Discussion about this post

User's avatar
brendan_r's avatar

Yes, definitely.

A trite, supercilious gesture does the trick when it's conspicuously exaggerated, i.e. a guy lands a knockout punch, he's no longer in danger of being injured, he just made a $200k win bonus and he reacts by...walking away expressionless like what just happened was some kind of formality.

Or: guy hits game winning 3 pointer and he immediately, stoically just jogs into the locker room like nothing happened.

The least cool celebrations are what would come naturally to you and me: smiling, hands in the air, jumping up and down, congratulating teammates. That's what sports puritans would prefer to see, but clearly not because it's most impressive to most audiences.

(There are exceptions. There was an orthodox Russian fighter named Fedor whose aesthetic stoicism freaked people out. But it was impressive because it was so obviously genuine; if you look calm when you're getting punched in the face, it's the real deal. Costly signals and all that.)

Expand full comment
Stephen Diamond's avatar

Could it be that in the instances you mention the trash talk itself is impressive. [A trite, supercilious gesture doesn't do the trick.]

Expand full comment
20 more comments...

No posts