Real quick, for anyone reading this that doesn’t know what teabagging is; it’s a taunt primarily seen in online gaming, where someone has confirmed a kill, and makes their character sit on the defeated character’s face, simulating dipping their nutsack, in and out of the proverbial tea cup of n00b face. This is not going to be an angry, whiny column about sportsmanship or whatever. And its not going to be about how much I suck at online gaming, and how i don’t need to be remind by a nutsack every time I miss a button input (Although I could do 3,000 word on that easy).
This is about simulating teabagging on empty air.
I think taunting in online gaming is pretty underrated as far as a tool to gain an advantage goes. The vast majority of the gaming community runs hot in competition. For whatever reason, what always start as a rose colored glasses experience, immediately turns into a blood red washout the moment your thumb slips on the left analog and what was supposed to be a giant leap from King Dedede back onto the battlefield, turns into a smack of Gordo into the side of the field, and your slight % lead turns into a 1 stock deficit. Maybe its because gaming is such an intensely insular experience, its really easy to lose your cool when its just you, your internal monologue, and your skittish cat running up the porch curtain after the Switch controller bounces violently off the floor. So, if you’re in it to win it, you want to throw your opponent off his/her game as soon as possible. One quick way to do that is saying the right, dickish thing at the right time. However, in games like Smash Ultimate, where you can’t speak to your opponent, your options are limited. The most prominent taunt right now though, the cool kids are doing, is after a confirmed kill, you furiously push down on the joystick, forcing an ashamed Pichu to thrust his big stupid head and tiny torso up and down, asserting your… uhhh… Manhood?
Teabagging… I guess?
It is never cool to force it. There’s a long, long history of dorky motherfuckers trying to ride trends lacking any thread of context to what made the original occasion special. The first guy who teabagged another dude in CoD or whatever probably made his opponent throw his Xbox through the ceiling. This current iteration of teabagging is more reminiscent of a nine year old imitating a seisure, totally botching the severity of it. Its embarrassing, and confusing to be on the other side of. I’ve actually been close to tilting multiple times in 1v1s, and then Ganondorf starts awkwardly convulsing near the edge of the plane, and I abruptly stopped on my arc out of my mind, and got a hold of the moment. I’m pretty sure I still lost that match, but the point here is, that “taunt” did the exact opposite of what you’d want it to do, functionally. You’re supposed to be throwing your opponent off, and riding your swag, not channeling Quagmire through Kirby.
There has *got* to be something more grating to do in this game. Figure it out, Smash community. Because this is embarrassing.
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Alderaand Table Ep 16: Shards of the of the Past
Josh Yutkins-Kennedy
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:27 — 29.7MB)
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Josh and Stefan talk about everything Star Wars Theory’s short film, Vader: Shards of Past and all about the “Hulba” that went along with it when it was first uploaded […]
