From "'Utter takeover': Pickleball invasion prompts turf war in West Village" (Gothamist).
The anti-pickleballists are hardcore. They don't just get signatures for their petition. They garner them.
That phrase: "super happy, fun." What does that remind me of?
No, that's just happy fun ball. So far from a whiffle ball, but let's move on, because it's not super happy fun.
I google the phrase and the top hit is "Super Happy Fun America." Oh, no! It's right wing! Wikipedia says:
The group first became known for organizing the 2019 Boston Straight Pride Parade.... SHFA was created around the idea that straight people are an "oppressed majority.".... They have opposed COVID-19 prevention measures.... Members of the group also believe that Democrats and leftists are plotting to implement communism in the United States.... The organization has been said to dog whistle white nationalists and alt-rightists, utilizing terms such as "western culture"....
Is this less fun or more fun than adults struggling with children over playground territory? I see there's a 2021 article in the Boston Globe — "Super Happy Fun America always claimed to be kidding. But their history suggests otherwise" — so I seem to be asking the central question. Excerpt:
[R]esearchers who study the far right and have tracked Super Happy Fun America’s rise say the group’s jocular exterior hides a disturbing truth: For some, it serves as a gateway into the far right, offering people a socially acceptable entry point into extremism....
The group’s lionization of traditional gender roles and its stream of jokey press releases with made-up claims... have helped normalize radical ideas, these experts say.
Can you "lionize" a concept? My dictionary says "lionize" is something you do to a person — to treat him like a lion or to make a lion — not a mouse — out of him.
And speaking of language, let me bring this post in for a landing, with that other question you may be holding onto, waiting for me to face.
Re: "Love At First Dink." So "dink" is rearing it's ugly little syllable again, wanting to be slang? I remember when it meant people in couples with "dual income no kids." Perhaps you remember it as military slang (a racial slur).
Ah! But I see that "dink" has been a tennis word since the 1930s. "A drop-shot in lawn tennis," says the OED, quoting J.D. Budge's 1939 "On Tennis": "Some players resent their opponent's using the drop shot, or the ‘dink’ shot as they scornfully refer to it." And, from The New Yorker in 1969: "Nobody in his right mind, really, would try those little dink shots he tries as often as he does."
And I would think, nobody in their right mind would try to stake out pickleball space in a small city park where children want to play.
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36 comments:
This too shall pass.
Pickleball is most popular in southern California, southern Arizona, southern Florida, southern Utah, (southern Minnesota?), you get the picture. Did they also mention that infernal noise made when PLASTIC wiffleball meets PLASTIC paddle? We're talking oil products, BIG oil. It's no wonder West Village wants to keep this blight from spreading to liberal northern climes.
(Southern Arizona pickleball fanatic here,)
I have been playing pickleball for a few years now. Greatest sport ever. The sport relies on quick hands and feet. Court is 44' x 20', so one tennis court can make 2 p'ball courts. Locally, the tennis players have complained that we have taken over and we have. Interestingly, the tennis players are few and far between. They are rarely seen on the courts.
What began as an old peoples sport has evolved into younger participants. It's exciting to be successful against the younger set. That won't last long. Ha.
Most tournaments are are broken down by skill level and age group. I will be competing in my age group in the USA Diamond Amateur Championship in Holly Hills, Florida in December. Holly Hills has 62 courts.
I see videos that show the pickleballers playing on tennis courts. If they were playing tennis instead of pickleball it seems logical the tennis players would have the right of way on the courts. Does that extend to net sports in general? (Playing PB on tennis courts kinda sucks because the line layout). Tennis is my main recreational sport, and I hate the taped off lines the pickleballers set up on the courts, but the tennis courts rarely get up to 50% usage and finding a pickup opponent is rare. Pickleball courts are always full and there's always a game available. Use it or lose it.
Pickleball is fun, but a large percentage of the players aren't that athletic. You don't have to be to enjoy it. I think that is its main attraction and why it has grown so rapidly.
So I'm biased towards net sports, but my point is who is making the most use of the space? It seems they should be getting the most preferential treatment. Set up some daily or hourly schedules to accommodate that while still keeping the space multiuser without conflicting times. Or, build more pickleball courts.
nobody in their right mind would try to stake out pickleball space in a small city park where children want to play.
Never heard of pickleball. Looks like fun.
