Fun With Balls

June 2, 2013 9:35 PM

Donegal+Unbridled Enthusiasm+Lots and Lots of Balls=Fun With Balls
posted by Diablevert (50 comments total)

The celebrations really make this.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:37 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

These all seem to be the result of several trials (if I tape myself 100 times trying to make an impossible shot one of them will make it) or the result of pretty predictable physics (I'm looking at the angle of the bouncing off boards - put 8 different boards down bounce the ball down the stairs until it lands in the same place a few times and then put the cup there).

Hohum
posted by ishrinkmajeans at 9:47 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

The celebrations really make this obnoxious.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:51 PM on June 2, 2013 [7 favorites]

"The celebrations really make this"

...insufferable?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:51 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Another example that 3/4 of comedy is in the straight lines.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:52 PM on June 2, 2013

I think the celebrations make sense (and go from obnoxious to endearing) given the implication that each of these shots probably took hundreds of tries.
posted by treepour at 9:55 PM on June 2, 2013 [5 favorites]

Comedy?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:59 PM on June 2, 2013

"I think the celebrations make sense (and go from obnoxious to endearing) given the implication that each of these shots probably took hundreds of tries."

Yeah, I actually made an effort to take that into consideration at about the "kick the ball over the house" part, but it didn't help.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:00 PM on June 2, 2013

That's what I found rather charming about it. The usual thing with these videos is for the ....trickster?....to try and play it off quite casually, like "yeah, I pretty much expect that when hurl this basketball toward the net from the roof of the school in the next town over, I simply expect that it will go through, such is my incredible skill." Whereas the absolute incredulous joy of these kids so clearly says that they have tried each of these things a bajillion times before they actually got it to work just the once.
posted by Diablevert at 10:03 PM on June 2, 2013 [10 favorites]

This is how we landed on the moon.
posted by TwelveTwo at 10:25 PM on June 2, 2013 [13 favorites]

Wasn't there a Metafilter post a while back about how to fake these things?
posted by eye of newt at 10:29 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

People found it insufferable? I thought their enthusiasm was infectious. Seeing them jump for joy when each trick (finally) worked was the best part. Hilarious.
posted by medusa at 10:32 PM on June 2, 2013 [6 favorites]

I don't begrudge anyone who found their cheering and yelling enjoyable and infectious. I envy you, really. I'm generally a glass is half-full kinda guy. Nevertheless, I found it very irritating.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:37 PM on June 2, 2013

The yelling was over the top, like they're budding hooligans or something, but I still found it charming, once I realized they were gonna blow their stacks every single time.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 10:57 PM on June 2, 2013

I would like to be that excited again about something. There are lots of things I enjoy doing, but nothing where I get that pumped up...I miss it (it seems harder to just plain be OMG excited the older you get). Also, I think I would permanently rupture some joint at this point if I started leaping around like that.
posted by maxwelton at 10:59 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

Yeah, at my age I would have to do something more than get a ball into a cup to get that excited. Give me the cave of the forty thieves and I'd probably just say "Cool!" and start the paperwork on my retirement, not dive into the gold pieces like Daffy Duck.
posted by pracowity at 11:38 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Related.
posted by pompomtom at 11:39 PM on June 2, 2013

Excitation In Moderation, maxwelton.
posted by zoinks at 11:43 PM on June 2, 2013

Hohum

At least they got the ball in the cup; you missed the point entirely.
posted by smoke at 11:54 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

There is an innocence in their joy that makes me happy.
Its play. Its irrational fun. Guys this age are generally obnoxious.
It’s the fact that they feel free to act out so that I like... Too often I see just the
opposite with guys this age. The... I'm too cool to have fun.
posted by quazichimp at 12:10 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

These young men do indeed appear to be having fun with balls.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:54 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Hohum

The celebrations really make this obnoxious.

Oh feck off you grumpy aul' farts.

Young guys having good innocent fun, genuinely enjoying themselves and being fully alive. Properly made me smile.

Don't worry, give them a couple of years and they'll be stuck in a room honing their snark for the benefit of strangers. Will you be happy then? Jeez.
posted by billiebee at 3:02 AM on June 3, 2013 [6 favorites]

More than the quality of these shots, I think that what's really incredible is how Irish people manage to radiate friendliness. Thanks, kids.
posted by nicolin at 3:08 AM on June 3, 2013

The tall one... Someone should let him know there's an opening on a TV series.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:24 AM on June 3, 2013

I don't understand football (or soccer for yinz yanks) that well. Asking a Brit why is/was Beckham regarded as such a superstar he replied "You know that unbelievable free kick he made in the World Cup? Yeah, he can pretty much make that kick every time." My friend seemed to think that greatness comes not from the ability to make a shot but the ability to make the shot time and time again.

