It’s been a
long time since I’ve written anything for this blog; a series of moves, new
jobs, and a few scholarly articles have been taking up most of my time. So,
what is the topic that appears to have gotten me interested enough to take the
time to write something not for work? Why, the over-the-top, disproportionate
amount of hate I see Lando Norris getting in online communities.
To read F1 social media, you wouldn’t know that Norris consistently polls as one of the most popular drivers on the grid. (This is where I will also admit that I am a McLaren fan and a Lando Norris fan.) Even with his popularity, the way he’s discussed online would make any outside observer think he must have spit in Lewis Hamilton’s face, murdered Max Verstappen’s cat, and been consistently dominated by his teammate, worst driver on the grid.
Except,
none of these things are true. Norris seems to be well-liked across the grid,
maintaining close friendships, including with his past
teammates and his
current championship rival. Sure, he’s let his temper get the best of him a
few times and been perhaps a little too blunt, but what driver hasn’t? He also
has been no slouch of a driver, having never been outqualified by a teammate
over the course of the season (including this one – it’s now mathematically
impossible), scoring multiple podiums in a mid-field car in his second year of
F1, and placing himself as the driver that is most likely to be able to catch the formidable
Verstappen this year.
Is Norris
having his best season ever? Well, yes and no. Statistically, it isn’t even
close to his previous seasons, but this is also the first time he’s had a car
with the ability to get consistent podiums and wins. On the flip side, he has
been extremely inconsistent, and he
would be the first to tell any hater or fan that hasn’t been driving well
enough to deserve a championship. However, this article isn’t about the fair and
deserved criticism of his driving. This is about the way the hate has gone to
another level.
To
understand this, we have to begin with why do we love (or hate) any driver?
What makes a fan feel so passionately about a person they’ve never met that
they (me) will spend hours defending them or slandering them on social media?
Most of us have no logic for our choices. In the end, it’s often just vibes.
Sure, we may come up with reasons (he’s a hard racer, he’s from my country, his
affect is annoying etc.), but those reasons often end up revealing more about
ourselves and what we value than anything substantial about a particular
driver.
Sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu in his book Distinction: A Social
Critique of the Judgement of Taste argues that our tastes (the things
we like and dislike) are not merely personal preferences, but serve to reflect
who we are and how we see ourselves in the world. They also signal these views to
others and provide us with cultural capital, a type of power, to
distinguish from and helps us fit into a group. This is how Donald Trump, a
multi-millionaire elite, can be seen as a man of the people, whereas poor
academics like me are somehow labeled as elite. We have different amounts and
types of cultural capital.
So, what
kind of status and cultural capital does hating Lando Norris give someone? How
does this hater see themselves in the world and how do they want others to see
them? To answer these questions, we have to start with: Who is a hater trying
to distinguish themselves from?
Thankfully,
that one is much easier to answer. We know that the reputation of a Lando
Norris fan is they are young, generally new to the sport. Lando Norris fans are
also more likely to be girls and women and/or to be members of the LGBTQ+
community. In fact, he is the most popular driver “among
female fans and all fans under age 25.” Simply put, Norris suffers from
what I often call the “boy band effect.”
In popular
music, this kind of things happens all the time. A musical artist or group gets
very popular with female audiences, especially teenagers (and often gay men), and all of the sudden, they
begin to get hate from straight men and “cool girls.” Rock critic Carl Wilson
literally wrote
a whole book on his own hatred of Celine Dion that documented this effect.
By virulently hating Norris, anti-Lando fans are establishing that they are
more masculine, hetero, and therefore, in the world of F1, more deserving of
belonging than those “Drive-to-Survive fan girlies who just like the drivers
because they’re hot” (this is a paraphrase, of course, though I have seen the
term “Landosexual” being thrown around). Because let’s be real, sports, including
Formula 1, are for straight men, and everyone else is a visitor. In fact, F1
and the men involved have done little to dissuade this notion, from posts
about how women are less intelligent from the head of the FIA to accusations
of sexual harassment to the
continued objectification and belittling of women on the grid and in the fandom.
Hating the driver most beloved by female and queer fans is what gets you
cultural capital in the mainstream world of F1. It’s what, as Wilson would say,
makes someone “cool.”
Of course,
it’s not a coincidence that Norris is the driver who attracts these fans. He is
often extremely
emotional and vulnerable and talks openly about his
mental health struggles. He has extremely
close, longtime friendships and feels comfortable to be both verbally and physically
affectionate with them. His negative feelings often manifest in extreme
self-deprecation, the expected
avenue of undesirable emotions for women, rather than anger at others, the
more masculine expression. And unlike Charles Leclerc, the other driver who
most fits these parameters, he doesn’t have a tragic backstory to explain feeling too much. He’s
just like that.
Does these
mean all Norris haters are misogynistic homophobes? No, of course not, nothing
so simplistic. In fact, most of our preferences are subconscious and complicated. At a surface level, we do just like what we like, and underneath is a whole web of reasons that we may or may not actually understand. But it does mean that when people get online and say awful
things about him, it’s not just because they believe what they are saying and want to tell the world about it. It gives them a
little bit of cache, of cool, of masculine power. And, for many of them, it’s because they
value more masculine ways of being: aggressive, unemotional,
selfish.
It also
means that Norris, even as he’s having one of his worst seasons, is somehow
becoming underrated. The number of people who rate his teammate Oscar Piastri
as better than him, including journalists, seems too high for the actual statistics
of the season. I’ve never seen a driver beating his teammate so thoroughly in every statistic (qualy and race h2h, points,
podiums) be so scrutinized and disparaged against that same teammate. (For comparison, this
was Norris’s second year against Sainz.) But this isn’t surprising. The way people describe Piastri (cool, unemotional, ruthless) codes as masculine in
a way Norris never will. (I will also just put here that Piastri is an
excellent driver, and I’m excited for the future of McLaren. I think the hype
around him is correct, but that the disparaging of Norris’s abilities in comparison
is not.)
There’s
also this belief that somehow, to be successful in F1, you have to have all of
these masculine characteristics, and there’s not room for the more feminine
ones like patience, collaboration, emotion, and loyalty, but that’s factually not true. What some fans label in Norris as “overly
emotional,” they
call in other drivers “passionate.” We’ve seen Verstappen’s temper and aggression
get the best of him, losing him points in both Austria and Hungary just this year, when he may have been better served by channeling Norris's introspection and careful driving. And being a
team player does get you somewhere because in the end, this is a team sport.
Don’t believe me? A
key to Michael Schumacher’s success was genuinely caring about every single
member of his team. Norris is known to have spent time doing his work-study for
McLaren and
helping the mechanics put away the car after races. His loyalty to McLaren
has led him to turn
down offers from Red Bull multiple
times. His patience has helped him to avoid crashes in the midfield and led
him to insane levels of consistency, including a
wild point-scoring streak in 2021. It also helps him keep his tyres alive,
something teammate Piastri still struggles with in comparison.
That being
said, I was glad when Norris and Verstappen came together in Austria, and part
of me wishes he would have punted Piastri off the track last week. Just as
being overly aggressive or dispassionate can be a negative, so too can being
overly loyal, emotional, and careful. But, I do believe that, while he may need
to get a bit more aggressive, a bit more selfish, Norris can win a championship
while staying true to the himself, the person his fans love. Bring on the hate.