Why do you think no children would play it? I played tennis when I was a kid. Pickleball looks like it's easier than tennis (and more fun).
Also it's a bad idea to have no spaces for adult play.
The amusing warnings associated with happy fun ball make me think of the batteries in electric cars...esp with the news reports of how some are catching fire after getting submerged in water because of Hurricane Ian.
When I was in film school I ran into a guy who said "pickle" was slang for a penis. (Pickle was the name of his movie, I think).
So "pickleball" might upset some people on a subliminal level, maybe?
"Get those pickle (slang) ballers (slang) out of our child's playground!"
But pickle has many meanings, including getting into difficulties. I can imagine a lot of guys blaming their pickle for the pickle they are in.
Anyway, shrink your head, Greenwich Village, and try to wrap your pickled minds around the possibility that it's an innocent game. Kids would like it. Why don't you try it and see?
"We want transvestites reading to our children. But you pickle-ballers have gone too far!"
Just another reason not to live in NYC.
I've had a bellyful of New Yawkahs the last 36 years in South Florida.
who also runs a pickleball lifestyle newsletter..
Can we All Agree, that someone who also runs a pickleball lifestyle newsletter, should be
lobotomized, sterilized, and then, executed?
The Tennis Channel is covering some sort of pickleball championship from Las Vegas this weekend.
I'm not familiar with the game. It looks like fun. If you get more adults into the parks, playing games, wouldn't that mean that you would end up with better maintained parks with better facilities?
As someone who does not live in an urban area, it seems weird to me that people are arguing that pickleballers are taking away tricycle space from children. Having nowhere to ride a trike other than a big square of blacktop sounds dreadful. The problem isn't the use of the park space, it's the lack of other safe space.
Took a look at the wikipedia article on pickleball. It sounds like it's part of a conspiracy to get us all doing stupid things. Invented by a liberal Republican who went on to become lieutenant governor of Washington and his buddies after a hard day on the golf course and a few drinks, promoted by Larry Ellison and LeBron James. I don't want to be too judgy, but it reminds me of the badminton set our parents got us (at about the same time pickle ball was invented in the 1960s) that we only used once.
Pickleball is gateway drug to the Klan, says left-wingers worried about conspiracy theories.
Pickleball is fun. I don't know about super happy fun. I've not considered what level of fun I have when I'm playing. I guess sometimes it could be super happy fun. But not if I'm dinked on. It's a nothing little sport that is actually fun and is the fastest growing sport in North America. They cannot build pickleball courts fast enough. And while there are A LOT of seniors playing it, many of us are in great shape and could still kick the ass of any random 50 year old. But it's not just a seniors sport by any means. It has been taken on by the younger set and at certain levels, it's pretty hard core competitive.
But..."The organization has been said to dog whistle white nationalists and alt-rightists, utilizing terms such as "western culture"..... Of course. We're all just a step away from dog whistling white nationalists who must sit at home with special radars picking all of the dog whistles out of the ether. "Wait...I think I found one lionizing traditional gender roles!!"
My word. I truly loved this: "R]esearchers who study the far right and have tracked Super Happy Fun America’s rise..." The least curious people in the history of humanity are today's 'Journalists!". They've had the stories of the century laid out in front of them almost daily over the last few years and their biggest worry was how to cover them up and not research it, or let anyone else research it. But finding dog whistles from Righty? Well...they're on that!
And then we're bestowed with more knowledge from on high. From 'experts': "The group’s lionization of traditional gender roles and its stream of jokey press releases with made-up claims... have helped normalize radical ideas, these experts say."
Really. Normalizing radical ideas such as a boy being a boy and a girl being a girl? Huh. What could their dark purpose be?
We've lost an entire generation or two to insanity. I'm not sure they're retrievable. Anyway...gotta run. Got a pickleball game to get to. New courts just built in a local park.
[A] petition to stop the pickleball 'takeover' has garnered nearly 3,000 signatures.
It must be nice to be so insulated from the troubles of the world that you have time to worry about nonsense like this.
[A] petition to stop the pickleball 'takeover' has garnered nearly 3,000 signatures.
It must be nice to be so insulated from the troubles of the world that you have time to worry about nonsense like this.
Good humor writing Professor. Are you the new replacement for H L Mencken.
Pickleball is communist. Like traffic circles and the metric system.
Hmmm? Everyone knows pickles are phallic symbols. Could this new right wing cult be a stealth misogynistic psyops.trying to put down women again with pickle envy.