A long time ago a bunch of skateboarders made a video of amazing basketball shots. At first I thought why are these skateboarders so good at basketball? Someone explained that the skill in making cool skateboard trick videos is trying over and over and over again until you get the trick right. That skill easily translated into the basketball video--they weren't good at basketball, they just kept trying until they got it right.

Here we have another example--let's give these guys major props on setting up the stunts and having the tenacity to try until they get it right. It's cool stuff but definitely something different than ball skills.
posted by sexymofo at 3:48 AM on June 3, 2013

Ha! That was awesome. Reminds me of trying trick shots for hours when I was wee.

Celebrations absolutely justified and appreciated. The video carries.
posted by petebest at 5:14 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

I just find it heartwarming to see some kids doing this, rather than sprawled on a couch playing Grand Theft Auto.
posted by davebush at 5:47 AM on June 3, 2013

So do we believe that unlike the umptijillion other videos of this sort these guys aren't faking it?

And if so why do we believe that exactly?
posted by ook at 5:54 AM on June 3, 2013

Good.

I suspected the entire time that these might be fake shots, but I don't care. The idea that the "fakeness" is just hundreds of trials just makes it better. Effort trumps skill, you know?

And enthusiasm trumps detachment.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:10 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

And if so why do we believe that exactly?

Probably because they look like the sort who would actually spend all day trying to get a ball to bounce right for a YouTube video rather than spend all night trying to fake a YouTube video of the same trick shot.
posted by pracowity at 6:15 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Some of those qualify as Rube Goldball machines.
posted by ecsh at 6:22 AM on June 3, 2013

Obviously, there a many, many attempts that fail. This prompts some people to call the eventual successful shots "fake"? Am I missing something?
posted by davebush at 6:28 AM on June 3, 2013

Hohum

Yes, a video of these kids shooting heroin and mugging smaller children would have been much more worth our time.

It does make you wonder how a sport with those new recycling bins hasn't been invented yet.
posted by dry white toast at 6:28 AM on June 3, 2013

This is how we landed on the moon.

Mars too.
posted by dry white toast at 6:31 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I would actually like this if they posted how many takes it took to get the shot. We know it's "fake" (they never said it was one take) so let us know how much effort went into it.
posted by chairface at 8:29 AM on June 3, 2013

Because I am also 12 years old, I believe fully half of the enthusiasm on display is due to having just made an internet video titled "FUN WITH BALLS".
posted by Dr Dracator at 8:40 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is how we landed on the moon.

Which is why it's just littered with hundreds of crashed lunar landers.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:58 AM on June 3, 2013

This prompts some people to call the eventual successful shots "fake"?

No, "fake" meaning CGI (motion-tracking a greenscreened or otherwise digitized ball into the shot, which these days is not that tricky to do) often combined with more old-school camera tricks (ball goes off camera, second ball dropped from offscreen directly into the goal) -- the linked video has an absolutely textbook example of this at 0:44.

Multiple takes is a given, obviously.
posted by ook at 8:59 AM on June 3, 2013

When someone writes a best-selling book about how it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become expert at something like playing the violin or being the Beatles or earning like Bill Gates the world nods its collective head sagely and tries therein to find clues to success, but when 3 kids spend 10,000 hours achieving a bunch of "impossible" ball tricks the world collectively calls them "fake" or hohum.

Weird.
posted by chavenet at 9:51 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

It would be if they'd spent 10,000 hours doing this. Except they didn't. 500 hours, tops.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:13 AM on June 3, 2013

What cracks me up is that every celebration is almost the exact same:

"YESSSSSS! YESSSSSSSSSS!"

It's never "Woohooo!" or "Yeahhhh!" or "Awesome!!!" it's always

"YESSSS! YESSSSSSS!"

...and almost in exactly the same way. You could probably superimpose them all and they would all sync.
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 10:28 AM on June 3, 2013

A few decades ago, kids would do this sort of thing and the adults would smile and be all, "Well, it keeps them out of trouble and they're not doing drugs!"* I think it's just the fact that it's being posted on YouTube in a "look at meeee!" kind of way that makes some people find it annoying.

*My mother told me of the day she and my father heard random thumping and giggling coming from the second floor of their townhouse, where my brother and his best friend were obviously up to...something. Suddenly, a full-sized grocery store shopping cart comes shooting down the stairs, being piloted by a rubber chicken. Hilarity ensues. (To this day, we have no idea how they got the cart up to the second floor bedroom without anyone noticing.)
posted by MexicanYenta at 10:30 AM on June 3, 2013

That is weird, chavenet -- weirdly non sequitur, that is.

