The Brief: Professional gamer and streamer Ninja tweeted about the value of getting angry after losing video games, inspiring memes that apply his tweet to a variety of contexts.
DEEP DIVE
On February 18th, 2020, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, professional streamer and gamer, tweeted his opinion on attitudes about winning and losing games, sparking parody memes that pair his tweet with unrelated situations.
The tweet read:
The phrase “it’s just a game” is such a weak mindset. You are ok with what happened, losing, imperfection of a craft. When you stop getting angry after losing, you’ve lost twice.
There’s always something to learn, and always room for improvement, never settle.
In this comment, Ninja suggests that taking gaming seriously and allowing oneself to get angry after losing is key to winning. This hot take was met with a mix of criticism, support, and memes.
Although his experience as a top professional gamer may be different from the average video game hobbyist’s, many memes quote tweet Ninja’s comment with a caption about low-stakes games like Uno, Animal Crossing, and Candy Crush.
me playing papas pizzeria on coolmath https://t.co/EE34ttjJ9D
— nope (@LilNasX) February 18, 2020
when you get skipped twice in UNO https://t.co/sLUY4edLG5
— Slimecicle (@Slimecicle) February 19, 2020
When u can’t pass a level of Candy Crush😤 https://t.co/RbkV9INcVL
— Cristine with no ‘H’ 💿 (@nailogical) February 19, 2020
me doing the mini-games in Club Penguin https://t.co/IkVU9rPdEa
— JP (@jpbrammer) February 19, 2020
Assignment: Toxic masculinity in 280 characters or less https://t.co/HH2HU9LfJ9
— Mykie (@GlamandGore) February 19, 2020
when a villager leaves you in animal crossing https://t.co/E0tLzgtV2q
— Jon Cartwright (@JonComms) February 19, 2020
One time I lost to a laggy Ness online and started swinging my GC controller above my head like a Hammer Joe from Mega Man 3 until the momentum was strong enough to smash a hole clean through my apartment wall, lost my security desposit and my wife left me but I learned to win 💪🏻 https://t.co/NoUVSa4BM1
— Colin (@IntroSpecktive) February 19, 2020
The fact that this is about fortnite makes this the funniest tweet I’ve ever seen https://t.co/UFktJbgjnE
— cal? (@cal_gif) February 19, 2020
This is every Yugioh antagonist https://t.co/dQZ48swfk3
— Yugioh Forbidden (@yugiohforbidden) February 19, 2020
If you don't punch drywall when you fail to understand a theme or plot point in one of our games you're barely a gamer https://t.co/ZkzlaeV8Ug
— Down Here For Your Soul (@bombsfall) February 19, 2020
Or hey, ya know, just relax and have fun. https://t.co/U53iZEL9O9
— Meg Turney (@megturney) February 19, 2020