This year, Olympic medals will be awarded for breakdancing, and it literally makes me sick to my stomach.
This year, Olympic medals will be awarded for breakdancing, and it literally makes me sick to my stomach.
This issue really evokes my emotions, because of how much I love sports. I think sports are a vitally important part of the human experience. I guess dance is, too, but we're not talking about dance, in and of itself.
Dance isn't a sport. Period. Ever. Nobody can change my mind about this. Dance is potentially expressive, beautiful, socially useful, entertaining, etc. But it IS NOT A FUCKING SPORT.
Only sports should be in the goddamned Olympics, and shoving non-sports into the mix is shameful and disgusting. It's a wad of spit in the face of every great athlete who has ever taken the field. It's a disgrace to the Ancient Greek tradition that the Olympics are attempting to continue.
I don't give a fuck that there are already competitions for breakdancing. Or ballroom dancing. People can hold competitions for whatever they want. I actually think competitions shouldn't be held for entirely subjective and artistic activities, but people can do whatever the fuck they want.
But not in the fucking Olympics. This shit makes me sick.
And before you start pointing out the other subjective, judged events that are already in the Olympics: THEY SHOULD ALL BE REMOVED, TOO. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. NONE OF THEM BELONG.
No more gymnastics (rhythmic or otherwise). No more figure skating and ice dancing. No more skateboarding. No more surfing. No more synchronized swimming. No more freestyle skiing. No more diving. No more BMX. No more ANYTHING that requires judging.
You might browbeat me into admitting that some of those subjectively judged activities are sports, but you will never convince me that they belong in the Olympics.
Olympic sports should be restricted to those which are determined by means of a clock, a measuring tape, the accumulation of OBJECTIVELY scored points, or a physical beating.
Even some of those should be on the chopping block. Some of the points-scoring events are too subjective. If a sport relies too much on fallible human judging, it should be excluded.
The vast majority of the events should be arbitrated only by the cold, merciless, absolute judgment of the clock or the measuring tape. Therein lies the truest purity of sport.
Honestly, the best thing to do would be to reset everything to the REAL tradition of the Olympics. Almost nothing, other than running, jumping, and fighting. With an absolute minimum of rules to get in the way, and all the athletes competing in the nude. Just sandals on their feet. No space-age materials to help anyone. Nothing for anyone to hide. Just human muscle and determination, on display at the greatest possible level.
But it's all a forlorn dream. Instead, we have to have our stomachs turned, as a bunch of revolting little shitheads wobble and headspin.
The ancient Olympians are going to be spinning in their fucking graves.
EDIT: YES, I AM AWARE THAT THE FIRST COUPLE MODERN OLYMPICS FEATURED NON-SPORT ACTIVITIES, LIKE SCULPTURE AND PAINTING. THAT DOESN'T CHANGE MY VIEW. INCLUDING ART IN THE MODERN OLYMPICS WAS A RIDICULOUS MISTAKE. JUST BECAUSE IT WAS DONE BEFORE DOESN'T MEAN IT SHOULD BE DONE NOW.
Username does NOT check out.
Honestly it never has, this dude has some of the worst takes and will never walk away from even a mild disagreement
Also, saying gymnastics don't belong in the Olympics is not just an unpopular opinion, it's crazy talk.
Like, in what world does one say that Simone Biles is not an Olympian.
Maybe imperative “chill, dude”
I love this thread. Chill Dude tell us more of your opinions we need content
I mean, that IS the purpose of the Unpopular Opinion community, right?
I'm not doing anything weird. I'm just doing it right.
You are definitely doing it right.
They've posted multiple essay length unpopular opinions here before.
I'm reading through them now its amazing. Nothing political so far, nothing bad, just very strong opinions on relatively innocuous things and he's managing to make so many people angry... He's like an artist
I kinda love how mad you are about this
Best unpopular opinion post I've seen so far.
I wonder if the upvote/downvote ratio is like that because people don't think it's unpopular or they're tarded and vote because they dislike the opinion lol
It’s a disgrace to the Ancient Greek tradition that the Olympics are attempting to continue.