Faking these tricks convincingly would itself be a minor achievement worth celebrating -- except that there are dozens and dozens of "trick shot" videos exactly like this one already out there. This was the wannabee-viral meme du jour not so very long ago; it got so overplayed it spawned a subsidiary meme of viral videos debunking or just plain mocking the original viral videos. I'm genuinely surprised that there are metafilter readers to whom this is not the oldest of hats.

Whether you believe they spent a few hours trying repeated takes until they made the shot, or that all the hooting and hollering is just acting and they're matting it all together in Motion or After Effects, either way, once you've seen the same exact thing a few dozen times, whether it's football players or basketball players or the other kind of football players or toddlers or doctors or kittens then "ho hum" starts to be a pretty reasonable response.
posted by ook at 10:46 AM on June 3, 2013

I don't know. To me it's like the Spanish-language soccer announcers who shout "GOOOOAAAAALLL" every. single. time. a goal is scored; whether it's a brilliant effort in the 92nd minute of a tied championship game, or a keeper's mistake on a lousy shot in a 5-0 rout in a friendly between the #15 and #17 ranked teams. They aren't all worth going apeshit over.

They're capable of editing out the 20 tries that didn't work, so they're capable of editing out the repetitive "YESSSSSSS!" celebrations every. single. time. If there had been one at the end, that would have seemed totally appropriate. But this video was far more celebration than it was achievement; like a soccer highlight video showing only two seconds of play and then 20 seconds of running around the field while the announcer bellows. That skateboard basketball video sexymofo posted had lots of awesome tricks, and didn't need the demonstrative celebrations to make them look good.

I suspect they would prefer to just make a YouTube video of themselves yelling, but realized that no one would watch it, so this is their compromise.

But just because it doesn't work for me doesn't mean that others aren't free to enjoy it -- more power to you. I was just surprised that the thing that ruined it for me was the thing that others really liked; it was like if someone shot a vertical iPhone video of a news event and everybody was excited about the avant-garde framing rather than wishing they'd turned their phone sideways.

And certainly, they could be out mugging people and taking drugs. They could also be out helping the elderly, or volunteering at a soup kitchen. Either of those responses is lazy rhetoric.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 10:56 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

this video was far more celebration than it was achievement; like a soccer highlight video showing only two seconds of play and then 20 seconds of running around the field while the announcer bellows. That skateboard basketball video sexymofo posted had lots of awesome tricks, and didn't need the demonstrative celebrations to make them look good.

There's plenty of trick videos with much better tricks; as ook said, mere tricks are kind of played. The thing that appealed to me about it was quite literally the display of the artless joy of childhood. I don't think anything they managed here would leave anyone in awe, except themselves; for me it evokes a certain nostalgia.
posted by Diablevert at 11:53 AM on June 3, 2013

I'm genuinely surprised that there are metafilter readers to whom this is not the oldest of hats.

Well set your face to stun for I am one of those souls. Haven't seen any of the examples you mention. Hey, MetaFilter works!

For those who find it old hat, perhaps you could not watch something you know in advance will bore you, and then leave little ennui-shaped poos over the thread about HAPPY CHILDREN.
posted by billiebee at 12:03 PM on June 3, 2013

Homeboy Trouble: "who shout "GOOOOAAAAALLL" every. single. time. a goal is scored; whether it's a brilliant effort in the 92nd minute of a tied championship game,"

Did you have to bring up Benfica's loss to Chelsea?!
posted by chavenet at 1:21 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Ivan Fyodorovich: "It would be if they'd spent 10,000 hours doing this. Except they didn't. 500 hours, tops."

And this is why they're still amateurs, not experts!
posted by chavenet at 1:22 PM on June 3, 2013

ook: "except that there are dozens and dozens of "trick shot" videos exactly like this one already out there. "

Hmm. I've seen most of the videos you list here and yes I recognized this one as one of the meme / genre. I liked the others I've seen and I liked this one. They're stunts, some are faked, all are interesting.

I guess I'm just easily amused by mindless pleasures.
posted by chavenet at 1:24 PM on June 3, 2013

Nothing wrong with that. To me there's a lot of difference between "cheering in jubilation because you've finally made a difficult shot on the nth try" and "acting jubilant after you throw a ball in the general direction of the camera and then your buddy drops another ball into the cup you were pretending to aim at," which is the only reason I wound up in this conversation in the first place.
posted by ook at 1:39 PM on June 3, 2013