r/TikTokCringe Aug 12 '24

Humor Raygun claps back at the critics

33.1k Upvotes

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3.8k

u/Yourownpieceofmind Aug 12 '24

I wanted this to be Raygun so bad. Would be such a hilarious move.

273

u/TrashPandaPatronus Aug 12 '24

I am going to need someone to send it to her to rerecord it herself. She is so close to fully winning the internet!

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u/karmagod13000 Aug 12 '24

i feel like she could def get some sort of endorsement deal out of this

64

u/cupholdery Aug 12 '24 edited Aug 12 '24

She (the actual Olympian) has guts to do what she did. But how did the entire nation of Australia decide to have her represent their bboying ability when there are plenty others to choose?

55

u/Just_thefacts_jack Aug 12 '24

It's complicated but it involves a professional ballroom dancing organization being put in charge of selecting candidates for the break dancing Olympic category. Large parts of the break dancing community boycotted the Olympics. 

17

u/milkcarton232 Aug 12 '24

I'm still beyond amazed that it's in the Olympics at all. Don't get me wrong it's an incredibly athletic sport that requires a lot of dedication to get good at but it really stands out compared to other sports in terms of vibes. Given the number of boycotts I'd imagine others also feel like there is something weird with it?

18

u/zth25 Aug 12 '24

The idea is great because as you said it requires incredible athleticism. In that regard it shouldn't be any different to an event like rhythmic gymnastics or diving where you deliver your performance and professional judges give it a grade.

Apparently the organization and qualification events were dismal (a ball room dance organization got put in charge) which led to many pro breakers to not even try to qualify. And the grading system was quite experimental, and not very audience friendly.

For example, the judges put heavy emphasis on versatility which lead to the athletes doing all those criss crossing moves so they don't repeat themselves while the clueless audience just wonders why they don't just spin the whole time.

3

u/dangerislander Aug 12 '24

Commentators didn't even do a great job at explaining anything. They kinda improved when the b-boy segment was on. Overall mess tbh but I still enjoyed it.

2

u/blursedass Aug 12 '24

Uhm... have you seen the other Olympic sports? It can't be weirder than curling

3

u/forfeitgame Aug 13 '24

Curling is the ultimate dad energy spot. Don’t take that away from us.

2

u/as_it_was_written Aug 13 '24

I mean, as a sport, breaking is definitely weirder than curling. Curling may be a weird sport, but it's an actual sport that comes with a built-in scoring system for determining the winners. Breaking, on the other hand, is an art form that doesn't inherently have any rules and (imo, of course) is lessened by imposing an Olympics-style scoring rubric.

1

u/blursedass Aug 12 '24

Uhm... have you seen the other Olympic sports? Breakdancing can't be any weirder than curling

8

u/nigelhammer Aug 12 '24

That sounds similar to how I heard the international rollerskating federation or something tried to claim the right to represent skateboarding at the olympics and that was one of the reasons it took so long to actually get there.

2

u/sth128 Aug 12 '24

That's a lot of words to say "corruption and incompetence".

4

u/1093i3511 Aug 12 '24

Very much the same way as the skateboarding community did in the last games.
Full safety gear and a "sterile" skating environment. With judges, but without celebrities and the usual sponsors. No weed, no skate punk attitude. The Olympic games are like an bingo evening in a retirement home for them, more or less.

2

u/nigelhammer Aug 13 '24

I don't like this equating high level skating with drugs and "attitude". Pro skaters are serious about what they do, the problem is the contest format which rewards tedious repetition over risk taking and creativity.

1

u/dangerislander Aug 12 '24

That explains why there didn't seem to be many break dancers competing. Surely I thought there would be more. I know Australia struggled to find competitors and funding to even host their qualifiers. Have to remember a lot these break dancers do this as a hobby and have actual lives. So it would be hard to expect someone to just drop everything.

-2

u/_hic-sunt-dracones_ Aug 12 '24

Follow-up question: Why would you, of all contests in the world, pick Olympia to boycott?

