Instead of children, more and more European Championship visitors are currently bringing their own cameras to the stadium for the vlog.
Photo: image/Newspix
Envy is supposed to be unhealthy. Is there already a cure for this? If only I had paid more attention in the psychology courses during my studies. Regardless, I’ll try to let the envy out. So here it comes, my first rant of this European Championship.
Do you know the Youtuber ViscaBarca? He is a stadium vlogger, i.e. a fan who films himself attending a football game: including preparations, giving tips and of course celebrating or suffering, depending on the outcome of the game. ViscaBarca is a German supporter of FC Barcelona. The first video I saw of him was the one about tens of thousands of Eintracht Frankfurt fans taking over the Camp Nou and knocking his beloved club out of the Europa League. I thought it was good. The video too. Very authentic looking fan experience.
Most recently he was at all the important European Cup games in London, Paris, Dublin, Madrid, Dortmund, Munich and Rome. I started to ask myself: How does he even finance this? But Mr. Envy only knocked on the door of my soul at the start of the European Championships. The vlogger enters the Munich Arena at the opening game and greets four other influencers. Wait a minute, I thought: They all just happen to be sitting in the same block close to the edge of the field? And what is he saying? He will go to 18 European Championship games? One would have been enough for me and my family. I applied on ticket portals and waited in queues for hours. Nothing helped.
Something is going wrong here. How can it be that influencers get so many cards and I don’t get a single one? Maybe yes, because I don’t have any fans of my own – sorry: followers. ViscaBarca probably doesn’t have to pay for the tickets either. After the 2022 World Cup, he once said in an interview that he had not traveled to Qatar like many of his colleagues, even though he had also been offered “a huge deal from FIFA.” Europe’s football association Uefa also wants to see as much celebration as possible about its tournament on social media. And that’s where influencers come in handy. Dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of them are currently putting their vlogs and reels online, from many countries around the world.
At the end of the video, the colleague is the last straw. As usual, he thanks everyone who watches his videos millions of times. Without them none of this would be possible. Oh no, you didn’t! Now it’s my fault that you got my spot in the stadium. Isn’t that victim shaming?
Actually, I have nothing against Anton Rinas. That’s the name of the basically very nice YouTuber outside of social media. He himself had extreme financial problems for years and seems to have fought his way out of it. Respect for that! But please, dear Uefa, dear Fifa, please let more normal fans into the tournament stadiums again! Even those without their own channel. One game per vlogger has to be enough, and I would even pay a reasonable price for the freed up places. That would be a huge deal.
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