Why We Love The Winter Olympics (and don't try to deny it)

The main reason people are so into the Winter Olympics is because we love to watch others, particularly people with extraordinary abilities fail. Seeing athletes choke is part of the joy of the sports and there is no better showcase than the Winter Olympics. After all if a pair of ice skaters that have breathed ice and triple axels their entire lives can't pull off one routine, our typos on emails (and blogs) aren't that bad.

Now I know you folks out there are thinking, yo TPG, what's with the negative attitude towards athletic competition? Did you get kicked off the T-ball team for poor hitting. Well yeah, I did, but that's not the point. Take a look around, we love watching people fail, in fact one of the fastest growing sites on the internet, is failblog.org. In these dark times for the world watching others squander opportunity is almost delightful.

For example, when Peyton Manning threw that interception in the super bowl, we know he was pissed. But we didn't see him reeming m out his recievers, the camera just moved on. But in the olympics, if you don't land a spin in pairs ice skating, you know you partner is going to be giving you that frigid stare of cold icy death for the entire routine (or life). Here is the equation for TV ratings:

(Pre-event hype) x (Status of Athlete + History of the Event) x (Magnitude of the Fail) = Viewer Enjoyment

Look, I'm happy that BRRROOOOOOOde Miller finally got some hardware and I loved seeing Shaun White melt faces, but don't kid yourself America; We love watching to see people choke on the chilly wind of Olympic glory.