to think Rachel 'Raygun' gun has broken the phrase 'Oh for the confidence of a mediocre man'?

[Raygunstun]

( Ok, yes I know I am late to the party on this one).

I'm talking about the Australian women's entry into the breakdancing at the Olympics.

She went out there with absolute confidence, and complete lack of self awareness, and did really terrible breakdancing. It wasn't even really breakdancing. It was like some sort of interpretative dance. Her moves were clunky and slow. they did not flow, the connections between moves were awkward. She was like a competitor in a very, very local competition. And she appeared to have no awareness of this. I know there is a lot of creativity and expression in breaking, but it surely has to be combined with technical skill.

She also appears to have no awareness that the Olympics is about showcasing outstanding physical prowess and technical expertise. Both of which she clearly lacked.

In a way, I admire her confidence, but I don't admire her lack of awareness. I also do not believe she was the best female breaker in Australia.

Part of me feels a bit sorry for her as the break dancing world is clearly her world, but I can't help feeling she got so lost in the theory of the ' expressive' side of breaking she kinda lost sight of the technical skill side. A bit like Rachel Dolezol got so lost in the theory of race being a social construct that she lost sight of the fact you actually need to be black to be black.

Raygun looks like me trying to get up off the floor after one gin too many at the start of that video 😂

It wasn't a grift. She's been taking part in dance offs for years. Some of her dance offs are on youtube - the comments are comedy gold!

Joking aside if that is true it is shameful beyond words. Why do these bloody awful grifters always seem connected to academia?! It used to be an honorable profession!

It does not bother her that she looked ridiculous; in her academic field there is no right or wrong and it’s all colonialism to say otherwise

I have to say that one of the things that I feel uncomfortable about with all this is that she, as a white woman, participated in something from black culture and made an absolute mockery of it on the world stage (whether an intentional mockery or not).

I am usually all for music and dance being a universal language and for all, but there just seemed to be something really disrespectful about what she did.

It's clear from the qualifying video that she isn't the best even out of the two of them, let alone the best breaker in Australia!

Completely fixed, but I think she is naive to how this comes across, thinking that her spirit and originality outweighs the actual need to be able to perform the moves properly.

I consider it akin to people who think they can write novels or poetry but they can't. The difference is that they don't usually get past the slush pile, let alone put forward for the Nobel Prize in Literature. They are deluded though and think there's some conspiracy to prevent them from becoming published. I've met some over the years!

Still a grift in that she managed somehow to blag a place on the team, knowing she’d look ridiculous and get a lot of attention, and thus a lot of material for her day job.

Unfortunately for her, though, the videos are very funny. I mean I've started doing the T Rex move in the kitchen in the morning to cheer up my grumpy teens. She's iconic in her own way!

That’s kind of the same as me taking part in Parkrun every weekend. Taking part for many years doesn’t exactly make you 5000m at the Olympics material unless you somehow hobble the field through restrictive qualification requirements, which is what Dancesport Australia did!

Apparently her H was on the judging panel, is her coach, and as she and he allegedly formed the group putting on the qualifiers, presumably her mates were on the judging panel too. This may just be an age old case of crony-ism and jobs for your mates.

I keep seeing comments that say an indigenous Australian would be better at breakdancing. Why? Because there must be a closer connection with Black American culture? Seems awfully racist to me.

She nicked that move off me. 😒

😂 Quite a few people on Twitter saying she looks like their dog when it finds some shit to roll in 😂

I noticed someone mentioned Liz Truss already. Yep I was reminded of her too 🤣

My favourite was a video of her doing that rolling around on a nursery playmat and the caption was ' my nursery kids during story time' : )

Exactly like that!

The Olympics is becoming ridiculous with some of the 'sports' they promote. It needs pulling back to the mainstream track and field type activities.

On the other hand it does encourage some to have a go, like the bobsleigh team or Eddie the Eagle. Many competitors take part knowing they don't have a chance but give it their best, sometimes I think these are the true olympians, no big prize money for them just do your best.

What day job? Sorry I've clearly missed something, because my understanding is she doesn't consider herself remotely ridiculous! She thinks the issue is merely that her moves are too creative for some.

She has written a PhD on break and teaches at a good uni in a total non subject - the sort that was brilliantly shown up a few years ago when deliberately nonsense papers were published by leading journals who couldn’t tell them from the apparently serious ones, because there is no academic rigour.

Yeah, I'm finding that pretty uncomfortable - would they have the same objection to a black person doing a terrible foxtrot? I watched a bit of the women and don't think I saw any black dancers, is it acceptable that they were doing it as they weren't awful? Who decides how bad you have to be before it becomes racist?

I absolutely hate the term 'black culture' as it suggests all black people share culture, which for some reason always seems to mean things like rap music or breakdancing; there's significantly more diversity amongst black people than white people, both culturally and genetically. Do people really think the Maasai Mara are identical to Aboriginal Australians, that the Omo tribes are the same as Jamaican Rastafarians etc?

This woman was awful full stop - her skin tone had nothing to do with it.

Not defending Raygun’s particular thesis here as I haven’t read it, but that’s hardly a problem with the PhD system. Of course people will study and write theses on major cultural and sporting activities- boiling it down to “a PhD in breakdancing” or “a PhD in ABBA” or whatever will always make it sound a bit stupid but it will have a much more nuanced question behind it.

Haven't read the thread so I'm guessing this may have been posted already but she knew exactly what she was doing.

She has a PhD which if you look on Twitter has parts quoted about how breakdancing is losing its cultural identity because it is being 'sportified' - ie. becoming uniform moves.

https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/rachael-wanted-bulk-researchgate-profile-tweet-raygun-s-alleged-motive-behind-olympics-fiasco-goes-viral

Hannah Berellis tweet sort of explains it as discussed in this article above but there are better/deeper anaslyses on Twitter with extracts from her phd posted.

RayGunn is no fool and knew what she was doing including founding the Australian break dancing association, getting her husband in as coach and manipulating the selection.

This isn't some mediocre self confident woman at all. It's someone with a very specific aim and agenda and has achieved excatly what she set out to do and will probably write a book about it and get paid a bunch for media work on the back of it.

Yes I know she has a PhD.
Ahhh so you believe this was entirely contrived? No, she's been doing battles for several years.

Who is funding this stuff?

It's like watching Kath dancing with her little kangaroo paws up in Kath & Kim 😁

I disagree really. The Olympics is, rightly, one of the most elite events in the entire world. Its inherently exclusionary and rightly so. Its not about 'just taking part and just doing your best', its not parkrun, its about being the best in your country and one of the best in the world.

Its not about inclusion, and it would be diluted to meaninglessness if it were to become this, its about the most elite females and males in their sport, in the world, showcasing truly exceptional expertise.

I'm sure Eddie the Eagle was still a really good ski jumper,, even if not as good as others at the Olymnics.

Raygun is clearly not a good breaker.

Sadly university admins are either captured by silly ideology or don’t have the courage to stand up to it.