My (Quick) Take on Australia’s Most Famous Break Dancer

A few people have been asking me what I think about Rachael “Raygun” Gunn, Australia’s breakdancing Olympian. Well, first of all, I’m not here to criticise – that has kind of been done to death – and I’m not even criticising that. I’ll get to that soon. But mainly because I was kind of picked on in school (yes, time for the violins), and this Raygun saga has brought back memories of that. You see, when I was in high school, I used to be a breakdancing champion… I’m joking! I was picked on for various other reasons. The point is, it’s not really my style to pick on an individual. Now I’m sure you can search through my history and find an example of me picking on somebody and then accuse me of being a hypocrite, fine, I’m a hypocrite, but who among us is not a hypocrite? I think humans are just naturally hypocritical, because we’re imperfect.

But as I said, many others have mocked, or ridiculed, or laughed at Raygun, and I get it, I’m not complaining about that. You see, in Australia, we often “take the piss” so to speak. Basically, when somebody does something silly in public, Australians will often tease that individual, and it’s often done in a very jovial and joking sort of way. Friends will do it to one another. “Guys, don’t pick on me!” “Come on mate, we’re just taking the piss! We’re just joking!” It happened a lot when I was growing up. The main thing is how you deal with it. If get upset and sooky, then yes, people might continue to tease you, but if you take it in jest, and see the funny side and have a laugh at yourself, then Australians usually respond fairly well to that. “Yeah, OK guys, I thought people would really like my dance routine, but I can see now it was more like watching a rag doll in a washing machine.”

But as I said, I’m not here to criticise. Who am I to comment on breakdancing anyway? It seems like it’s a fairly subjective thing. Although some people have argued that, no, Raygun’s performance was objectively bad, but I’m not here to debate that.

Actually, I’d like to point out one positive thing that came out of Raygun’s performance. I think I can confidently say that Raygun, rightly or wrongly, is now the most famous break dancer in the world EVER. And I don’t think I’m exaggerating. Before the Olympics, I couldn’t have named a single break dancer. Obviously, I had heard of breakdancing, but I didn’t know the name of a single dancer. Raygun, through her unique and unorthodox style, has brought breakdancing to the world stage. Even if she just inspires a few girls, or boys, to take up the sport, well, then something good has come of it.

Of course, there has been debate about government funding with regards to Olympic sports and so on, but to be fair, there’s lots of sports that get funding that I don’t really like. Who am I to decide which sports are worthy and which are not? Most of my tax dollars go toward things I don’t agree with anyway, like over-priced submarines, so what does it matter if a few kids take up breakdancing and get a few hundred bucks here and there.

Look, to be fair, it’s quite possible we’ll never see breakdancing again at the Olympics, so perhaps there’s nothing more that really needs saying. Perhaps this will be my last ever video about breakdancing, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.

MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn