TMX Says: Art of perfect race put downs
By TMX Archives on 3rd Aug 16
THROUGHOUT history propaganda has played an important role in influencing how people feel about one subject or another and while we generally associate it with politics, war and religion, many would argue that it plays a major part in our every day lives, too.
In an off-road motorcycle sport sense I'd say that the selectively informative press releases that many manufacturers, teams and riders spew out after each championship round are a fine example of it, and then there's all those social media sites – Twitbook, Facegram and so on...
You're probably thinking ‘WTF is he on about now?', but think about it for a moment.
Pretty much everything you see on these social media feeds is the ‘best of' version created – perhaps inadvertently – to change how people think about whatever whoever has posted.
Trouble is, it can work both ways and if you're constantly bombarding your feed with awesomeness, not only are you gonna convert a fair few of your followers into thinking you're a god – as poker playing multimillionaire douche-bag Dan Bilzerian has somehow managed – but you're also gonna annoy others who'll either turn off to you completely or be motivated enough to knock that smug smile from your chops.
In Eurosport's excellent coverage of the Belgian Grand Prix last weekend, '80s MX ace Rob Andrews picked up on something quite cool that I've noticed Max Anstie does quite frequently but I've never really thought too much about.
After kicking ass Max will spend more time complimenting the rider(s) he's just beaten rather than talking about himself – ‘he was going sooo fast today', ‘he's definitely riding at the top of his game' and other stuff that's quite similar.
This must be quite pleasing to hear for whoever it is he's just trounced, but in reality the message is the exact opposite.
If there were some kind of MaxTranslate™ machine on the market then it'd be chucking out a very different message – ‘up yours buddy, you were trying your best but I was just way too good for you – but as things stand there isn't and Anstie appears to be the most gracious of victors which is an excellent position to place yourself in.
Because whether we're winners or not, gracious is something we should all aspire to be.
I mean, it costs nowt to be nice and the reality of it is, is that it's how many people you can turn to in a crisis that really matters in life and not how many people follow you on Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram...
On the subject of nice people I'd like to take this opportunity to say how sad I was to hear that sidecarcross fan and regular TMX contributor Jan Helm had died recently.
Myself and everyone else up here at TMX Towers would like to wish Chris and the Helm family our very best wishes at this most difficult of times...
