The loudest fan in the stand

Two football clubs share the city of Jeddah, and a great deal of mutual suspicion. Spend an evening reading what their supporters say about each other online and a pattern appears.

Each side has found the other side's worst fan. The one who posts something vile after a defeat, who insults a player's family, who threatens a referee. His post gets captured and passed around with a caption: look, this is what they are like. Within a day he has become, in the minds of thousands of people, the face of a club that most of its own supporters wish he would leave alone.

It is an efficient way to build a wall. Find their ugliest example, hold it up, and you never have to deal with the decent majority on the other side.

There is a harder move, and it works much better. Pick out the ugliest voice among your own supporters, and tell him to calm down.

This sounds naive. It is not. The extreme fan does not care what rival supporters think of him; their anger is fuel. But he cares a great deal what his own people think. A word from the stand he belongs to, saying this is not how we support our club, lands in a way no outside criticism ever will.

And the people across the city notice. A group with a record of reining in its own loudest member gets trusted a little further when it matters.

The same is true of brands, of founders arguing online, of any community trying to win people over. Outrage at the other side's worst rarely changes a single mind. Policing your own worst is how you become worth listening to.