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Participation Trophy Nation
Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,
What a pathetic nation of entitled whiners we’ve become. When did participation in a sport or any competition deserve a trophy?
Trophies are for winners. Trophies are for the people who excelled. Trophies are for the people who worked harder than their competitors and won. The bullshit about every child being a special snowflake has permeated our society and created generations of momma’s boys and girls. They think they deserve a trophy for showing up at their jobs now. They think they deserve automatic B’s for showing up at college classes. They think they deserve pay raises because they came to work.
You get ahead in life by hard work, using your brain, and refining your social skills. The free shit army mentality permeating our culture drives the participation trophy bullshit. Real free market capitalism (not the crony capitalism/socialism) has winners and losers. Losers need to work harder to become winners. Not in America today. The losers have a million excuses and think they deserve exactly what the winners have achieved.
Via The Daily Caller's Alex Pfeiffer,
On HBO’s return of “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” Tuesday night, Bernard Goldberg looks into the current culture of handing out trophies to children just for showing up, and how this trend potentially leads to damaging psychological effects.
“We want to make each child feel special,” says Brian Sanders, president of i9 Sports, the largest youth sports franchise in the nation.
How does he make them feel special? By giving them all trophies.
At an event outside Tampa, Fla. with 650 kids in attendance all will receive trophies, there is a division champion award and everyone else receives an “All-Star” trophy, both prizes are the same size.
This isn’t just a phenomenon with his sports league. Janet Anderson is the regional commissioner in Los Angeles for AYSO Soccer and she told Goldberg for her 1,200 under-eight players, “If there name is on the roster, they get a trophy.”
This means that players who don’t even show up can receive an award. On top of that, her league doesn’t keep score, no one is a loser.
And what happened when Anderson decided to stop giving trophies to all participants for players over age eight? “Some parents went out and bought their own trophies for the whole team,” explained Anderson to Goldberg.
It isn’t just children who are winners. The trophy industry now has sales around $2 billion at the retail level, says Scott Sletten of JDS Industries, one of the world’s largest trophy wholesalers. Sletten’s parents started the South Dakota business in 1972. Then, the mom-pop shop had sales of $20,000 to $40,000 a year. JDS now has sales of over $50 million a year.
This culture arises out of a movement beginning in the late 20th Century to push the importance of self-esteem in education. “The state of California had a task force in the 1980s to study self-esteem, and we thought especially for kids in struggling communities if we just told them they were great, they would believe it, and then they could achieve more because they were certain they were great,” said researcher Ashley Merryman.
This movement has apparently spiraled out of control. “Preschoolers sometimes now sing a song to the tune of ‘Frère Jacques’ that goes like this, ‘I am special I am special look at me look at me,’” according to San Diego State University professor Jean Twenge.
This push to make every child feel special leads to problems in college. A study highlighted in Goldberg’s report shows that a third of college students say they deserve a B grade as long as they attend most classes in a course.
Dr. Robert Cloninger, professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine has been studying the effects of rewards with rats in mazes. He found that rats that received food just for working their way through the maze were lazy. “They will not be fast runners to get to the trophy, and they will quit easily the moment they are no longer getting rewarded.”
He concludes that children won’t be able to succeed if we pretend that they don’t fail. Cloninger says, “We have to get over the notion that everyone has to be a winner in the United States, it just isn’t true.”
* * *
Trophies for all. Do it for the chilrun. We must boost the self-esteem of losers so they think they are winners.
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I defeated the 80,000 page tax code. no trophy so I whine on zerohedge. read that a couple of times then down vote.
the biggest free shit army resides on wall street, clean your house there and you have a chance at renewal, sit on your sofa and get even more obese and you suck what you fuck, a giant wall street dildo
Let me look for the no agenda show link op 2 weeks ago where a great analyses has been given.
But Cait is brave and deserves a uh an ah um er tube of lipstick
http://nypost.com/2015/08/06/why-i-am-cait-is-an-unwatchable-mess-and-ho...
I used to win trophies in my youth the old fashioned way...by training hard and kicking everyone's ass. That was reeeeaaally fun. And the female trophies were even better! ;-)
Now I like other kinds of gold and silver trophies. By working hard, I trade in worthless fiat for Ag and Au trophies of all sorts and sizes.
I win.
Maybe it's just my kids, but they never seem fooled by a participation trophy. They know when they won and when they lost. All it seems to do is negate them seeing any value in the TROPHY since "everybody gets one, Dad."
My little one actually threw a soccer "participation trophy" in the parking lot trash can before he got in the car he was so disappointed in himself. Every year at Cub Scouts I see at least one disappointed kid chuck his losing pinewood derby car in the trash can (we give trophies for copious categories, but no participation trophies).