What's the matter with pickleball? People are so weird.
Wow, such an angry competition between pickle-ballers and tennis players for the same turf. It's almost as if there would be enough information to, I dunno, assess the interest levels and maybe allocate a limited resource fairly and efficiently. It's almost as if there could be a court schedule, or maybe even dedicated allocation of one court versus another. You know, like mature grownups faced with a minor problem.
"They don't just get signatures for their petition. They garner them."
And rightly so.
If they don't like Pickleball, they are gonna hate Calvinball.
I've never seen a pickleball court or people playing the game but I've given a lot of pickleballs as bday and xmas gifts.
If you do not dink in pickleball, you will be permanent resident in the losers bracket.
I'm more disturbed that humor is increasingly connected (by the media, academics, pundits, etc.) to hate or violence.
Let's stroll down memory lane by Google-ing "abbie hoffman humor," shall we?
"To commemorate Hoffman, we went into the archive and pulled some of our best clips that illustrate Hoffman's sense of humor, creativity, and dedication to the fight for human rights."
Though Hoffman may have been fighting for "human rights" here or there, it was generally agreed that many of his positions were, for their time, "radical." And, although I always thought the effort to portray Hoffman as "humorous" was strained, it was a meme we couldn't get away from. His activism was always couched in the warmest/fuzziest ways: "Street theater," "pranks," "stunts," etc. Much effort was made to counter any ideas that he was a danger. Or that his followers might be a danger. Anyone who opposed his ideas were "stuffed shirts" or worse.
What has changed?
I'm a bit sensitive to this kind of stuff, being a professional mirth-maker. We identified a strain of this garbage about 20 years ago, labelling it, "The Bad Fan Phenomenon." It wasn't enough to consider what the comedian said. We were to look into his soul and determine his true beliefs and any possible dark motives, all while discarding any claim that what was said was "just a joke." Again, not enough. We also had to examine why people were laughing and what dark thoughts their souls contained.
Either way, this is not good. The Era of That's Not Funny will soon be The Era of That's So Not Funny That it Threatens the Very Foundations of Our Society.
Yet another Internet search. "What is pickleball?" Never heard of it before today.
I'm a former tennis player. In Silicon valley, there are between 50 and 100 pickleball courts. About 2/3 are just that, and the rest are shared space on tennis courts, with portable pickleball nets.
My usual place is in a city park, with 3 dedicated courts, near a USTA tennis facility with 8 tennis courts. I play 3 mornings per week, and there are usually 10-20 players on our 3 courts. It's doubles so 12 play at one time. Age range is 25-70, median about 55.
Our reputation is very beginner-friendly. The big p-ball facility in Palo Alto is more competitive and hosts big tournaments.
The nearest shared courts have 6 p-ball courts painted on 3 tennis courts, with one pristine tennis court. P-ball is played only mornings until 12:30. The portable equipment is managed by a casual club, and stored at the fire station next door. The firefighters play often, bringing their radios for emergency calls. This area has a youngish crowd, 25-35, and an older retired cohort.
If Joel Pritchard were alive today to see what's become of his invention ....
A nice man, too.
I live in a 55-plus park in Mesa, AZ. The former tennis court, now pickleball courts, are 20 yards away. Now that the snowbirds are returning, I will be hearing the oddly hollow "doink" every morning. I've also seen four 30-year old construction workers stopping at our park to use the court on a lunch break.
So is pickle ball basically tennis on a shorter court, net play volleying using large ping pong paddles and a wiffle ball? Do players hit ground strokes?
If my assumptions are correct, it's tennis for folks that don't like to run.
Pickleplex was built near the Charlotte County Florida airport. Pickleball noise is not an issue.
@Andrew. The volley opens with a few ground strokes. Then the charge to net begins. However, you may not get within 7’ of the net (called the non-volley zone) unless the bounces on your side. You begin dinking until your opponent get one a bit high. You then smash it. If both opponents are at the 7’ line and begin smashing, the ball is traveling at 45 mph. Great fun.
I did appreciate racquetball as a poke in the face of the squash snobs, so maybe pickleball is a jab at the tennis snobs, but is tennis really that snobby nowadays?
Pickleball (SPLAT) is an aesthetic (SPLAT) abomination. It's nice that (SPLAT) it makes people happy(SPLAT). But please do it outside my (SPLAT) earshot.
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