You're probably aware that the Boston Red Sox are in the "World" Series again (quotation marks for our non-American friends). With my being from Massachusetts, the possibility of another Boston championship win means my social media is blowing up with baseball related status updates and tweets. This also comes, of course, with the inevitable condemnation of all these "fair weather fans".

About a week back, one friend posted to Facebook:

Nice to see everyone posting Red Sox statuses. Where were you the last 2 years? Did you jump ship too?

Another friend Tweeted:

Love all the bandwagon Sox fans. Didn't take long. If you'll remember I was very upbeat about this team even calling a World Series appear[ance].

A large part of me can understand where the bandwagon critics are coming from. Professional sport fandom is about solidarity, faith and ritual – I think here of the Bud Light "it's only weird if it doesn't work" ad campaign. Also, "true fans" will know and love enough about to game to find even defeat, though devastating, worth the effort. Many such Boston fans will recall when the two hometown sports teams I was most invested in when I was younger, the Red Sox and the Celtics, were pretty terrible.

Hence this disparaging review of Tampa Bay Rays fans in one boston.com forum:

What I detest the most about the Rays is their fans. They haven't supported their team at all, yet there will be 40,000 blowhards in the crowd tomorrow cheering with their cowbells as though they've supported their team all year. I get tired of their fair weather fans. Sweep them Sox.

But there's also a part of me that can't help but disregard the haters as self-congratulatory. In a lot of ways it's like the much maligned hipster-ism: "I liked it before it was cool". This is the case both in its masturbatory and superior dismissiveness, as well as its commitment to maintaining the authenticity of the fan group – criticizing new arrivals for their ignorance of the true meaning of the game, music, event etc and their mucking up the hallowed space.

Perhaps the key distinction to be made in this comparison is that the approach to music usually involves a rejection of the artist, and a labeling of them as "sell-outs" for their progression beyond what is viewed as their authentic form. When it comes to sports, the fan remains a fan – and is probably more excited about their team's success than new fans – but they find it necessary to criticize the failure of new converts to undergo the same self-flagellation in defeat they deem a rite of passage for the "real" fans.

There's also a certain pseudo-nationalism or nativism to the in-group out-group labeling – perhaps with Red Sox nation the "pseudo" should be dropped. Newcomers are crowding out people who have long been participating and proud citizens, and one cannot be a true Patriot (see what I did there?) without conforming to "my country right or wrong", or sticking by a team through epic failure as well as glory. This can have the constructive result in sports of creating and maintaining large and loyal fanbases, but it also can have the destructive results that are codependent with nationalistic mindsets.

All of this isn't to say that some fans aren't more loyal than others, or that there aren't bad fans. But the "fair weather" behavior that seems more an affront to true appreciation for a team or their sport isn't the inevitable jumping on the bandwagon (or duckboat) preceding a strong playoff run or potential championship, but rather the likes of leaving a game early because you think the team is going to lose – the "clearing" of the stands is always a tell-tale sign of defeat pointed out by sports announcers.

The fact is, everyone became a fan at some point. I think there's definitely something to be said for loyalty, and it's fun to be ahead of the curve. But if the focus is less on hating people who have a newfound interest in our own interests, and more on the object of that interest, maybe we'll realize that not all fair weather fans are bad fans. So, despite the fact that game one the other night was perhaps the third game I've watched more than five minutes of this season … go Sox.