This stuff can be a bit heartbreaking to watch and can make for a difficult conversation on the ride home, but I've NEVER SEEN THOSE KIDS LET THEMSELVES GET SAND KICKED IN THEIR FACE THE FOLLOWING YEAR. They've ALWAYS gotten a lot better.
Losing may hurt, but it's good motivation to try harder the next time. Winning feels good and is the reward for putting in the time and effort to be good at something.
I think participation trophies are more about making PARENTS feel good than it is about helping the kids feel good.
parents end up paying for those freaking trophies
Life isn't like sports. Sports exist to separate 1 winner from many losers. In life, everyone who participates can come out a winner. There are 50,000 insurance salespeople and they can all make a living.
Indeed. Plus self-worth should arise from your own mind and conscience, not from the collective's acquiescence. You may be an unrecognized genius, you are a genius nonetheless (Howard Roark style). Or you may be adored by the masses and get all kinds of awards and still be an unmitigated loser (take your pick).
the kids are the losers thanks to moar loser parents. but in the end the next generation is in for one fucking rude awakening brought to them by the new normal, ha, hope i'm alive to see these whiney, whimp ass spoiled worthless bratfucks wondering what just slapped them silly, ha again.
I think you're right, it is more about the parents. Kids know status in a way that's much more viceral than people give credit. A trophy is not going to change that.
I played baseball back in the day and we lost. We learned sportsmanship. How to loose with grace, how to win with grace. However, it wasn't about winning or loosing it was about fun for us kids, of course winning was always better. It was the sportsmanship that I carried forward into adult life.
ahh, the burn and sting of defeat, nothing propels one to dig deeper, train harder than soul sucking defeat. Winners are losers who decided to change their mind.
I can signs up to wins trophies???
sweeeeeeeeeeeet. ;-)
Here it is..., the self esteem movement:
https://www.noagendaplayer.com/listen/741/2-13-59
great listen
The only "participation" awards that make sense to me are for participants completing particularly tough challenges like finishing a marathon or triathalon or something.
http://m.wcvb.com/health/heroin-would-be-decriminalized-under-beacon-hil...
“If there name is on the roster, they get a trophy.”
their Their THEIR T H E I R...
obviously a spelling & grammar competition "participant"...
is that you Mrs. Pettigrew?
I did like you ask, and read your post twice and then down voted you. You are welcome.
Generation of wheezers and pencil salesmen coming up.
No salesmen. Sales is a job chock full of failure. You need to perservere to succeed in sales... not gonna happen with this lot.
"Wadda 'ya mean yer not gonna buy my stuff? I showed up man!"
The fear of failure is what leads to "salesman" finding new careers. You have to get used to getting the door shut in your face, hear every different way 'no' can be said, and generally get beat down until you actual learn how to close a deal. You'll get better, but even my companies best salesman get told 'not today' a LOT. But in sales, sports or life, you've got to persevere through failure to succeed and 'win'.
The fed gives out trophies to boomers for participating in the stock and real estate markets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1A-Ymf1VYY
I have 2 fuck trophy's. Does that count?
Yes, but I have an electric weiner roaster from Planned Parenthood. I won first place in a Planned Parenthood backgammon tournament.
the world has become full of sideline whinging useless tossers... there are plenty who are real armchair generals, full of shit good for fuck all living in mom's basement dicks...that never actually acheived anything in their entire life but stragle the life out of thoes who get stuck in and play to win...
im looking for winners who are up for some action.. i want ZH'er because i dont have to spend months educating you...
join me and win www.teamramgold.com
you sound like a kiwi version of trump
Bro, this is ZH. Try Again!
I wouldn't click on that link if you gave me a Faaarrreeee! trophy ;-)
there is a gender split on this issue as well i am sure
So Jenner is obviously divided on this issue as well.
s/he should enter the womens decathalon, could probably win
I'd might pay to her/him fight Rhonda Rousey in the octogon.
i would pay to go a round with rousey if ya know what i mean
Particiapants will get a "I survived a round in the octogon with Rowdy Ronda Rousey and all I got was this busted arm" T-shirt.
If I were Broooth, I'd throw the medals over the fence.
It'd be like stickin it to the man...or sumpin ;-)
abso-fucking-lutely... this shit comes straight from soccer and swim moms whose little spawn couldn't make the grade in real competition...
+ 10 correctomondo!
Best quote from my old Cavalry man father.
Tri State cross country meet - 200 guys and I was top rated.
My old man 'okay - 1 guy wins and the other 199 lose - you be the winner'
And I did
Lol. We had a saying in our family; 2nd place is the first loser
Fuck 'em! Give the Losers a "Deacon Blue" Trophy and tell 'em They are Expected to Follow Through and "Die Behind the Wheel", just as soon as They're Old enough to "Drink Scotch Whiskey All Night Long"!
