This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, June, 2020
“Where are you? What have you been doing? What are you binge watching?”
The first two questions are irrelevant in that the first answer is obvious and the second one is usually “binge watching,” leading to the third query, to which there’s only one correct response: “I’ve been watching 800 daily internet bowling shows in which bowlers talk to bowlers in the morning and then talk to each other again in the afternoon and then talk to each other again before bed in order to set up tomorrow’s conversations.”
The western-hemisphere bowling world has gone from bowling for 14 hours a day while others watch to talking to each other for 14 hours a day while others watch, followed by a brief break to re-oil the fiber-optic cables before bowling’s Australian correspondent checks in.
More than any other professional sport and well beyond tweeted screen shots of co-workers doing virtual happy hours, bowlers are keeping bowling conversations going despite a complete lack of actual bowling. It’s impressive to see, although it’s not shocking as bowlers have always been able to talk about bowling.
Just as bowlers have adapted to advancements in cover stocks and lane conditions, they’re now adapting to advancements in technology to entertain their fans in new ways while simultaneously marketing themselves and increasing their followings. This is smart and good for the entire game.
Long-distance communication has been around since the beginning of civilization. Using fire, smoke, flags, guns, drums and other visual or audial cues, messages relating to military directives, regime announcements or whether a fastball or changeup was coming next were able to be passed, relatively quickly and over long distances, to those who needed to know.
With the invention of the telegraph in the 18th century and its ascent to prominence in the 19th, bowlers were no longer limited to pre-determined signals and were able to send the first text messages, dictating exactly what they wanted to say. Instead of having to use flags to flash the old yellow-red-blue signal for someone having bowled a 300 game, people were finally able to send a telegraph: I WOULD HAVE SHOT 300 BUT MY OPPONENT DISTRACTED ME STOP
But the telegraph wasn’t good enough. People didn’t want to text each other; they wanted to talk. Along came Alexander Graham Bell’s patent in 1876. Soon after, bowlers were able to call each other and talk about their bad breaks and frustrations after first relaying their gripes to the operator.
This continued for over a century, although the operators were eventually spared, before humans decided telephones were too intrusive and they hated talking to each other and would rather go back to telegraphs. The advent of the reversion-through-advancement text message allowed bowlers to form group chats in which they could make fun of each other during qualifying blocks. Everything was wonderful.
Then, the world—even qualifying—stopped.
Suddenly deprived of human contact, everyone realized maybe communication isn’t so bad after all, but phone calls were still out of the question. As “Weird Al” Yankovic sings in “First World Problems,” “Somebody just called me up on the phone / what? / don’t they know how to text? OMG.”
Smoke signals aren’t practical with everyone locked in their underground shelters and group texts aren’t as fun without new fodder. The next natural step is to arrange live video colloquies available for anyone in the entire world with an internet connection to watch.
As is proper, bowlers are at the forefront of this movement. Just because they’re not bowling doesn’t mean they can’t have fun with and make fun of each other. And, with the added desire to see and be seen, why not skewer each other publicly so the fans can stay in touch, which should lead to increased fan engagement when the bowlers are able to compete again? And, in true bowling fashion, why not require an entire day, every day, to make it happen?
So, what are you binge watching?