In Philadelphia, of course, Gritty made the biggest splash of all. Gritty’s popularity exploded online, across sports media and beyond his giant, googly, unblinking eyes conveyed an unhinged, anarchic glee that inspired a raft of memes. This year, the Philadelphia Flyers, the city’s hockey team, debuted its second-ever attempt at a mascot: Gritty, a shaggy orange wookiee-esque grotesquerie who, in his first appearance on the ice, fell directly on his ass - and into America’s meme-addled heart. That’s also probably why the city takes its teams so seriously: this was, in a real sense, the birthplace of America, and what’s more American than taking sports too seriously? Throughout its tumultuous history - from a site of revolutionary anger in the earliest days of this country to the proud, post-manufacturing metropolis it is today - you can find the story of the United States, writ small. As one of the oldest cities in America, Philadelphia is an ancestral home of this country’s political culture.