JUST BECAUSE IT WAS DONE BEFORE DOESN’T MEAN IT SHOULD BE DONE NOW.
That's a contradiction. Also, the ancient greeks didn't have the concept of sport were super into dancing - spartans especially - so this whole argument is void.
I'm sorry that something you say you enjoy (the olympics) makes you so angry.
Just wait till he finds out that the ancient Greeks didn't have a winter Olympics
What if we measured who could breakdance the furthest.
Oh, shit. Now we're talking. The 10,000 meter headspin would legitimately be the greatest distance race of all time. It would probably have a non-zero fatality rate, but that's not my problem.
Pop-and-lock-a-thon anybody?
Poor Chang ...
Whew, this left spittle on my screen from the sheer, unhinged rage of the typing :)
Legit though, solid unpopular opinion!
But dude, gymnastics is a core sport going back to the minoans. And there were trumpet competitions back in the older Olympiads. Trumpet champions existed, and were determined by judges.
Hate to break it to you, but as much as I also dislike subjective sports competition, the Olympians of old would not be spinning in their graved.
Now, I agree that there has to be some limit to what is and isn't an actual Olympic event. And I'm not a big fan of judged events in general; they should be demonstrations, performances rather than competitions because they'd be better that way, you'd see cooler shit being done by peak human athletes.
But you might as well insist that only men compete if you're going to try and use the pan Hellenic games as your standard.
My Olympic pet peeve is about how damn hard it is to find coverage of most individual sports. You might get lucky here and there seeing highlights of archery or biathlon, or stuff like judo. But they'll show entire soccer matches without cutting away for anything but commercials. That's infuriating to me. I'd rather watch hours of break dancing because it's at least about the athleticism of the competitors rather than some team where even the best individuals get over shadowed.
I think all sports have more subjectivity than you are admitting. How often have you heard someone yell at an umpire or referee seen as unfair?
Obviously you're never going to escape the subjectivity of events in which humans participate and the application of those rules, unless we want to just program machines to compete for us.
I think a better approach to what OP is saying is that there shouldn't be a competition in the Olympics where the method of scoring itself requires subjective determination.
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Basketball: you throw the ball through the hoop, you get points.
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Football: you get the ball in this cage, you get a point
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Freedom Football: you get the ball over this line, you get points.
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Baseball: you circle the diamond, you get a point.
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Curling: your rock, uh... lands in a circle I guess? And that gives you a point, or points?
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Cricket: you... run between posts?
Etc.
Point is, while each of the above does require some amount of subjective judgement to determine if each team/competitor is following the rules, the winner of the game usually doesn't depend on it.
Compare that to, say, figure skating or high diving or gymnastics, where the score depends completely on how well other people think a competitor did.
Gymnastics, high diving, etc. have a very strict scoring system as well. There's a very objective way to score how things are done, it just looks subjective to people who weren't involved in those sports.
Most sports look weird and subjective if you were unfamiliar with the rules, but after many decades, are extremely codified and much more objective than they appear.
Anyone that wants things to be simpler or more pure probably don't understand the reasoning and history behind the rules.
That being said, like any rule set, a lot can be gained from starting from scratch. You just need to have a deep understanding of the way things are in the first place, otherwise you'd be making a lot of the same mistakes.
All of those require significant judgment. A dew examples:
Basketball: how many points is the shot worth/were they behind the 3 pt line? Was that a foul? Was it a flagrant violation that requires an ejection? The latter two apply to most in your list.
Baseball: more than others in your list, this requires subjective calls. Balls/strikes, safe/out, home run/off the wall, etc.
US Football: was that a first down/where should the ball be placed? Touchdowns in particular have specific rules about the ball crossing the plane that can take a long time and significant deliberation.
Edit: I’d also reject your claim that outcomes don’t depend on these calls. Many games come down to close calls.
And even then, the humans making the robots are going to try to skirt the intent of the rules... Heck, even PvP computer games, which are probably as objective as you can get, need to be patched constantly to stop people using unintended quirks to their advantage.
Maybe there's no such thing as an objective sport?
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I think there's a difference between judging for the score and enforcing the rules as best you can.
