By: Jeff Barnes
When the cavemen hunted wooly mammoths, saber-tooth tigers and other ancient creatures, they almost certainly boasted about the size of their spears and the quality of their kills in their cave paintings. When the Greeks competed in the Ancient Olympic Games, it’s a good bet that they talked trash to one another while vying for the coveted olive wreath. And what would the “Rumble in the Jungle” be without Muhammad Ali’s famous quips?
Since the beginning of time, every civilization has had its own unique brand of trash talk. No matter where you look, whether it’s in church, on the soccer field, at a PTA meeting or at a professional sporting event, you are going to get your fix of trash talk. The world of beer pong is no different, from your house party all the way to the final table of the World Series of Beer Pong.
If it wasn’t for trash talk, I wouldn’t be here right now writing a column about beer pong. While most people catch the beer pong bug through the desire to get drunk, for me it was the opportunity to talk shit to people. It may come as a surprise to some, but I grew up with older kids and got picked on and beat up a lot. I learned the art of talking trash before I kissed a girl. But nothing ever gave me the opportunity to talk trash to someone as directly as beer pong. I was hooked.
While I never earned a reputation for being a great shooter, people knew they didn’t want to play me. I didn’t care who you were, I was going to let it all out against you. But I always considered my trash talk a bit superior to my peers. I said enough to make people miss, but not enough that things would escalate. At a glance, I was a complete asshole. But my opponents always knew that after the game, it was all good. One of the first beer pong blogs I ever wrote was about trash talk. You can read it here: http://www.mdbeerpong.com/recap.php?id=638
I’ve always said that the key to trash talking isn’t who can be the loudest or who can be the meanest, rather it’s about finding out what your opponent’s hot button is and attacking that. The beer pong community has grown so much over the years and there is now so much more interaction between players than ever before, so when someone finds out what makes a player tick, all hell breaks loose. And I think it is starting to hurt the sport of beer pong.
I've been around the game for a long time. I'm like 100 years old in beer pong years.
I watched “The Hangover Part II” the other night and it reminded me of almost every other sequel to a popular movie. It follows the same exact formula as the first, but the jokes become cruder and less funny. When you lack originality, you need to go for shock value. And that’s what a lot of beer pong players have resorted to. Some of the things that get said and some of the things people do on the table are acts of desperation, trying to one-up whatever has been done or said before. And lines are being crossed.
Beer pong players have just gotten to be so damn mean. I’m guilty of the same thing. Like many of you, I’ve been around the game for a long time. I’m like 100 years old in beer pong years. So there’s nothing that is going to be said on the table or off it that is going to get to me. I’m seasoned and desensitized to trash talk. But I can imagine that a new player who comes out to a beer pong tournament for the first time, someone who hears some of the things that are said or sees some of the things that are done, will be immediately turned off and not come back. For us, it’s normal, but for them, it’s a little too much. It’s like when my friend’s mom found my cassette tape of “The Chronic” in his Walkman when I was in fifth grade and called my mom to complain. I think some of the behavior is getting a little out of hand and is keeping some new players away.
I’ll always have respect for guys like Nick Manfredo, who for my money is the best trash talker in the game.
In the last year or so, I stopped much of my trash talk. I’ve noticed that, if anything, the trash talk only helps most of my opponents these days. I’ve always fed off it myself, and I think most good players do as well. Unless you’re dressing up as a sexy transsexual, your chances of taking a top opponent out of the game with just your mouth are very slim these days. I’ll still do it occasionally, but nowhere like I used to.After yet another disappointing finish in a major beer pong tournament this past weekend at the Beast of the East (congratulations to Weapons of MASS Destruction on their win and to NorCal for their win at Best of the West, too) I kind of took a step back and looked at the event from a different perspective. You had certain individuals spitting on multiple people and acting like complete idiots, you had people threatening to fight, you had people making racial remarks, and I was just really embarrassed by the whole thing. It’s just been taken too far and it’s not funny, it’s actually kind of sad. Yeah, we all do dumb things when we’re drunk, myself included, but at each major tournament, I’ve just noticed things steadily going downhill. There was even one guy there showing his balls to anyone and everyone. Seriously, who does that?
I’ll always have respect for guys like Nick Manfredo, who for my money is the best trash talker in the game. He’s one of those guys that walk the line perfectly of being funny and disrespectful enough at the same time. He does it right.
At the end of the day, for the vast majority of us beer pong isn’t our life, it’s one of the things we do to escape the real world of school, work, marriage, kids, etc. Put enough drunk people in one place and put a lot of cash on the line and it’s going to bring out the worst in most of us. But at some point or another, we all got into this to have fun. I think everyone, myself included, would benefit if we all just lightened up a bit. Have fun, hit some cups, talk your trash and have a laugh about it when you’re done. Come on guys, it’s just beer pong.
