Liberté, égalité, Gritté

it is a truth universally acknowledged that a giant dorky goober must be in want of a mascot

(I’d normally restrict this post to paid subscribers like a jerk but I wanted to share it and we’ve all had a rough week, love you all, here you go)

The two teams I first learned to cheer for both don’t have mascots.

The New York Yankees do not have a mascot. They do not have names on the back of their jerseys, which is stupid, even I agree with that, and they do not have beards or long hair, and they do not have a mascot. (they won last night tho woooo)

The New York Giants, the football team, do not have a mascot. They do not want to hire a very tall person, I am assuming, and they do not have a lot of hope for this season, and they do not have a mascot.

Junior high and high school gave me the Wildcats, and I think we had a beat-up-looking maroon cat that would run around but I genuinely can’t remember. College gave me the Bears, specifically the Brown Bears, I wish I was joking, the creativity pipe was blocked the day they picked this, they used to have a real bear at games, everything is insanity. We had a mascot bear named Bruno who would run around.

And then, because God forbid anything interesting happen, law school gave me back the Wildcats. Well, not law school, exactly, the mascot for any and all law schools is an iced coffee that is somehow crying, but I went to Villanova and they have good basketball so they are now my team despite the fact that I was in their arena one (1) time that I recall and that was to graduate. Their mascot is Will D. Cat. Give it a second - yep, there you go. WillD Cat. I’ll allow it because they win championships but yeah, none of these things was really exciting or particularly fun, so at any or all of the games I’d just kinda yell “LET’S GO BRUNO” or “GO NOVA” or whatever and add this stuff to the list of vague disappointments. I stayed in the Philly area, so there’s the eagle for football, and I became aware of the Phillie Phanatic, a furry bird-creature with a trumpet for a face and chaos for a soul, and I started to see the appeal of mascots. The Phanatic is odd, but he’s our odd, and we love him, in all of his “we repurposed some carpet from the 1970s” glory.

I figured the Phanatic was as good as it could get, and I was pretty content. Kept cheering for the Yankees and the Giants, and learned to not need a mascot. I was an independent woman don’t need no mascot, or something. And then, in 2018, this happened.

Complete honesty and transparency here (as Gritty would want): I was not on board at first. When this 7-foot tall googly-eyed menace was introduced, I, like many others, was vaguely terrified. Who was Gritty? What was Gritty? Was he going to become a thing I needed to worry about? Why were his eyes like that? What do you mean he was hiding in the Wells Fargo Center until recent construction disturbed his hideout and he just emerged? What is happening? The rest of the nation seemed to be uncomfortable at best with this new Muppet of destruction, and I was not processing it well.

And then I let a day pass, and I saw how the city of Philadelphia immediately adopted this agent of chaos, and I got on board. He was silly, he was messy, he fell down while skating, he had a big tummy and was proud of it. Hot dogs are his favorite food. What was not to like? So his eyes have the mania of a three-year-old who’s six Fun Dips deep. So his fur looks like a wooly mammoth was mated with an orange. Those are features, not bugs, and this big guy might be a mess, but he’s our mess. He loves us, and he’s happy, and he’ll make playlists for holiday weekends that transition from Scottish bagpipes to Elton John’s “Your Song” to lawn mower sounds. I’m in.

But this was a shallow kind of love, only shown to be shallow when I learned what it meant to adore, to admire, to heroize.

Gritty became a leftist icon very quickly, and I fully transformed into the fangirl I’d joked that I was.

He’s happy, and barely-groomed, and bonkers, and all of his joy seems to be sourced from anarchy. What’s not to like, comrade? Gritty knows there are no good billionaires. Gritty knows that Black lives matter. Gritty knows that if there’s no justice, then there’s no peace. Gritty is a homie of the highest caliber, and I have leaned the heck in to his icon status.

My key ring has a Gritty keychain on it. I have a Gritty magnet for my fridge. A few friends have sent me Gritty prints. I have a folder of Gritty memes on my phone. I tell anyone and everyone about how much I love Gritty. The only thing keeping me from dressing Bailey up as Gritty is that she’d freak out. And probably the only thing that will keep me from getting a Gritty tattoo down the line is that I am not actually much of a hockey fan and I’d probably have to answer questions about it.

Yep, you read that correctly. I don’t even really watch hockey. It’s genuinely a cool sport, and I enjoyed the heck out of it when I watched games in college when I was there with the band, and it’s absolutely an awesome thing to be interested in, I just haven’t jumped on the wagon yet. So I love this Big Bird of the Revolution without caring much about the sport for which he is the mascot. Such is the magnetic pull of Gritty; he transcends sports, he transcends regional rivalries, he has ascended to his throne of goodness and light and hooliganism and seizing the means of production.

So here is my offer: join me. Pick any mascot, if you’d like, but may I humbly offer Gritty? You need not be a Philadelphian, or a hockey fan, or even someone who raises their voice when watching a sport on TV in the privacy of their own home. Gritty speaks to the child and the righteous in each of us, and Gritty brings those things to the surface. We can all be Gritizens, and we can all be better.