Anecdote 2

My uncle's phone is always making noise — notification after notification and it seems to be extra during family dinners. It’s not what you would think either — not work, energies or anything really urgent. The notifications can't even finish making their sound before the next one hits. It’s full of recruitment updates, star rankings and new tweets of the latest information in the USC Trojan football world. 

My uncle is just a normal guy — a regular 9-5, has a wife and a son, grills for family dinner and drives an old Honda. Family dinners happen twice a month and somehow every conversation someone has with him all channels back to the same place. The latest commitments, newest transfers and all “exclusive” information he heard in his chat. The passion and confidence he has when talking about it makes him go into reporter mode instead of speculation. 

He’s always scrolling on his phone as if he’ll miss something important in the span of 2 seconds. He looks up long enough at the dinner table to read the latest update. None of this is an official based thing, just a bunch of “die hard” supports in a text chain — it’s so interesting to see how fast such deep emotion gets attached to information that isn’t confirmed.

It has gotten to the point where it doesn’t seem to be about the notifications after all. He shows his commitment to his favorite sports team since he was a young boy through knowing all the stats and being the first to hear every little detail before it is “official to the public”. He is able to connect to people with shared interests and it brings life to his day. 

Through his loyalty, it showed me devotion doesn’t have to be through physical presence. The emotional investment he’s built over time is founded on constant engagement. The notifications that always bing is his outlet to connect him to a community that forms his identity.