Stadium Seating: An Affront to God or Charles Darwin Would be Ashamed.

Life is filled with infuriating, aggressive annoyances. In fact, the average life consists of repeated frustration, with microscopic breaks of joy, before the soul crushing annoyances return in waves. At Bloggin Hood, we focus on the bad (and how!), but up until today, we haven’t discussed the one topic that really boils up my blood. Today’s topic is worse than Pumpkin Spice, Baby Corn, and the 2023 Mets season all rolled up into one. I am of course talking about Stadium Seating, humanity’s greatest error.

Ok, ok, the 2023 Mets pissed me off more, but I needed a hook.

Now, if you a fortunate soul, when you hear about Stadium Seating, you’re likely thinking of attending a sporting event. I’m not actually talking about seating in an arena, but that has its own set up problems. In traditional Bloggin Hood fashion, let’s begin with a 1,000-word deviation from the topic and then boomerang back to whatever the hell this is about. I think it was Baby Corn.

The first problem with traditional stadium seating is the price. Tickets for any sports, concern or event in an arena costs way too much. Granted, everything costs too much, but the price to actual go to something in insane. Plus, all of the additional fees associated with buying tickets negate anyone’s biweekly paycheck. Just to get into the nosebleeds, you’re likely dipping into triple digits at a minimum. And honestly, when you’re that high up, can you really see? If you want to see anything, you’re dropping $150 minimum. Great.

Stadiums also do a great job of making some random seats completely obstructed by poles, walls and other architectural flaws. Imagine dropping said $150 dollars only to be staring behind a wall. Is this better than watching Max Scherzer pitch in a big game? Sure, but I can stare at a multitude of walls at home for free. My apartment also gives up way less titanic homeruns and makes way less excuses for its shortcomings. But I digress from my current digression.

Even putting aside the cost of the ticket and the chance of being blocked by support beams, you also have no control on who you sit next to. You might sit next to a few people who will quietly enjoy the game. But you’ll probably be next to a bunch of rowdy drunks rooting against the team you like or hate the band you went to see. Or, you just end up with a giant creep who hones in on you the entire time.These are the laws of the universe.  

If you’re stuck next to some bad eggs, there’s little you can do. I remember when I was 14 or 15, I went to a Reds-Mets game to see Ken Griffey Jr. For the entirety of the game, four college aged jackasses shouted every insult they could at Griffey, because… he got hurt twice in the previous two years. Cool. I mean, it really didn’t make any sense. Like, who in the history of time hates Ken Griffey Jr? Probably people who enjoy things like Baby Corn, Pumpkin Spice and Max Scherzer starts in key games during the end of the 2022 season.

Hmm, some of these insults are getting oddly specific. I’m sure it’s fine and not the topic of the next Bloggin Hood Post.

Of course, it’s not just the seats at stadium that can be problems. The commute to get to an event is always a pain in the ass. Sure, you can drive to any stadium or arena, but you’re going to sit in traffic and pay nearly your ticket price to park two miles away from the venue. Sounds great. Other options include an Uber, so you have the same experience without the satisfaction of being in control, or taking public transportation… You ever take a train with a bunch of rowdy fans to an arena? I’m pretty sure every Covid mutation was born from the toxicity of these trains.

When you get to the stadium, the cost on concessions may put your descendants into debt. Why does a bag of popcorn cost $13? How can the vendors sleep at night charging $17 a beer? Probably on a cash lined mattress filled with money. It’s impossible to go to an event without getting some sort of food or drink. There’s no other option for food, and you’re spending half a day factoring it the travel. Arenas know this and add zeros to the cost of everything once they hear the first stomach growl.

In essence, going to any live event is a giant shakedown. If the arenas had access to your bank account, and transferred 50% to themselves, it would be a savings. Imagine spending all this money to go to a Mets game, and witness a 13-2 loss? Well, consider all the sad sacks that went to the Mets game this season. People are doing this on a daily basis! I mean, you can gargle with pointed rocks and have more fun at a fraction of the cost.

