For decades, I managed to avoid ever watching the spectacle of pommel horses and Lycra and white teeth and rubbery thighs that are the summer and winter Olympics. I remained an Olympics virgin for as long as I could, pure and unschooled in the ways of synchronized swimming, Greco-Roman wrestling, and various apparatus.
The Olympics are MMEs, Massive Media Events, and so I dodged them when I had to, in the way we all dodge ubiquitous pop-up ads online or movie-ad campaigns billboarded on fast-food wrap. MMEs are publicity drone attacks, seeking you out where you live, and inevitably they drive me into hiding. (Confession: I still haven’t surrendered to the blitz that was “Avatar.”) When I’d detect an Olympics ad or news clip with a bug of interlocking rings lurking in the fringes of my vision, I’d avert my eyes and click. Or change the channel. Aversion of the eyes and a fast hand, they are good skills to have these days. There should be an Olympics category for them — Pitch Blocking, maybe, or Ad-minton.
Comments
For my money, the gymnastics is the most incredible series of performances in the games. That is because most of us have so little to relate to: it all seems inhuman, or super human. We've all had our own brushes with most other events: riding a horse, rowing a boat, swimming in the pool, running around a track, etc. But other than climbing trees and such, none of us has ever done anything close to what these athletes do routinely. And, it is a sport where individual faults and fails are isolated and totally visible to the tv viewer. There are many events - rowing as an example - where individuals are mostly submerged in the team, the difference between going relatively fast or slow is imperceptible to the average viewer, and there are no game changing mistakes to be made, and the challenges of the event are not obvious.