BIRG & CORF

In class we watched two videos, one that explained BIRGING and CORFING and also the Stephen Colbert old show from comedy central that showed examples of the two terms. In the first video we were introduced and explained to what BIRG and CORF were. BIRG stands for basking in reflected glory. That basically is when a person feels a strong connection with a team and have a sense of belonging with them. CORF stands for cutting of reflected failure. This essentially is when a person minimizes a relationship that they have with a bad team. When doing this they often blame the lack of success on outside influences and even demonizing other teams in the process.

In both the video from Stephen Colbert, there are several examples they show the viewers that better help our understanding of BIRG and CORF. One example is what the NFL team the Jaguars did to their stadium. The team had been having a rough record for the past several years, which was causing their fan base to decrease tremendously. With that being said, to draw a stronger fan base behind the team, they decided to make some renovations to the stadium itself. This included replacement of the stadiums seating area with pools and cabanas. This is an example of CORFING, people stopped attending the games and began to minimizes their relationship with the team so in order to improve this they added the pools to attract more support and people involved at their stadium. This video also shows and example of BURGING. It talks about a time that state senators of two hockey teams placed bets against each other on who's team would end up winning the championship cup. Although the bets were stupid ones that held no value to them, the state senates still were connecting their state team to themselves. They both felt as if they had a belonging with the team and took a team win as also a fan win to them.