Subscribe to the NetworkGUEST POST: Epic Fail
You can get on youtube and type in ‘parking fail’, ‘soccer fail’, ‘pen trick fail’ or ‘proposal fail’ and catch some of the latest clips put out by www.failblog.org of people making a right mess of things. These clips are some of the funniest or most disturbing (depending on your sense of humour) clips you will see this week.
This is really just the online version of ‘Funniest Home Videos’, as pretty much the majority of that show’s clips are also people falling over, failing an attempted trick, or generally having a bad day.
Personally I cringe when I see someone’s masterpiece that has probably taken days of hard work be destroyed in an instant (‘ice sculpture fail’). Even though it is painful I just can’t look away. Why do we find the failures so interesting? No one googles ‘pen trick success’. No one really cares about a soccer goal unless we know the player or the team, but a dramatic soccer failure…well that’s a different story, over 4 million hits says that it is captivating viewing!!
We live in a world hungry for failure stories. I can tell you three celebrities who have had failed plastic surgery but I can’t tell you three people who have won the Nobel Prize for Peace (oh wait…actually I can, but I can’t tell you four). Why are we so keen on the failure of others? Here’s some theories, feel free to add your own:
• When people fail we take comfort from the fact that we are not the only one who makes mistakes.
• We are glad that it wasn’t us.
• Perhaps our idea of funny has been warped so much that we think it has to involve pain.
• We become aware that we are better than all those stupid people out there. (This is a delusion, however).
To be honest I am not sure why we are happy for others to fail. I am convinced however that as a Christian I should be much happier to view the success of others, to cheer on their victories and to take delight in them looking, performing and being their best.
Originally published on www.salvos.org.au. Visit them for more articles by The Salvation Army.