I seem to remember they have a name for the not losers in the world, but for the life of me I just can't remember what it was.
#41
"They call Alabama the 'Crimson Tide'..."
Personal experience. All the kids know what's going on.... a fucking charade. So Jimmy FatAss can't do shit athletically. But now gets a trophy. So since he Now Gets A Trophy for Nothing, Fuck All Naught, the kids who did truly win, search his Blubbery Ass out and Give the Little Piss Ant one Massive Tune-Up, black eyes, etc. So now Jimmy FatAss still can't do fuck all on the playing field but instead of just knowing his place, gets the piss beat out of him constantly, creating a plethora of new mental problems since Mr GoodyTwoShoes thinks all the fuck ups deserve trophies.
Jesus H Fucking Christ, the GoodyTwoShoes people need Harry Reid Quality Tune-Ups for fucking up Jimmy FatAss's head permanently
“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly . . . it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated." —Thomas Paine
lol the downvoters must have a wall of participant trophies that they're really fucking proud of... who the fuck downvotes Thomas Paine? idiots...
Always about money, power, and division.
Such an article like this only perpetuates Zion's division, and permits more distraction from their plunder and tyranny.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
My high school math teacher was tough, really tough - no bullshit, you had to work and you better be prepared....Thanks Mr. Rexford Ingram because of the work ethic you demanded, I learned perseverance and to doggedly attack a problem until it was solved. As a result, I've had a very comfortable lifestyle supported by a GENEROUS salary in a demanding occupation....He didn't hand out participation trophies, he handed out humiliation and THANK GOD that he did!......
boarding school? quite the name
OMG!
Everyone who entered the competition to see who is the best "paid" with something! Like totally! Time or effort or money or sweat, everyone should be rewarded with a trophy for trying! Sniffle. Whine. Feigned sob.
Can we get real for just a sec, I have no time for feel good bullshit and pouting, if you come sniveling to me about trophies I'll stick it up your ass, mount you and have my picture taken for permanent display ;-)
My wife, who is from Korea, was aghast at the three-hour long "awards ceremony" for grades K-3 at the private school where our kids went for their first few years (before I started homeschooling them). "Wow, each kid is getting at least one trophy and several certificates!!!" she exclaimed.
I had to explain to that same school why my Korean niece, who wanted to come to America to learn English back around 2000, had three "E's" (F's) on her report card. I showed them that the report card also had her class rank. On two of her F's, she was in the top five students in her class (out of 72). The other was in the top 10.
In my freshman year college dorm, I once got a trophy from the RA for puking. Still not sure if that was appropriate, but I did earn it.
I won regionals.
Glad we're focusing on the important stuff here, like people's thoughts on participation trophies.
Can we go back to discussing what's going on in the world of finance now?
The market is behaving however the Fed decides it should, Corzine is still walking free, and everyone but the bankers are losing money. Now, back to the trophy discussion.....
What's going on in the world of finance now? You don't want to KNOW...protect yourself......
THAT'S RIGHT!!! Losers don't get trophies, well unless it's a losing crony associate of the Fed., then they get trillions of dollars
of virtually interest free money to use in conjunction with HFT to front run the markets, and recapitalize with assets;
trash for cash for assets. And the captains of industry who ran their institutions aground don't lose their jobs, rather they
become billionaires. Fuck a trophy, that's the action if you can get it.
My wife and I, just to be sociable, entered a mixed doubles tennis tournament at a convention she was attending with me. My wife is scared half to death of a tennis ball and can't play worth a shit, but she likes making new friends. It turned out that nobody else at the convention felt like being sociable except for a couple of friends who had both played tennis on their college teams. The slaughter was a sight to behold, and I think after awhile our opponents got bored and began trying to clobber my wife in the head with their groundstrokes and volleys, just to see her, and I must admit it was comical, intermittently play dodgeball victim to the little fuzzy yellow sphere, or try to hide her entire curvaceous body behind the strings of her racquet.
I must confess, with some amount of shame now in view of the overall tone of the commenters, that I have over the years taken immense pride in displaying the second-place trophy we received to applause after the rubber-chicken dinner that evening. It is the approximately size of the Eiffel Tower, and obviously, if only by its immense size, proves what wonderful athletes my wife and I must be.
good story. your wife sounds like a real sport. you are a lucky man
Real self-esteem comes from earned success.
Failure, hunger, pain and rejection are life's real teachers.
Tough lessons to learn as an adult.
It's probably pre-conditioning society to accept robots and AI as the superior entities.
When my son was in Cub Scouts he got the "Golden Turtle" award for his pinewood derby car race finish---last place.