The idea of going to a live event is better than actually doing so. Sure, it sounds great to be there in person, and in all honestly, there’s plenty of times it is. Last year, Maid Megan went to a My Chemical Romance Concert, a concert that was delayed for several years due to Covid. She had a fantastic time, and there’s no way to simulate that experience without being there in person.

Now, I also attended that concern, given that Megan and her two friends would have been traveling to the arena on their own on their own. I had no idea what My Chemical Romance was. In fact, weeks before the concern, I thought they sang this song.

Yeah. you’d think I’d be embarrassed by this, but read some past entries. You’ll find shame has no place at Blogginhood.com

While Megan and her friends reverted to high school and had the time of their lives, I casually watched how many people were dressed as zombies and was confused why the lead singer was dressed as discount Batman. I did not have the same experience as everyone else. However, I did follow the Mets game, a thrilling come from behind win, capped off with a Francisco Lindor grand slam. I probably didn’t need an arena seat for that though.

I did learn Helena is a banger though.

There’s plenty of stadium flaws, but there’s a live event out there for everyone. If the Mets ever complete again, you can be sure I’ll pony up for a playoff ticket, knowing I’ll be hurt again. However, 99 times out of 100, it’s better just to watch things at home. Other than a lengthy pregame tailgate, truly best reserved for football games, the home viewing experience is superior.

Is the energy level the same at home? Probably not, unless you invite the Griffey hating scum over, but it’s a lot less crowded. The food in drink is either free, or at a significantly reduced cost. You don’t have to worry about missing a chunk of entertainment on a bathroom break. And if the event you’re watching goes badly or has a delay, you can do literally anything else. Plus with technological advantages, you likely have a better view of a game at home than in the stadium. Sure, the energy isn’t the same, but you don’t have rival fans trying to fight you over your hat.

Remember when I said that the rant was about Stadium Seating, but not the Stadium Seating you were thinking about? You can admit the topic faded away. Let’s circle back to that now. The Stadium Seating I despise isn’t this expensive, money sink. No, it’s when people try to recreate the Stadium Seating experience at home. Yes, it’s somehow dumber than it sounds.

But how can one recreate the tiered seating structure of a stadium or arena without spending thousands of dollars in putting in seating rows or having layered benches? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s very dangerous and stupid. How would I know? Well, back in college, my group of friends* ² nobody was injured during the Stadium Seating era of college. Perhaps it was sheer luck. Perhaps it was divine intervention. Most likely, it was the sheer dumbassery of the idea. You know how multiplying two negative numbers makes a positive? It was something like that, except with broken bones.

Still, even without anyone getting hurt, there was always the uncomfortable feeling that somebody bad would happen. How would we even explain that to a hospital?

Nurse: What happened to your friend

Bloggin Hood: Well, a couch fell on him.

Nurse: Were you carrying it?

Bloggin Hood: No, he was sitting on the second level and the support chair fell out.

And that’s just a fantasy scenario. Imagine actually having to explain it to people.

3). Guests

Oh, don’t worry. I did have to explain it to people.

We weren’t exactly the most popular group of people on campus, but we did have the occasional visitor outside of our usual eight people. What a fantastic joy it was to have to explain what was going on. I felt like I was always put on the spot in this situation, and nobody believed me when I said I hated this. I mean, sure I looked mortified and embarrassed, but it’s still in my dorm room. Nobody believed me, and why should they?

This haunts me to this day; people I graduated with likely thought I enjoyed this disaster. People must have thought of me as an outcast or a pariah. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended my relationship in college. And you know what? They’d all be right. Who’d want to date somebody who enjoyed at home Stadium Seating. Thank God I met Maid Megan years after this.

You don’t think she’s reading this, right?

And somehow, we haven’t gotten to the dumbest part.

4). Dinner Reservation.

You remember how all that was left was one seat and small table? Well, we didn’t really have a lot of options on where to eat dinner. Before all of our chairs were taken, we had enough room for four people to eat, and when you considered two functional couches, there was room for plenty. But now, you couldn’t eat on the couches since they were too busy being partially suspended in air, held up by hope. You certainly wouldn’t take food or a drink up there.

