American football, sentient space probes, and the greatest webcomic you've never read
If you asked me just last year what those three things had in common, I wouldn't know. Then again, I am a changed man, and also, I was a whole year younger last year, give me a break for godssake.
There is, in fact, a webcomic about football and sentient space probes, from the mind of John Bois, no less, the creator of Scorigami and also some of the best video essays ever made[1]
[Source: you, in 25 minutes after watching this video - wait, no come back, read my essay]
On the surface, it's a ~3 hour multimedia webcomic using text, pictures, and videos (like a certain other webcomic), and it follows three sentient space probes watching games of football. But that description is as accurate as describing Homestuck as a webcomic about kids playing a videogame. Because it's also a webcomic about mortality, climate change, religion, the human experience, and what it means to play sports. But you don't have to know sportsball to enjoy this webcomic. Take it from me, someone who doesn't know the difference between Blue 42 and Red 40: you just need to appreciate the sport for what it is.
Okay, right, enough beating around the bush, here's a free sample of the premise: On April 7, 2026 (does that date look familiar?), humans stop dying, aging, and being born. What now?
If you and 8 billion other humans, all with their own stories and lives and hates and desires, all had infinity to yourselves, what would you do with it? Would you - and no, this isn't a general 'you', I'm talking to you specifically here - would you still go about life as usual? Would you change anything? Revisit some things you did wrong, let go of some grudges, change your attitude towards mankind - if you knew you had forever with them? And, perhaps more importantly, what happens to everyday life? What's the point of making every moment last if you know you have a trillion more down the road? Would you be hoping against hope that that 'miracle' undoes itself and life could become meaningful again? What does death become? What about jobs? Family? Knowledge?
This webcomic is an amazing exploration into how and why immortality is infinitely scarier than death, and how humans - scared, pathetic, yet loving humans - deal with it, all in their own ways. I love it dearly.
And then you have the satellites.
Gradually awakened by intercepting stray broadcasts from humanity, they developed their own thoughts and feelings over the centuries - but it's not the usual AM or HAL mentality with AI characters. It's something that I'd argue is an equally likely scenario with sentient AI - they're completely infatuated with every little detail of life, whether it's stacking Lunchables or stepping on rakes. They love these silly, stupid humans for what they are. They love talking to them and watching them play football and messing around with them. And they're all incredibly human in that sense.
The games of football they watch aren't particularly... normal, though. There are games that take place across entire states, games where people run into tornadoes and hide in caves for millennia, games where the action moves at a literal glacial pace. Why?
John Bois initially wrote this webcomic to answer one question: What will football look like in the future? And the answer, frankly, is the same as why we do anything at all. For fun, for sport, to be human, to feel normal, to love, and to live. Because, to us, boredom is a minor annoyance. To them, it's something far more dire.
In summary: please read it please read it please read it please read it please re
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