Do you care about the human obsession with sporting contests? Are you a fan? Do you have a favorite team? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then surf over to RammerJammerYellowHammer and see what you’re missing.
RammerJammer… is a marketing tool organized by the Crown Publishing Group to get people to buy Warren St. John’s book, Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip Into the Heart of Fan Mania. Will it accomplish that mission?
While the answer to that question is not for this reviewer to speculate, I will say unequivocally that RammerJammer… is a site worth seeing. It has the clean lines of a minimalist blog, so its format is familiar to web aficionados. It is unpretentious, so it is accessible to the rest of us. And it is humorous. To wit, one of the Frequently Asked Questions posted on the website: “I happen to hate Alabama football. Can I possibly enjoy this book?”
Mostly though, this site is a great read:
“I grew up in Alabama, possibly the worst place on earth to acquire a healthy perspective on the importance of spectator sports. If you were a scientist hoping to isolate the fan gene, Alabama would make the perfect laboratory…being a sports fan is largely about learning to cope with losing. In most sports there is just one champion per year–every four years if you’re into a sport like World Cup soccer–so for the overwhelming majority of fans, losing at least once a season is a near certainty. In my childhood, this small kink in the works of the fan’s life went more or less unexposed. The primary agent of this obfuscation was a man named Paul “Bear” Bryant, the gravelly voiced football coach with an old-growth frame who coached Alabama to six national championships and who, when I was eleven, set the record for the most wins of any college football coach in history.
In its current incarnation, the Internet is a world of images and motion. Too often those sites which still choose to exhibit words over pictures quickly find themselves relegated to the slag heap of “that’s so (insert latest previous minute here).” And on we humans push the World Wide Web in the long march to the front lines of the Revolution of Rising Expectations. On we march, increasingly callous to those Internet pioneers who had not the tools to make their sites lyrically pictorial. Progressively uncaring to those whose every thousand words paint a grand picture. Ever apathetic to the Masters of the Inner Life. As so should it be. You’ll get no truck from me. I like to watch.
But if ever you should tire of the incessant viral videos clogging your inbox; if ever you should long for spying a cute turn-of-phrase ; or if ever one desires to be stopped! Nay, planted! whap bang right in their seat and read, actually read something wonderful and comical and elemental, surf on over to RammerJammer…
And why is it called “Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer” anyway? Guess you’ll have to read the website to find out.
Finally, RammerJammerYellowHammer rates a .com Dish! “E” for appropriate for every age group.
