The Australian Breaker Who Broke the Internet

Before immoderate of them were taken down, the memes astir Australian Olympic breaker Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun, were each astir poking fun. Videos of her flipping astir oregon kangaroo hopping connected the contention level astatine the Paris Summer Games were accompanied by captions similar “what my nephew does aft telling each of america to ‘watch this’” oregon images of Gunn spinning adjacent to images of Homer Simpson doing the same. The cringe was endless.

It was besides lone the beginning. As the net does what it does and made jabs astir Gunn’s performance—she yet won nary medals and didn’t gain a azygous point—it besides did the other happening it does and went down a rabbit spread connected however precisely idiosyncratic with less-than-stellar skills managed to correspond Australia successful the Olympics.

That’s erstwhile things got complicated.

Fairly rapidly aft the Olympics breakdancing contention ended, contention began to swirl arsenic to however Gunn, a taste studies prof astatine Macquarie University successful Sydney, made it to the Games. People began to question her bona fides, her narration to the Australian Breaking Association, and whether oregon not her show was an insult to breaking. Someone adjacent started a Change.org petition asking for an probe into what happened and whether Gunn’s information meant a little privileged dancer didn’t get a shot.

According to a Vox report, the malfeasance allegations against Gunn are mostly unfounded. Some breakers successful Australia and beyond adjacent rallied to her defense. Still others successful her location state noted the broadside effects of the concern were rough, telling The Guardian that Gunn’s show could impact the quality of different dancers successful Australia to get support.

“How bash I spell to enactment present and effort to get our sponsorship and get our assistance wealth for breaking programs [for a sport] that’s conscionable been made a mockery of?” Leah Clark, who runs a creation workplace successful Brisbane, asked the outlet. “This is really affecting america connected a overmuch larger standard than conscionable memes.”

What this represents is really a sizable disconnect online. As the past week wore on, Gunn took to Instagram connected Thursday to post a video saying she didn’t recognize competing successful the Olympics would “open the doorway to truthful overmuch hate,” calling the acquisition “devastating.” Harassment is already a immense occupation online, but successful situations similar this, it becomes excessively casual for genuine criticisms to get drowned retired by speedy jokes and blistery takes.

There is merit to interrogating what relation Gunn’s privilege played successful securing her spot—if thing else, she could spend to enactment successful qualifying events which whitethorn person been retired of scope for some—and larger questions astir taste appropriation successful breaking. (“Raygun Deserves an Olympic Gold Medal for Colonizing Breakdancing,” read the headline successful The Grio. There are besides several threads out there connected this topic, and I promote you to work them.) Those questions are being raised successful respective places, but chances are you mightiness not spot them until you’ve watched a fewer spoofs oregon absorption vids first.