The solution, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, was to create a dinner reservation. No, this really happened. We didn’t immediately realize this was going to be a hassle and deconstruct it. We instead took out us a piece of paper and forced people to reserve dinner time. This of course failed spectacularly.

Almost immediately, one of the residents of the other room reserved a two hour dinner from 6-8PM. Despite my noble protests, I was overruled. I don’t even think any food was eaten during this block.

Another day, the sheet was sullied by a giant penis reserving a 1 o’clock shift. This is a classic guy prank of course. For whatever reason, men from the age of like 11-23 have to draw dicks on anything they can. Ha ha I guess? You know what the problem was? This drawn penis stayed by the table for two weeks. Now, anyone outside the group who came over not only saw a wall of couch stacked on top of each other, but a penis and balls dinner reservation.

Well, I guess in this case it was a lunch, but you get the point.

During the Stadium Seating era, I ate most meals in my bedroom. The cold lonely isolation away from every one else was the happiest time during the multi week period.

Conclusion

One of Charles Darwin’s most celebrated theories is natural selection. The concept is simple – the strongest of the species survive and evolve while the weak eventually die off. The reason humanity thrived is because of their ingenuity, cleverness and resourcefulness.

I believe if Darwin set foot in own dorm room and laid eyes on what we created, he would have immediately considered his work a failure and questioned how any of us were still breathing. Everything about what we did spit in the face of common sense, intelligence, and just the sheer number of available seats. For Christ’s sake, we paid five figures a semester and settled on this?

After a few weeks, the couches were unstacked, and the chairs were put back. I don’t remember exactly why, but I believe the other smart roommate decided enough was enough. Eventually, we got our seats back and life returned to normal. But life never truly returned to normal. Once you’ve experienced the scarring from a catastrophic decision like it, it never truly goes away. It stays with you, staining your soul, and making you bitter in the process.

To this day, many of these so call friends who voted in favor of this talk favorably about the experience. It’s like talking favorable about having a three-day bout of food poisoning because you lost eight pounds. Like sure, you didn’t die, but was it really worth it? There was a frigging giant penis on the wall for a week.

And for those of you involved in this Stadium Seating incident of 2009, and I know you’re reading this, remember I’ve never forgotten. I will always hold a never-ending grudge against you all for the memories, the embarrassment, and yeah, that giant penis on the wall. Nothing will ever trigger me as much as Stadium Seating and God willing nothing will ever trigger you as much.

The next time you and your friends are bored and want to do something, try something safer, like cliff diving without a helmet, or eating as much raw chicken as you can in an hour. Sure, this sounds awful, but I promise you, the damage done to you physically will be light years better than the mental scars Stadium Seating has caused me. Do not let this happen to you.

I wouldn’t recommend the raw chicken or the cliff diving either.

2. *I use this term as derogatory as humanly possible. I’m still in contact with all of them regularly. [/eft_note] pitched this idea. I’ll do my best to explain.

   Concept

   In Roman times, the Colosseum had Stadium Seating designed to allow all classes to have a view of the action. Granted, not every seat was equal, but even the people in the top of the Colosseum could see a few dots move about. Remember, the Romans didn’t have access to high-definition TV. They barely had standard definition! Going to the stadium was one of the few forms of entertainment they had, even if a lot of times it ended up with some people getting torn to shreds by a lion

   

   In our college dorm room, the concept was in nowhere near as effective. In essence, many members of the group were bored with having comfortable, plentiful seats for everyone to relax and hang out in. Instead, they pitched an idea for Stadium Seating, which would stack both couches in the room on top of each other to simulate the tiered system being offered in arenas worldwide. Mind you, the other thing we used our TV for was playing Super Smash Brothers Brawl. It was the exact opposite of an athletic event.

   What’s worst is the construction plan was significantly more dangerous than fighting a lion to the death. And it was less fun.

   Blueprint

   I’m not sure what the true inspiration behind this pitch was, but I’m guessing it involved too much alcohol and too little common sense. The “Plan”, and I don’t even feel good about just using quotes, was to stack the two couches on top of each other, with nearly every chair in the room used to balance the couches together. Now this sounds exceedingly dangerous, because it was exceedingly dangerous.