As I said, most team sports do not fit my stringent definition, as well as most of the current versions of the formerly pure sports.
I believe we should strive for as few rules as possible, with as little subjective interpretation as possible. Like I keep saying, I think the ideal should be for the winner to always be determined by the clock, the measuring tape, or the last opponent left standing.
I truly believe subjective judgement degenerates the purity of athletic activity. The fact that subjective umpires bring so much disharmony and bile is evidence that I am on the right track. The more we can remove the referees from the proceedings, the better sports will be.
First of all well done at posting an unpopular opinion. Are you aware how much you've contradicted yourself?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herald_and_Trumpet_contest
In the 96th Olympiad (396 BC), beside the athletic and artistic competitions, the Herald and Trumpet contest was added, which was already a formal element of the Olympic ritual performed by the kerykes (heralds) and salpinktai (trumpeters). Winners were chosen by the clarity of the enunciation and the audibility of their voice or horn blast.
Also breakdancing is awesome. Hope they add beatboxing soon.
Then I guess the whole thing was a forlorn dream, for a huge portion of its history.
There was always a mirage on the horizon, where we ALMOST had a true celebration of athletes. But it was always in the process of being diluted and degenerated by sick-minded morons.
This is a very thorough and well thought out post.
I couldn't disagree with it more regarding the modern olympics (I think there's a lot of value in subjectivity judged sports as well as objectively judged), but I respect your reasoning, and would love to see a revival of the ancient olympics like you propose. So why not both? Keep the modern commercial games their own thing (because at this point there's too much money in it for anyone to stop it) but bring back the traditional Greek games.
Completely separate thought: which category does boxing fall into? Matches are often won through points given by judges. Actually that's the same with wrestling, a traditional olympic event.
OP repeatedly attacks boxing while praising pankration. The rationale? Pankration "doesn't have scoring," which is a patently false claim based on my 3 minutes of googling.
This is a very thorough and well thought out post.
It absolutely is not, it's nonsensical rambling that had no need to be longer than a paragraph or two.
What he just wrote is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in his rambling, incoherent post was he even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in the fediverse is now dumber for having read to it. I award him no points, and may God have mercy on his soul.
Just so you know, I have reread my own dumb shit, and I realize it's pretty dumb.
But, ya know, this is the "Unpopular Opinion" community. Not the "construct the most airtight and perfect argument that could ever be delivered before the Supreme Court" community. Take that into account, before you roast me to death, pal.
Thanks. Please tell all this to the guy who keeps insisting that he has rhetorically owned me, because I'm not following the dictionary definition of "sports." I'm defining my own terms, as to what a "pure sport" is. There is nothing wrong with that, from a linguistic or rhetorical basis. And yet, he thinks that he can just win the argument by saying "you're not using the dictionary definition of sports, so you're stupid lol."
It's pathetic.
As for boxing, it's a whole awful thing. Emotionally, I want boxing to just go back to the way it was in the classical era. No points, just fighting until someone can't fight anymore. But intellectually, I realize that concussions exist. On the other hand, that means the modern version, with the soft gloves and head protection is actually WORSE, because it trades a less bloody fight for a more dangerous and harmful one.
The folks who have reintroduced bare-knuckle boxing might have the best option going. It's as potentially bloody as ever, but the fighters have to protect their hands, so they can't break each other's brains with full-power swings. It's basically an endurance thing. Take any and all point-scoring out of that equation, and you'd have the version that I'd like to see in the Olympics.
Personally I wouldn't mind the Olympics going back to being an excuse to watch oiled up naked muscley guys do things like in ancient Greece. But I do think dance would go really well with that.
Anybody wants to do a naked, greased-up victory dance after they win the Pankration, that's fine with me. But don't judge the dance. Dance isn't for competing.
Chill, dude
Good unpopular opinion! I'm skeptical the modern games/organization would survive if you tossed the judged events out though. And a quick search shows there were a few subjective events in ancient games, too. Maybe there's another organization with competitions that suit your interests better?
