You should see some of the stuff that gets written to me about my blog. You are right, we are the legion of the miserable.
From my own experience, there appears to be an inverse relationship between a tangible connection with a University and the amount of seething anger one will communicate.
In other words, some of the nastiest emails I get are from people who appear to have arbitrarily chosen UT out of a hat. They don't live in TN, aren't from TN, didn't go to UT, don't know anyone that has ever set foot on campus as a student. Their closest connection to UT is a shirt they bought at Dick's. Those people get angry and aren't scared to let it be known. Many of these people also tend to reference their supposed 'fan card' because you can't question anyone's 'fandom' who supports a team they actually hate everything about, right?
On the other extreme are the people that I know with the closest connection to UT, be it graduates, students, and those that have actually competed for the school. These people tend to be much more respectful and pragmatic. There is often worry, concern and disappointment, but there seems to be a quiet resolve. I should point out that one of the nastiest things ever written to me was from a current UT student. For about six months I read it to everyone who would listen. It was so intense and discombobulated that it was a joy to read, even with its venom.
In between the two extremes are those people with a medium connection (from TN, live in TN, know people that went to UT, had family go to UT, or some secondary or tangible connection). My experience is that these people tend to behave right betwixt the black and white nature of the no-connection/direct-connection crowds. I would also suggest that this group probably makes up the largest segment of the fan base.
Don't get me wrong, there are a$$hats and angels in all three groups, such is human nature. Most of the people are actually really good folks, even if they are incredibly negative/positive about some aspect of UT. I simply point this out because in my small sample of non-scientific data, these categories appear to hold up as a general rule. It makes no sense to me.
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