   Readers, I’ll level with you. I’m not exactly sure how the physics of this work. I was completely against the idea from the start, not even because of the danger, but because I wanted to keep all of our seats. To create this monstrosity, we had to use all but one chair in our living room. Somehow, a key component in the design was using an odd number of chairs. I’d like to reiterate – completing the death trap that surely would kill us all removed the number of seats we had so we could slightly see the TV differently.

   I tried to Google stadium seating in a dorm room, but there’s nothing legit that you can find. Sure, there’s a few articles and pictures, but in them, the people look happy, and even more egregious, safe. There’s even an entire article based on students building a support system and using drills and saws. Our construction involved two couches sandwiched with a bunch of chairs and a table. We couldn’t spell tools, let alone use one. There may have been a wall for support, but I’m not sure. I suppressed a lot of the finer points due to sheer rage.

   Somebody who was in college with me for Stadium Seating will undoubtedly write a lengthy post defending the construction and idea of it. I just want to stop that nonsense now. They are full of shit, and they will choke on their lies.

   Group Vote

   Despite the sheer probability of maiming and death, our group took this Stadium Seating “plan” to a vote. At this time, we had eight people involved, two dorm rooms of four people each. The vote went 6-2 in favor of proceeding with this disaster** ¹ **I would hope it’s clear I voted against this, but yes, I voted against it. I have a functional brain. [/eft_note]. Additionally, the voting decided that the construction would take place in our dorm room.

   Four of the six Yes votes lived in the other room. Why the hell didn’t they have the stupid couches stacked in their room? If it such a good idea, why didn’t you do it too? Huh?! I’m waiting for answer.

   Oh I see, because it was the single dumbest idea in human history. It made NFTs looks like a well thought out, strong economic achievement for every social class. It made Frigging Fyre Fest look like the second coming of Woodstock. Hell, it made the 2023 New York Baseball Mets season look like 1986.

   Not that I’m still deeply bitter and scarred from an event back in 2009.

   Soon after the vote, the couches were stacked and homemade Stadium Seating was born. In many ways, the Bloggin Hood persona was born that day, mostly because I began to hate everything. The phrase “This is a great idea” was said at least a dozen times. I can’t imagine anybody meant it, but people sure as shit said it a lot. Then again, it was probably a great idea for four people since they didn’t have to live in a room with reduced seats and a death trap.

   Issues

   You’ll be surprised to know that designing Stadium Seating was not without its flaws. With such an intricate design, I was stunned how quickly we came across problems. I’ll list out some of them now.

   1). Shortage of seats.

   Typically, a stadium’s biggest strength is a plethora of seating options available at all sorts of costs. Granted some are expensive, but if you want to go to a live event, you have your choice of seat to purchase. A funny thing happened when we made Stadium Seating a reality in our dorm. And by funny, I mean the most infuriating thing imaginable.

   Because nearly every chair in the dorm room was used to balance the couches, the number of seats were significantly reduced in the room. Not only were chairs used up, but the second couch precariously balanced on them. Nobody with three brain cells would sit up there. Naturally, the two roommates who voted yes to this construction sat on these seats of death daily.   

   The lack of seats actually made eating meals tricky in the room. In fact, we were reduced to one table and one chair for four people. Hold that thought, because we’ll come back to this for our final flaw.

   2). Imminent Death

   If you googled dorm room Stadium Seating, you will not find a picture of our couch sandwich. Instead, you’ll find a detailed layout with plans, tools, and a surprisingly well put together seating arrangement. Even with all this planning, I still think it’s one of the shittiest ideas in human history, but at least there was actual construction.

   The group involved in the 2009 stadium seating didn’t have any sort of engineering degree or construction backgrounds. This was a group of accountants, liberal arts majors, and truly, drunk video game players. Most members of this group weren’t qualified to construct a sentence. As soon as the second couch was placed, I wondered whose neck would snap first when the couch inevitably fell.

   Now, despite all of my complaints,*** [Efn_note] ***Completely justified and correct complains