You do you, man, but I feel like getting this het up over a competition you'll never be involved in, have any control over, or be forced to watch, is kind of a waste of lifespan. Are you happier for it? Healthier? Wealthier? Kinda seems like it's just burning more than one second off your life per second for no benefit.
Also, tradition is just peer pressure from dead people, and they told me in school not to give in to peer pressure. We didn't have breakdancing as an event, and now we do. The only constant is change.
You mentioned fighting as acceptable, but boxing has judges?
I have a MAJOR problem with the complexity of modern judged boxing. It should be judged exactly the way the ancients did. Just watch for illicit weapons, biting, kicking, or gouging.
The truly ideal fight sport should be the Pankration, but people are WAY too soft to have that shit, at this point. So compromises have to be made.
Who determines whether it was a bite or an accidental touch of my teeth on your shoulder?
I support your idea if they also introduce an Olympics with mandatory performance enhancing drugs. I want to see the true best of the best, not the best of the straight-edge kids.
I agree with this opinion.
Honestly, the *best* thing to do would be to reset everything to the REAL tradition of the Olympics. Almost nothing, other than running, jumping, and fighting. With an absolute minimum of rules to get in the way, and all the athletes competing in the nude. Just sandals on their feet.
OK I’m listening
Wait until he finds out about all the judges in fighting and wrestling.
In the comments, you talk a lot about judges. So, baseball should be banned too, right? Since balls and strikes are a human call? And of course, they have to call people safe or out, sometimes determine if a ball actually left the park, etc.
And basketball, would every shot be worth the same number of points, since we don’t have judges to say whether someone was behind the 3 point line?
And any sports would be a free-for-all with no penalties? Since judges make those calls, right? Sure, you can call them umpires or refs, but they are still judges.
And fighting would require a complete knockout to win? What if someone lays down and pretends because they don’t want to fight any more? Who makes that call? You need to objectively knockout (or maybe you want killing?) to win. I’m just confused as to how that works without a judge.
Home slice, you try break dancing and then tell me it's not a sport.
Preaching to the choir (or maybe replying to the wrong comment?). I think OP is 100% wrong, just trying to see his logic through to the end.
As I said, I would indeed throw out most team sports, which rely on too much subjective interpretation of rules.
As I have said multiple times, I believe we should strive to base the victor as much as possible on MEASUREMENTS. Like the measurement of time or distance.
As for fight sports, I really believe the Pankration should be contested. I realize modern people don't have the stomach for it. But, ya know, I have been complaining about degeneration all this time. People have become what they've become, and I can't do anything about it, other than fucking complain.
So, just to be clear, cheating should be allowed because penalties are subjective? In a race, I could trip my opponents?
Sadly, pankration has scoring. Any better ideas?
Hah just do what I do and don't give a shit about the Olympics. Unless there's some really cool opening ceremony I'm not watching any of it. England had the best one I've ever seen.
How do you feel about subjective refereeing and following the letter not the spirit (eg basketball refs or using fouls intentionally)?
Or ski jump, where your score is added to your distance.
Yikes.
I'm going to choose to focus on your username and laugh. I dunno if you are that unaware, or incredibly self-aware.
Couple of questions… Why does it matter to you that some people consider it a sport? Does the very idea being contrary to your opinion, make the sports you consider as such any less sports? The first antique olympics had horse racing. Where does shooting, curling, archery, golf, equestrian, etc, fit in this definition? If no, why does dance bother you so much all of a sudden, and why not as much anger towards them?
What’s that “Ancient Greek tradition” you seem to want to protect the purity of, and why does or should it matter? There’s been events that were added, tested out, and many removed subsequently, throughout the olympics’ history. It’s not the first time some event doesn’t make unanimity as far as everyone liking the event. Some people threw a hissy fit when snowboarding and later skateboarding were included, for example. Who gets to decide if an event fits in there? Is the practice of trying it out and reevaluating next olympics that terrible?
