The Chicago White Sox are Community

If you're a regular around these parts, you know fairly well that a lot of us on the site are rather big fans of the television show Community. You may be wondering "U-God, what the hell does that have to do with anything and why are you putting something like this on the front page?" or if you're KenWo "That show sucks, let me get back to watching my Kardashians". The Cubs vs. White Sox series tend to bring out the worst in both fanbases, with yesterday's incidents doing little to help that. "But what does that have to do with Community?" I'm getting to it, trust me.

This morning I read the news that Sony forced Dan Harmon out as the showrunner on Community. While I was sitting in my living room watching a special on Red Grange with my dad, the following thought dawned on me:

The White Sox are Community. The Cubs are The big Bang Theory. That may be the most apt analogy I've ever put together.

— U-God SouthSideSox (@SSS_UGod) May 19, 2012

I mean, there are obvious flaws in comparison (some people seem to like both shows/teams, demographics, what have you), but it feels pretty dead on to me.

It's going to take a prolonged stretch of winning seasons from the Sox and a long miserable amount of fan-murderingly bad losing seasons from the Cubs to ever have a chance of making the Sox the more popular team in town. In my lifetime, the Sox have finished with fewer than 80 wins (or a WP% equivalent to thanks to the Strike) seven times. The Cubs have done so fifteen times. Fifteen! We've even won a World Series without them even going to one and they're still the more popular team. For reasons I've never understood, people seem to love that kind of popular mediocrity, despite a better and more rewarding option being so close.

Are you picking up on my comparison now? I do not understand the appeal of The Big Bang Theory. The jokes are obvious, the characters are awful, the Penny-Leonard love relationship thing is wholly unbelievable, and laugh tracks in modern comedies are infuriating. But somehow, for some reason, that show continues to be more popular than the infinitely better Community. But does being more popular mean it's better?

The fanbases for the White Sox and Community are smaller, but considerably more rabid and passionate (defensive?) about what they love. You can dismiss this article as me taking a chance to bash Cubs fans or The Big Bang Theory, and that's fine. If that's what you want to take away from it, feel free. But I hope at least a few people get that high ratings (attendance figures) aren't everything. The product is important and that seems to be forgotten far too often on one side of the aisle. And I don't think I'll ever understand those people.