Nah, it's been this way forever. Only, it used to be reserved for nerds and geeks enjoying d&d, comics, and whatever else wasn't cool at the time. Society's just at a point now where the jocks aren't the defacto popular kids so their hobbies are fair game for ridicule now too.
This is satire. Sports enthusiasts are mainstream, The mainstream is notorious for looking down on other people's hobbies being weird or not mainstream. Liking a sport is something almost everybody does. This is the little guy punching at the big guy, and that's why it's funny.
As soon as people stop shaming D&D players and furries and other niche interests, this sort of retaliatory satire will vanish.
You give an example of why one way might be more harmful than the other, but not why we can't just allow people to enjoy their interests in peace.
You are basically saying "well, it's okay to act like asshole to everyone who likes sports because some people who like sports are assholes to other people!"
It's a dumb point, especially if you see the harm in it yet still try to justify it.
Punching up highlights the ongoing problems of people punching down. The enlightened centrism approach of "can't we all just get along" has never worked. Suffering silently has never worked.
In a situation with two groups with a significant power differential, the group with less power is "down" and the group with more power is "up". Punching up is exactly what it sounds like, given that situation.
I've always heard it used, and I believe it originates from, comedy.
If the question is "have strikes ever worked?" Well yeah of course they have. But peacefully working along side other people has also had success in the past. So if we are drastically expanding the definition, then the point still falls apart.
That attitude isn't going to make anything better. Two wrongs don't make a right. Generalizing all sports people as bullies is just as bad as picking on any other group for their hobbies. I say this as someone who doesn't give a shit about sports and was bullied quite a lot.
I def agree that no one should knock a (harmless) hobbie, but I didn't read the post as being mean. My reading was more that it's genuinely thinking it's cute that some guys get so excited about sports. At least, it's better than the "ugh all men care about is sports" kind of angle.
You've obviously never lived where sports is a religion. These are not people "enjoying hobbies". These are frightened men screaming at children to run in a circle faster.
If they were "enjoying it" they would smile more. Look at all the smiles on the sidelines there. Look at 'em. Are there any? Sometimes. But not that often. Mostly it's scowling and looking VRY SRS
I grew up in a place where some football matches warranted a national emergency. Football hooligans were also pivotal in changing the government for the worse in the past 20 years. I know that football can be toxic. Moreover, I hated the over-emphasis of football in schools, and I never liked playing it, which had me left out of some social circles.
All that said, if people want to run after balls, or dress up in merch of their favourite teams, let them. A ton of hobbies have toxic followings, that doesn't mean enthusiasm equals toxicity. Laughing and belittling people for being enthusiastic is quite antisocial in my opinion.