It’s not like modern olympics are some sacred and pure untouchable event underlining human performance for the sake of it. Unless you've avoided the subject on purpose, which would be surprising considering your position here, the CIO itself isn’t made out of saints doing it all for the love of sports either…
horse racing
There's no problem with horse racing. It is judged by the clock. It is objective.
shooting, curling, archery, golf, equestrian, etc
As I said in my post I WANT ALL THE SUBJECTIVELY JUDGED EVENTS OUT. NOT JUST THE DANCE-RELATED ONES. That means a lot of the team sports, too, because many of them have FAR too many finnicky, subjectively-interpreted rules.
I think the Olympics should only include sports arbitrated by THE CLOCK or THE MEASURING TAPE or THE LAST OPPONENT LEFT STANDING.
Did you not read any of this in my post? Did you really just read the title?
I was ready to downvite you but decided to not vote at all. I don't necessarily agree with you but I appreciate you being consistent in your ideas. Before I read the body of the text I assumed you would be mad at breakdancers but ok with gymnasts, which would have earned you a downvite for hypocrisy but now I see that you have a more specific view on this after reading everything. Fair enough.
There's no problem with horse racing. It is judged by the clock. It is objective.
My question was more about how does it pass as a “sport” in your eyes while dance doesn’t? Equestrian as a whole also absolutely has judge/point based events, and isn’t limited to racing horses.
I WANT ALL THE SUBJECTIVELY JUDGED EVENTS OUT. NOT JUST THE DANCE-RELATED ONES
Literally none of the ones you quoted (“shooting, curling, archery, golf, equestrian, etc”) are judged particularly subjectively though, so not sure how your… very loud and angry answer relates to the question I asked. It’s also a pretty wide ask, and I’m curious how you suggest this would go. I honestly can’t think of many sports that doesn’t have some level of subjective judgement in certain situations outside pure athleticism, so aren’t you basically just conflating athleticism and sports as far as olympics goes, and that’s it? Can’t think of much more subjective than being at the whim of a horse’s health, fitness and good will, for example.
I think the Olympics should only include sports arbitrated by THE CLOCK or THE MEASURING TAPE or THE LAST OPPONENT LEFT STANDING.
Based on what? There were a couple of questions I literally asked in my previous comment that would have helped clearing your views on this, for example, regarding why you feel the olympics as an event have this sanctity or aura that needs protecting.
Did you not read any of this in my post? Did you really just read the title?
You’re saying this, while having skipped most of the questions I asked, most of them exactly in response to the things you’re now saying I didn’t read. Note how my previous comment was purposefully a bunch of questions rather than me posing an opinion. I was merely trying to poke at the limits of your reasoning, to see if there are counter-arguments to be made.
Even re-reading my previous comment, I still feel like most of them were specifically on things you did not address in your original post. I therefore have a lot of trouble assuming anything but that you’re not looking to have a conversation but to have people to shout at, which I’m not interested in at all…
I can't tell how you feel about boxing
Did the guy go down? Did he stay down? That's a point.
Is he breathing? Does he have a pulse? Then the fight isn't over yet.
LET'S PROVE WHO THE BEST COUNTRY IS! ULTRAMODERN ULTRAVIOLENCE!
There are multiple Olympic sports that are essentially forms of acrobatic dance. Figure skating, the gymnastics floor exercise and rhythm gymnastics come to mind
So you didn't read my post AT ALL??? I mentioned that shit.
No subjectively judged activity should be in the Olympics. Period. No exceptions.
Doesn't matter how long any subjectively judged event has been in there, it was a mistake the whole time.
Breakdancing has always been a competitive sport.
You know, at least you were consistent in then going after all judged competitions.
I agree fully, and my wife can attest that I've expressed this exact same sentiment, with equally animated language, on multiple occasions over the years.
I think it would be better to convey your disgust through interpretive dance - you might qualify for the Olympics and then go on to win gold!
I think bellringing should be an olympic sport just to spite you
I'd rather just add full contact violence to existing competitive sports. Ooh, combat dancing, give dancers swords and they fight either elimination rounds or Battle Royale.
We could make everyone happy here if we give all the so-called 'not sports' competitors swords.
Elimination by death. Two men enter, one man leaves.
