God, I love living in Philadelphia right now. It’s minus whatever degrees cold out. My subway stop smells like old man turd; my neighbors’ trash, which of course they put out a day early because they forgot about the holiday once again this week, got blown around and is now stuck on parked cars and sidewalks and peed-upon frozen slush. But damn if I don’t feel pure joy every time I walk by someone else wearing an Eagles ski cap.
What’s more, these joyful Birds fan run-ins are, right now, happening everywhere, all the time. It’s the playoffs, and buttoned-up bros in business coats and drooling babies in strollers wouldn’t dream of going outside without donning one or more wearable items featuring our city’s iconic football raptor.
Loving the Eagles, inside
On the inside, Philadelphians may be lamenting the endlessness of bleak winter or the start of what looks to be an authoritarian presidency leading to the end of American democracy, which, by the way, started here. But on the outside, we’re greeting each other with “Go Birds” through forbidden ski masks and wound-tight wool scarves.
And that, my bleeding green friends, is magical. Or, as Penn Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions Katy Milkman, says, it’s science.
“It’s basically psychology from the 1970s right in action,” she says. “It brings all of us happiness when our team wins … and we’re wearing the gear to take those positive feelings to another level.”
Researchers in Japan published a study last year that used MRIs of the brain to explain what happens when someone who loves a team, watches that team. The academic conclusion might be blatantly and almost offensively obvious to anyone remotely involved in the actual enterprise of sports, from spectator to advertiser, but just to confirm what’s happening, here goes:
“Watching sport was positively associated with participants’ self-reported well-being, as well as increased brain activity and the structural volume in the specific brain regions related to well-being. Furthermore, its positive effect was intensified when watching a popular sport compared to watching a less popular sport.” Once again, science bears shit out. (Also, the study rightly notes that watching baseball is way more fun than watching golf.)
Loving the Eagles outside too
Milkman says it feels even better to watch and celebrate sports, as the French say, en masse. She points out 1976’s seminal, “Basking in Reflected Glory: Three (football) field studies,” which found university students wore more school gear after their football team won — and students referred to themselves as a member of that team — using the proud “we” — more often after a win than after a loss.
This sense of cohesiveness goes by a few different terms, says Suzie Pileggi Pawlewski, the co-author of, not coincidentally, Happy Together and a blogger who covers positive psychology — including the joy of celebrating Philadelphia teams — for Psychology Today. “Positive contagion factor” refers to the infectiousness of displayed joy. “Co-experienced positive emotions” refers to a good-for-you physical reaction members of a group share when witnessing, say, Saquon Barkely running 78 years in the snow for an epic TD. Another way to put it: “collective effervescence.”
“You may ask your spouse to take the dog out, and suddenly hear them screaming, ‘Go Birds!’ at the neighbors. That’s a bonding experience.” — Kylie Kelce
“Positive emotions are contagious,” says Pileggi Palewski, a lifelong Philadelphian who’s gone on WIP to talk about how our sports teams edify Philly. “Right now, the city is full of positive emotions. Whether we’re on the streets of Philadelphia or actually attending a game, being around other people and their uplifting mood, you can catch that — and that’s really good for your emotional and your physical health.”
It’s also good for Philly’s health. “There are a lot of challenges going on in the world right now,” says Pileggi Palewski, “In Philadelphia in particular, you see everybody coming together. That love of our sports teams really connects us, despite our differences … As we say, ‘We all bleed green.’”
Weird and wonderful
The whole thing is wonderfully weird, though.
Exactly 20 years ago, I was watching an Eagles game at the New Wave Cafe in Queen Village. (That season led up to a heartbreaking Super Bowl XXXIX where T.O. accused Donovan McNabb of hungover-barfing on the sidelines.) For a moment, I saw the scene for what it was: A bunch of jersey-wearing, beer-guzzling strangers, yelling at screens showing grown-ass men wearing tight outfits running around chalked up grass, all fighting for a prolate spheroid styled to resemble an ugly brown corset.
Sometimes the strangers in the bar high-fived each other. Sometimes, they pounded on a wall or countertop. The whole thing was absurd, because sports and sports watching are absurd — a manufactured, bloodless, hyped-up battle among the physically gifted less-than-1-percent with no meaningful outcome other than the movement of money from the most to the few. Not one celebration or lamentation around me that day was heard on the field. And, even if it were, would it have made a difference? And, even if it had made a difference, would that make a difference?
Luckily, my spiraling epiphany was momentary. Because the next second, I thought: I should be so lucky to end up with someone who loves me half as much as any of these ridiculous drunken goons loves the Eagles. After all, who cares if that deep-down feeling that you’re part of the team, or your honest belief that you absolutely must wear the same pair of underpants you wore the last time the Birds won, is utter self-deception? (We see you, podcaster Kylie Kelce and your delightfully weirdass lucky wooden spoons.)
It’s a feeling, and as real as any feeling, and it’s a particularly good feeling — a feeling that’s made so much better when we’re sharing it.
Recently, Swoop showed up at my Acme. Aisle 14. The Eagles Drumline was there. Someone was giving out green Dietz & Watson hotdogs, regular color Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews — and bright green beanies featuring the Eagles logo, where the Eagle was holding a green hotdog in its bill. Isn’t love grand?
Last year, a well-regarded but incredibly dull study of 885 Chinese sports fans spent thousands of words explaining something we Birds gangsters take for granted. Rooting for the same team before, during and after games creates another term: “collective euphoria.”
It’s a feeling, and as real as any feeling, and it’s a particularly good feeling — a feeling that’s made so much better when we’re sharing it.
The Mandarin-to-English translation may have additionally boring-if-ied the language, but the extra-dry research explained that when we’re all wearing our Kelly green (which is still far superior to whatever mossy blue-green the Eagles pretend is green during most games; although I guess we’d have to make the Jets change their colors in order to officially readopt Kelly; I digress), we’re exemplifying community. We’re doing something good for others, and for ourselves.
The study reads:
“This communal emotional experience deepens their bond and amplifies their resonance, contributing to greater pleasure and satisfaction derived from the game.” Are you getting sleepy yet? “This feeling of social identity can elevate self-assurance and impart a sense of belonging, thereby enriching the emotional experience.”
Or, again, in the words of queen Eagles explainer and butter pecan Dunkin drinker Kylie Kelce:
“You may ask your spouse to take the dog out, and suddenly hear them screaming, ‘Go Birds!’ at the neighbors. That’s a bonding experience. You might think that that’s embarrassing, but that’s camaraderie between neighbors. That’s gonna be the neighbor that sees a package out front and snags it for you to make sure it stays safe, That’s that ‘Go Birds’ bonding.”