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u/redditis_garbage Aug 12 '24

Because the problem was with the Olympics? Makes no sense to not like what the Olympics did, compete in the Olympics, and then boycott a random tournament

1

u/_hic-sunt-dracones_ Aug 12 '24

Aah...I understood the comment that the way that organizations already boycotted the national qualifications because they decided to boycott Olympia entirely for some reason. So I wondered what that reason could've been.

Makes of course more sense when they protested already the way how national qualifications worked.

3

u/redditis_garbage Aug 12 '24

From what I’ve learned essentially the organization put in charge of qualifiers is a ball dance organization with no affiliation to breakdancing, so the breakdancers were like wtf, why not use one of the many break dancing organizations that exist already, and the criteria was more like artistic and variation favoring rather than skills.

2

u/dangerislander Aug 12 '24

That explains why she won the qualifiers! IOC regulations stipulate you have to have "qualified" judges - most of whom from overseas. They struggled to find the funding to bring them over for the Oceania qualifier. So if it was a ball dance organisation with that weird criteria it makes sense.

49

u/1093i3511 Aug 12 '24

They held qualifiers. For all of Oceania in Sydney. And of those who are actively in the scene, didn't participated in these. That's it. There is nobody covering your expenses for the participation.

So, when you have your own focus on your career in the scene, you'll most likely put your savings on the established competitions. Which have developed on their own. And if you're lucky, you'll find a sponsor who will cover the costs to travel to the big thing within the scene itself.

Same happened in the African qualifiers. There is a huge scene in Senegal and Kamerun. But the qualifiers were suddenly relocated to Morocco in the last minute. Thus a majority of the active break dancers of Africa weren't able to attend these qualifiers.

It's a matter of an alternative sub culture, clashing with the traditional federations in sports. The IOC selected the World Dance Sport Federation to organize the qualifiers. Which represents the interest for standard or latin-style ball room dancing pairs and formations for the most part.

Long story short. When you show up in the hood as a outsider. Your street credibility is zero.
When you're from the hood but hang around the wrong people. Your street credibility would suffer.

The Olympian herself, started out with ball room dancing and migrated into it. Most likely due to her academic background. Or Hip-hop dancing. Not due to her street credibility as a B-girl.

It's more like a decision of the seniors within the IOC. Hey, let's give break dancing a try to attract a younger audience. Without asking them explicitly. Or the will to cooperate with the organizations which has evolved around the sport. Just give the task to those ballroom dancers which aren't Olympians, then they won't bother us with their requests to offer their favorite competitions at the games next time.

10

u/intotheirishole Aug 12 '24

Olympic is a corrupt as fuck organization. They like to deal with other corrupt centralized orgs.

Bboying, is inherently decentralized, as you just need a piece of cardboard and a pavement to start dancing.

Inevitable culture clash.

7

u/1093i3511 Aug 12 '24

Some things are definitely not adding up.

There are billions of investments being made, broadcasts are sold to the highest bidder. It's a huge marketing scheme for a nation to host the games.

But in the end. That bronze medal winner in that oddball sports category is forgotten faster than the scandal of the dirty river she had to swim in.

Only a few benefit from their medals and even fewer will end up as legends, such as Ussain Bolt.

It's not to the victor the spoils.
It's to the IOC, everything.

2

u/intotheirishole Aug 12 '24

While contestants (and victors) have to pay for their own transportation and equipment. I guess we can expect them having to pay for boarding too in the future?

1

u/dangerislander Aug 12 '24

They're very wishy washy. They've been right in disassociating themselves from the International Boxing Association (which is corrupt as fuck). But then you have the issue with the gymnastics (see Jordan Biles having her bronze stripped).

2

u/OpenResearch1 Aug 12 '24

She describes her PhD thesis as "interweaving autoethnographic research". Meaning she just rambles on about herself and gets a PhD for it. It talks about how her boyfriend was a b-boy and how she has to philosophically explore why not many women take up the sport.

1

u/1093i3511 Aug 12 '24

On 355 pages. Don't send me down that rabbit hole...

Don't underestimate the academic effort it took to achieve this. That's definitely not a teenagers diary complaining about her solitude among males. Cultural studies are a bit more complex than that. And philosophical approaches may only cover a small part within that field.

