Anti-quizbowl quizbowler
The term anti-quizbowl quizbowler is used to refer to any quizbowl player who puts forth arguments that make them appear fundamentally opposed to, or at least uninterested in, the basic facets of quizbowl that one would think everyone in the game enjoys.
Properties
The anti-quizbowl quizbowler will:
- mock people for knowing things
- demand that questions and tournaments be as short as possible
- routinely propose that quizbowl be less like quizbowl and more like TV gameshows or sports
- introduce all sorts of bizarre question and tournament formats out of inexplicable anger at standard practices
- side with College Bowl, which has literally attempted to destroy the quizbowl circuit many times, in arguments
- use anti-intellectual talking points ("you live in a library", "dead white males") to argue against academic content
- write lots of "protest questions" whose point is to subvert normal tenets of question writing
Why people who don't like learning facts, hearing questions, or playing tournaments remain involved in quizbowl is something of a mystery, though surely a love of contrarianism plays a role. Leading anti-quizbowl quizbowlers include Robin Richards, Hayden Hurst, and Doug O'Neal. In October 2006, Brian Rostron emerged as the king of anti-quizbowl quizbowlers, with an undefined (500:0) ratio of complaints about fundamental parts of quizbowl to actual instances of participation in any quizbowl event over the previous five years.
Arguments
All arguments made by anti-quizbowl quizbowlers are neatly summarized in metaphorical form in the following paragraph:
| “ | Look, we've all had just about enough of your Internet bullying against people who like mangoes. Just because you think something is true doesn't mean it's the case for everyone. Besides, mangoes are more fun to eat than avocados--why do you hate fun? You probably spend all day reading encyclopedia entries about avocados, and that's not fun at all. When Luce Irigary said that avocados symbolize the male patriarchy, she was talking about you. But really, why do we care so much--it's just a fruit, for crissakes, so just eat mangoes already! And avocados are so complicated to explain to people who don't like fresh produce--shouldn't we stick to the beautiful simplicity of the mango so that more people might be enticed to eat well? After all, when You-Know-Who held the avocado convention up in East Lansing, it was fun on a bun, and certainly He Who Shall Not Be Named would enjoy repeating that kind of stuff. You should just stop eating mangoes if you hate them so much! I read that Martin St. Louis eats five mangoes a day, and unless you're prepared to explain why such a noble human being is wrong, you'd best drop the avocado and get with the program. It's just so terrible that everyone in the snack discussion world has so much implied negativity towards mangoes. All the cool people eat mangoes while they smoke blunts and do cannonballs off a trampoline into my hot tub--why do you want to be such an avocado-eating loser? Avocados caused twelve thousand people to die of cancer last year! Here in Virginia we eat mangoes and we like it, and we don't appreciate your myopic Northeastern elitism coming in and telling us what to do just because you think we're a bunch of avocado-hating rednecks. All you ever post about is how great avocados are, so we know where your biases lie. Let's hear from someone who isn't a kneejerk avocado apologist for once. And you just don't understand people with underdeveloped taste buds--mangoes are all they can eat, and it's too bad that you think the grocery store should cater to your small cadre of excellent tasters. And you know who else stood up to the avocado hegemony and in favor of the rights of mango eaters? That's right: Don Reid. Besides, you only pretend to like avocados because the fruit stand was sold out of mangoes anyway. If they had mangoes you'd be singing a different tune. | „ |