for the team. I'm also a big fan of freedom of thought/ speech/ expression.

It's different that if a rival fan calls our team the same, but then, what do you expect from some idiot that actually supports a crappy team. These people are just ignorant and should be either ridiculed for being on the small bus, or ignored (like you would ignore the 5 year old eating his boogers at a fine eating establishment with golden arches.)

Personally, I think that by calling them out and making a big deal of this, you are encouraging them to eat more boogers.

 

I am not sure I agree with you re: the paucity of posters w/ integrity and a sense of history.. Many, to quote Doctor K, have "transcended the name..." and yet still maintain connections to the past w/o being condescending to the present..

The problem w/Michael K is that I see where he is coming from way too often...

 

Yeah, Real fans ARE critical of their team. They want them to be better, and for God's sake the team was absoloutely lost until just recently.

 

I can see why fans still want to call them metrostars out of sentimental reasons and the majority of us have gotten over this and they are now our Red Bulls. I don't understand why anyone that likes the team would call them donkeys or asses or whatever they are intending. I just don't get it, sorry. Guess I am clueless here as Mo was when he was with us.

 

I agree, for the most part (Metro was poor-to-mediocre for much of its first decade, but the LA Clippers/Arizona Cardinals they were NOT, and revisionism shouldn't make them out to be that). I think I was pretty consistently critical of Metro, too, because they really deserved it.
But many, many teams around the world have found their way out of the wilderness without giving up their identity. They've also done so without subjecting themselves to be part of a experiment which, if successful, could open the door for sports to become more absurdly-commercialized, distanced from and exploitative of their "customers"/fans across the board. I regard that to be a Very Bad Thing; the chasm between shirt sponsorships, Brand X Stadium and "this call to the bullpen brought to you by Rolaids" and New York Red Bulls is a wide and significant one indeed. It's especially nauseating that my team had to be the one to try and cross it, because as a somewhat traditional soccer fan and sports fan I very much hope it doesn't succeed.

I'll write more later in response to other posts later if possible, hopefully in a universal spirit of lets-all-tone-down-the-rhetoric-and-animus,-k?.

 

Didn't people see straight through this false dichotomy when Bush used it?

 

Thats nonsense, sounds like the Bush WhiteHouse

 

riiiight.
http://www.lifeinlegacy.com/2005/Oct/RussellNipsey.jpg

 

Well said and Irishapple's last statement has nothing to do with George Bush and his lies. He clearly made his point... You can be critical of the team without being insulting and unsupportive.. Calling them Red Donkeys is insulting to most loyal supporters of the NY team and this has been the on going argument we've been hearing too often.. I am mean the team doesn't have cans of Red Bull on the field these are human beings... branding is branding... Do the Chivas suppporters complain about their branding.. I don't think so. I respect Michael K's position but not when he insults the team because of it's new branding and those who have moved on and accepted this new identity... the past history of the Metros has not been forgotten by any means but to think that that brand name is better than Red Bulls is ludicrous...

 

I have my thoughts and opinions on this matter, but I'm inclined to agree with you right now. This has been beaten to death. It's only been a few months. General thought on broken relationships (to which this can be comparable) is to divide the time you were together by three, and that's the time it should take to move on. So, if you were together for three years, one year of moping and moving on is an acceptable time frame. Continue this arguement in a few more years, please.

 

No.

This isn't an argument about cookie cutter ephemera. It's not a debate on curing cancer either but it is important to sort out who are the fans, who aren't the fans, and who's hiding behind fandom while taking pot shots at the object of the fandom.

I really don't care if you still call them the MetroStars. By all means, call them that. On some level, I think it's still a better name than Red Bulls. I do have a problem with other names that sound to me like some people want to turn this into a third grade name-calling competition...and say it's meant out of love. I don't buy it, I don't think many other people buy it...it's worth settling.

Unity is good during game time - I hope everyone here goes to a New York game and doesn't support the other guys - in between games let's sort it out now.

 

For a start, Roehl and I agree on that last point.

And, lest it have gotten lost somewhere in the last few pages of posts and back-and-forth, I call them "Metros" pretty much all the time, myself. I simply am not put off by "Red Donkeys" if that's to your liking, nor do I see anything so terribly insulting and nasty about it. For goodness sake, get a skin.

 

Maybe not, But the "For me or against me" Argument is verbatim one used by George Bush a few years ago and is fascistic by its very nature (ie everything is black or white) it is devisive, simplistic, negative, and prolongs the alienation of the fans of the team, who (rightly) are slow to trust the ownership. I suggest move on.

 

Who's been appointed - or appointing themselves - to carry out THAT duty, though? Your pot shot is my legitimate criticism - and vice versa.

 

Kinda like the girl who woke up and found out she wasn't a virgin anymore.
Honey, where have you been?

I bet it wasn't a week after we won independence from England that George Washington's image was stamped on everything from jugs of whisky to corsets and three-cornered hats. Practically every hamlet in Jersey had a house with a placard that boasted "George Washington Slept Here." As the father of his country, he probably did, and rank commercialism has thrived ever since. As things go, as an ad for Red Bull, our team is a remarkably low-keyed approach to sales. I've seen much worse on Mex League jerseys and shorts.

For those who react with Simon-pure horror over the intrusion of commerce into the hallowed halls of MLS, get thee to a nunnery. You are too good for this bad, old world. Do pray for us, poor sinners, while we crack open a can o' Red and watch our team play soccer.

 

Fine. Let's have it out then. That's all I was saying there.