Ok, boomer 🤣🖕🏽
You just about had me convinced until this
No more gymnastics (rhythmic or otherwise). No more figure skating and ice dancing. No more skateboarding. No more surfing. No more synchronized swimming. No more freestyle skiing. No more diving. No more BMX. No more ANYTHING that requires judging.
These are sports. They require judging, sure, but they also require significant human skill, strength, and talent to execute properly. Skateboarding for example requires balance, coordination, and leg strength, and Olympic Skateboarding requires you to be the best at those things (usually, anyway).
Thanks for the real unpopular opinion though!
It's economics, my dude - girls prancing around in their panties sell tickets. Girls playing basketball don't.
Are they going to be break dancing in panties?
I mean, I've seen some of the women's uniforms Nike put up and if they're going to have crotch floss for some events I can't see why they'd leave this out.
I'de assume they will also have some kind of leotard, but yes.
Eventually. It's inevitable.
And how does that apply to the breakdancers? Ain't nobody gonna be aroused by their cringe-ass bullshit.
You seem pretty aroused by it ;)
How would you handle the juicing problem?
In other words... you want the olympics to be boring AF.
I concur - the olympics should be boring AF.
100% with you.
Judges should only exist to enforce rules were followed not interpret the winner.
Is it an actual event or is it just one of the fluff events that will only be done for this one year, like bowling in the '88 Summer Olympics? They do this kind of thing all the time and it's more like a half-time show event than part of the rest of the games and athletics.
Also: Isn't the ribbon a regular Olympic event in gymnastics? That shit is basically just dancing. Dancing is an athletic ability that sometimes even uses gymnastics and contortion. Certainly more athletic than bowling is (or even shotput and javelin throwing).
Ice dancing and figure skating have been Olympic sports for a long time so what's the difference?
Sigh.
PLEASE read the body of my post. I specifically said that I want all those other subjectively judged events to be removed, too.
Can I please ask you if you did read the body of the post, and you just somehow missed my huge list of existing events that I want removed?
Or did you just read the title and immediately respond?
I don't even care if that's what you did. I just want to know.
I did read it, but I somehow forgot that part by the time I made my reply.
I can understand where you are coming from with your post. It does seem odd to have subjective events next to events that have objective winners. That being said, I really don't watch or give 2 shits about the Olympics at all. I think they are a drain on whatever community they are held in. They should just do an Olympic island or something.
The Olympics succeeded in driving me away long before this bullshit. You couldn't pay me to watch any event.
You just convinced me. Brilliant.
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO POINT OUT THAT I ALREADY SAID I WANT ALL THE SUBJECTIVELY JUDGED EVENTS OUT????
Are you people allergic to fucking reading?
READ MY FUCKING POST AGAIN. FUCKING READ IT.
[ 62% upvoted]
You might think that 38% of people actually agreed and downvoted, but it's astonishing how many people can't understand the simplest of concepts
Some of yous shouldn't be allowed on the internet 😂
Oh, but you fine with ice skating, swimming, and skiing all having dance as a major part in them, but not that "Urban" thing! Perhaps the issue is in the mirror.
I mean, you didn't read the post did you?
Not only did I read it, I understood what the words meant, unlike the OP.
Oh, but you fine with ice skating, swimming, and skiing
Did you not read my post AT ALL?
I specifically said I want ALL THE SUBJECTIVELY JUDGED EVENTS OUT.
I'm going to quote myself:
And before you start pointing out the other subjective, judged events that are already in the Olympics: THEY SHOULD ALL BE REMOVED, TOO. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. NONE OF THEM BELONG.
No more gymnastics (rhythmic or otherwise). No more figure skating and ice dancing. No more skateboarding. No more surfing. No more synchronized swimming. No more freestyle skiing. No more diving. No more BMX. No more ANYTHING that requires judging.
You might browbeat me into admitting that some of those subjectively judged activities are sports, but you will never convince me that they belong in the Olympics.
Olympic sports should be restricted to those which are determined by means of a clock, a measuring tape, the accumulation of OBJECTIVELY scored points, or a physical beating.
Now can you fucking explain to me WHY YOU CHOSE NOT TO FUCKING READ THAT SHIT?
It was right there on the screen. Why the fuck didn't you read it?