EXTREMEly ridiculous marketing
I love bullshit as much as the next guy—probably more than the next guy—but the scene that greeted me on the telly this morning was beyond laughable.
ESPN, apparent wishing to capitalize on the unexpected dividends reaped from the World Series of Poker, has begun promoting another rather unorthodox “sport”: ping pong. Er, table tennis. And I’m just as up for a game of ping pong the next bored blogger, but here’s the catch: this wasn’t normal table tennis, this was Killerspin Extreme Table Tennis.
Ahem. What the hell is that? How can ping pong possibly be extreme? How?! Where are the injuries? Where is the full body contact? Where is the trash talking? It’s a bunch of Eastern European and East Asian science professors who dedicate their spare time to ping pong. Who do they intimidate besides mousy graduate students?
And there’s the “killerspin” bit. What second-rate marketing department is responsible for this crap? I demand to know. I DEMAND to know! Marketing departments are absolutely out of control in this country with this (e)Xtreme theme. (Hey, Maddox agrees with me.) That some marketing hack can actually churn out this without vomiting makes me wonder if these people have any standards:
Today’s game of table tennis is a high intensity and physically challenging sport, that requires lightning fast reflexes and incredible agility. [cite]
Until I see blood on the ping pong ball, the words “extreme” and “table tennis” should never meet in the same breath.
March 8th, 2004 at 11:45 am
Whenever I think about sports, I like to remind people that my friend owns the coolest, newest ski company in America. It is called Liberty Skis. Here is the
http://www.libertyskis.com
You should check it out. Once I went skiing with my friend, and another friend of ours. It was at a place called Bristol Mountain in upstate New York. You should have seen the pink ski parka I wore! It had a faux fur hood trim, and I borrowed it from my friend’s mother. It was hilarious. I successfully skied the slope called “Rocket Run.”
It was successful because I did not die.
-Margie
P.S. Pink is not my color, although I like to show pink on occasion
March 15th, 2005 at 7:05 pm
Jotsheet or whatever your name is
first of all ping pong is an awesome sport…
so next time it’ll be better if you’d save your comments/opinion for yourself.
If ping pong is growng as it is, then let it be. But don’t HATE! Plus the only ridiculous here is YOU, for making a web site based on your crappy opinions!
April 24th, 2005 at 6:18 pm
well, Jotshit, what can i say ? no offense, but you probably did not used to think at all, but only chew popcorn in front of tv… pity… in bloody sports people have SKILLS and that is what make them interesting, not badmouthing or blood itself. i am talking about sports, not some tv wrestling bull…
try boxing with somebody, maybe after having light punch you will stop wining about blood. watch for skill and action - and table tennis has it all.
April 24th, 2005 at 6:21 pm
Woooo… here come the ping pong blog brigades to defend their great sport’s honor!
May 31st, 2005 at 11:26 am
Ok well I’m not gonna spend my time explaining why table tennis is one of the most unique and exciting sports there is. Obviously you will stick to your opinions. Now, I want to ask you, have you seen a real table tennis match between two world class athletes?. I would say not, because if you did, you would understand how intense and physically challenging the sport can be(all this will the ball traveling up to a 100/miles per hour over the distance not bigger than your couch is). In any case, I think that ur comment was extremely shallow and that you dont understand the sport itself, and thus you should do more research before talking smack about something you dont know. Now, the bloodiness and physical contact does not make a sport great, it just makes it more ‘interesting’ and exciting for poeple like you to watch. If you think that every sport should have physical pain and explicitness, then you are extremely shallow and uninformed.
April 12th, 2006 at 7:32 am
table tennis is a great game.
April 14th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Haha, a year after the entry is made, no less.
I find it humorous that the bashers of your entry failed to realize that you didn’t insult table tennis at all.
Keep up the good work.