Well he knew that it sucked, but I was still proud of him, because I could tell, or at least it appeared,
that his car was the only one made by a kid. He didn't want the trophy, so I kept it.
Participation trophies are ridiculous. But the analogy between them and "free shit" is not a good one. The process of working hard to be the winner of a sports trophy is reasonably straightforward. But with cronyism, corruption and crazy regulations, a reasonably smart person can work very hard indeed and not do as well as "fairness" would cause one to expect.
Nice article, Capt. Obvious.
This was actually written by Admiral Evident.
gee Jim,
...please tell me you're not just now figuring all of this out.
What a crock. You get ahead by being born on third base. Poor kids who do everything right are worse off than rich kids who do everything wrong:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/18/poor-kids-who-...
"Along the way, we Americans have gotten lost. We’ve allowed ourselves to become convinced that the redistribution of wealth is an anti-American evil, and that free markets innately aid the common good. A growing number of us have come to the painful conclusion that free markets consolidate wealth at the top, and that those at the top can’t be trusted for long. In 1890, with the passing of the Sherman Antitrust Act and its subsequent amendments in 1914 and 1936, we institutionalized monopoly busting. We’re long overdue for a new set of antitrust acts. It’s high time Congress legislated billionaire busting."
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/19/the_1_percent_plays_us_for_suckers_there...
That is Fucked up, it must be hard to get up in the morning with that belief system.
" Real free market capitalism (not the crony capitalism/socialism) has winners and losers"
Crony fascism/socialism
I suck at sports, so no trophies for me.
As a scout things were different. I did my best to be as incompetent as possible, and to drag others down with me. But, I have a genius for appearing to be a complete fool and still accomplish shit with no one really knowing. Made eagle, and they don't hand that out to anybody. Brought some other guys up along with me. If my statement doesn't make any sense, then you didn't know Troop 5.
Is the U.S. less corrupt than Russia?
Take for example the "Cromnibus" bill, which was rammed through Congress last year. Thanks to K-Street lobbyists, the law allows banks to undertake very risky investments. In some cases, if the banks suffer a loss, the U.S. taxpayer will get the bill. This is a corruption of our system; Congress has sold out the little guy.
Or look at the trade legislation now under consideration by Congress. The details of the bill are still apparently classified. The American people do not know what is in it, and most in Congress have not read it, which requires going to a secret room and not divulging details. This is Soviet-style lawmaking, which is only rivaled by the secretive side deals the Obama administration cut with Iran. Lenin would be proud.
http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84139185/
Communists govern as tyrants, todays US government pretends it doesn't
mom...this article is mean...and its not fair!!!
I got paddled so many times in High School, at the end of the school year they told me to take it home, that I had earned it.
This is why I don't watch professional sports. You have 30 teams playing to be the 'winner' at the end of the year. 1 team wins, 29 lose. Statistically, you have people showing up and shelling out hard earned money for 29 years before they end up being a 'winner' for one year. How are you not programming fans to accept being losers in life when you are doing that?
The players aren't losers though. Just like Wall Street CEOs, they are winners for life within two years of stepping onto the playing field. They do get a participation trophy paid for by their loser fans
Lets turn all USA citizens into winners can you imagine it. PS build an impenetrable wall around the USA at the same time and CCTV's pointing in. Under capitalist rules 50% will die maybe more in the free for all and who the hell is going to care if it is legal or not? Imagine, pull all EBT cards and welfare what will those with nothing have to do?
So capitalists ruling the country created the counterfeiting system to pay for it and saddled all the ordinary joes with the debt. AWESOME.
The capitalists also ensure they are winners by continuing to use the counterfeiting system do you have one of them?
No? Then Loser, Loser, Loser ... oh you can never win so born to be a loser forever so why play the game?
Competition is fine if the table is level for all participants; and if the referee is not biased.
Something that does not exist in US capitalism. Its biased as totally based on "our money your problem" debt pumped paradigm-- by FED and more so by TBTF-- underwritten in petrodollars!
Don't expect the world to be suckers to that false big stick protected game.
The table is never 'level' no matter the philosophy.
Life is not fair and never will be.
Some will do better then others even when given the exact same background and opportunity.
The human race is not an ant colony
I despise the stupid "Honor Student of the Month" bumper stickers you see plastered on numerous mini vans everywhere. Who gives a flying fuck? If you have to advertise to the world, that your ten year old was an "Honor Student of teb Month" (plus, why would you put it on the paint of your vehicle?), that's pretty pathetic. Get back with me in 11 years, when they turn 21 and tell me how they did.
The real issue is the confusion between "trophies" for winner and "achievement badges" for fullfilling something.
This nation has been a trophy for a long time