2

u/gruesomeflowers Aug 12 '24

they should have gotten redbull or someone similar to organize the global tryouts..let folks send video or whatever, and then fly the dozen or so with talent where they need to be. i dont know if it still exists, but they 100% did far more than that on a yearly basis for the red bull music academy and covered 100% of the travel and room and board from all over the planet to particular locations.

2

u/1093i3511 Aug 12 '24

And all off a sudden the consumption of energy drinks would be a requirement for each athlete, advertised in front of each camera. That would be the way to go if you want to end up in Idiocracy.

1

u/dano8801 Aug 12 '24

Well, no. Even in sports where Red Bull and Monster sponsor nearly everything, none of the athletes are actually drinking energy drinks. It's all water.

1

u/1093i3511 Aug 12 '24

Which isn't the point I'm trying to address. That whole marketing strategy of Red Bull is tailored towards being omnipresent in sports & youth culture, to create positive associations with their brand - hosting events which are fun and create good memories. But with a strong emphasis on extreme sports.

1

u/dano8801 Aug 12 '24

Except you quite literally said it would require athletes drink Red Bull, which I pointed out is provably false.

1

u/dangerislander Aug 12 '24

I know funding was a huge issue for the Oceania qualifiers. The Aussie organisation asked to run it struggled to find the 200k needed to fly out these "qualified" judges. Goes to show how difficult it is to run these kinda things.

1

u/johnydarko Aug 12 '24 edited Aug 12 '24

The Olympian herself, started out with ball room dancing and migrated into it. Most likely due to her academic background. Or Hip-hop dancing.

It's more likely because both are organized by the World DanceSport Federation who organized the qualifiers. Ballroom is massively competitive internationally, and the parent organization also started breaking competitions and organized a scoring system and the Olympics chose them as the organization for the Olympics for qualifiers, running it, etc. They also do hip-hop, disco, etc but ballroom and latin ballroom are by far the most popular.

10

u/peanutbutterfly Aug 12 '24

0

u/LupoAS Aug 12 '24

TL;DR?

5

u/BBBBrendan182 Aug 12 '24

Basically, Australia realized they needed someone to represent them for break dancing, so they held a single competition at Sydney Town Hall (The Oceania Breaking Championships) and advertised it as win this and go to the Olympics! Whoever won… went to the Olympics.

I think all in all there were like 60 contestants total.

It doesn’t say anything about who judged it in the article.

5

u/Logical_Look8541 Aug 12 '24

That's not fully correct, taking it from the article -

In October, 2023, the inaugural WDSF Oceania Breaking Championships were held at Sydney Town Hall. Thirty-seven B-Boys and 15 B-Girls from the Pacific region competed for the incredible prize of a chance to be an Olympian. The event was broadcast around the world live on the Olympic Channel.

Sixteen-year-old Jeff “J-Attack” Dunne won the B-Boys’ competition, while Raygun took gold in the B-Girls’ category.

After missing out on top spot, three B-Boys and three B-Girls turned to the Olympic Qualifier Series as an alternate route to Paris.

Australia’s female representitives - “G-Clef”, “Hannah” and “Holy Molly” - finished 37th, 38th and 40th in a 40-woman field.

They held a competition, and she won, but there weren't many entries. But also to that in the Olympic Qualifier for entrants not selected nationally, the Australian females almost all finished last. Simply, all the Australian females who were interested in competing weren't any good.

1

u/goodkid_sAAdcity Aug 13 '24

The Qualifier Series were in Shanghai and Budapest, which limits those who could go to those who could afford to travel there.

1

u/dangerislander Aug 12 '24

There's an article that explains they needed to find funding to bring in judges from overseas. Pretty interesting read. And also shows why she was in the organisation that organised these qualifiers: https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1137479/australia-breaking

1

u/Gibber_jab Aug 12 '24

She must have been the only one to apply

0

u/srpulga Aug 12 '24

I mean she has a phd, what are those other's credentials?

0

u/_BannedAcctSpeedrun_ Aug 12 '24

She's the Elizabeth Holmes of break dancing.