ABSTRACT
The desire for local community competes with the desire for mobility and the allure of a higher standard of living elsewhere. Fandom illustrates the tensions between local affiliation and global culture, between loyalty and choice. Fandom embraces the deep desire to belong to something bigger than the self without the limits of binding, long-term obligations. Fandom is one ritualized solution to our desire for identity and sociality that can no longer necessarily be satisfied through birth and kinship. Football fandom is a social project rooted, to some extent, in the face-to-face experience in the stadium and in the more intimate circumstances of daily life. The growing influence of asynchronous and long-distance media has undeniably changed social life and fandom. Due to the comparatively few interruptions, football does not lend itself to the constant distraction of social media. Many hardcore fan groups shun social media altogether because it goes against their ethos of resistance.
