I’ve been thinking about the cardboard cutouts that some baseball teams, including the White Sox, are planning to use this season in place of fans. I’ve been thinking about it too much.
The pandemic has presented many challenges to sports teams, including how to make games seem normal despite the absence of people in seats. This is how someone came up with the idea of having cardboard cutouts in the stands until actual human beings are allowed back. The thinking goes that if a TV audience can be fooled by fake cheering and other crowd noise piped in during games, perhaps it can be fooled by fake people, too.