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Clearly not won for Best Photographer. |
One way writers like to start an examination of a topic is to offer the etymology of the word itself. It tends to cast the topic in a new light and asks that the reader consider another - presumably simpler - culture's perspective. In this historical frame of mind, a more profound understanding is supposed to surface. I guess.
Well this post is about recycling trophies. And you know what? Trophy in any other language still means trophy. Latin,
trophaeum - monument to victory. French,
trophee - spoils of war. I'm none the wiser having learned that.
Or am I? I'm not. What's clear, however, is that the concept of 'trophy' is nearly ageless. But it's our consumer culture that has turned it into a first-place beast.
Cleaning out my old room, I decided the thirty or so trophies I'd amassed throughout my childhood didn't warrant sitting on my mantle. For one, I'd have to get a mantle. There's just no place in a latter-twentysomething's home to showcase all the teams I was a "Participant" on. That's right, participant. Sure there's a championship in there, a couple all-star games, but the majority of them are of the "He Totally Rostered!" variety. This post is not intended to elucidate the virtues or lack thereof of "awarding" everyone, thereby diminishing the prestige of the actual victor. Instead, it's to ask
where the effsies are all these trophies gonna go??
Think about it. If every kid averages 1.5 recreational sports, 6 years of participation, 2 teams/leagues/seasons per year, and earns 0.25 merit-based awards per year, that's 22.5 trophies per person. Where, pray tell, will these shiny little monuments of mediocrity end up? Sure, that half-a-trophy gets thrown away - its little dude on top is missing its head. But let's extrapolate on this math for a sec.
Do you know how many ten to fourteen year-olds there are in this country? Imma tell you. Twenty mill. Yup. Brats, too, but that's another story. So these twenty million
brats kids will grow up, slowly drop from their respective sporting teams because of their a) badness at said sport, or b) growing interest in opposite sex. They'll attend college, drink all the beers, and get a job they tolerate. Meanwhile, this small slice of the American population will be carrying in tow...
a half a BILLION trophies!
If all those trophies were lined end-to-end, they'd still be...
a half a BILLION trophies! And if you tried to stack them vertically, you stop right away because trophies are odd-shaped and cumbersome.
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Half of a billion trophies. It's like a word-play thing. If you don't like it just move on. |
"But writer guy," you ask, "where did you come up with all those little stats? Source please?" Man, I dunno, I made them up. Full disclosure, there. Come up with your own stats if you so choose, but you can't deny that there's a trophy problem in this country. And our political leaders are all too quick to just sweep it under the rug. And surprise, surprise: Big Trophy's behind it. And you know what happens when you ask too many questions of Big Trophy? They give you a goddamn trophy.
Step one is disposing of the existing glut of these memorials. There's actually a good amount of services that will recycle them. Check
this out for a more serious treatment on the subject. Planet Green also
spits game. There's really just a few options - the items are stripped down for their recyclable materials, reused with a new nameplate (often for charitable organizations), or turned into art. Ogle below.
And here's Hunter Cross, who just went berserk with a glue gun and made this happen at The Dallas Contemporary for an
installation in late 2007. More pics at the link. Obv.
The next step is the trickier one, which I'll only touch on briefly. That is to change the mentality of the American athletics community. Terrific, you took third place in districts. Celebrate? Absolutely. Memorialize with millennia-to-decompose cubic foot-occupying closet fodder? I dare say no.
But being a part-time unpaid blogger, I totally understand the psychology behind it. High-fives fade. The joy, the smiles, the one idiot that dumps Gatorade 95% on the ground and 5% on Coach Thompson - all memories worth keeping. But we feel a compulsion to embody these memories in a...
thing. Something that lasts a little longer; something to give the memories life - but not immortality. May I suggest...
- Ice Sculptures for winter sports
- Watermelons for summer sports
Wow. Environmentally-devastating tradition over. New, sustainable and let's face it, super-cool one begun. Armies of farmers and ice sculptists gainfully-employed. Now
that's a victory for everyone.
And as for Big Trophy? If they want to play in the 21st-century sporting arena, they'll retool their shops and get busy on that water-freezing machine. Which I guess is just called a freezer.