Over the past few months, watching people pull off intricate and seemingly impossible trickshots has become my most reliable source of joy on social media. It’s not just the feats itself, but also the particular rhythm they move to—a fail-fail-fail-fail-WHAT cadence that delivers a real sense of satisfaction. For The Guardian, Richard profiles some of the niche’s luminaries; consider the story a fascinating off-ramp from doomscrolling.
These are, however, “super-strange skills”, as David Hulett puts it. Over the hours of practice, you do become incrementally better at, say, tossing ping-pong balls so they play a tune on a series of carefully arranged pans, or dropping paper from a stepladder into a shredder. It was David who had the crucial insight that a small crease across the paper will attenuate the curve of the parabola on its descent, resulting in a greater probability of it sailing into the waiting shredder. Just as Dick Fosbury’s flop at the 1968 Olympics changed the entire discipline of high-jumping, so a trickshooter can alter the history of their sport in a single afternoon.
More #lightreads from The Guardian
‘It’s Super Weird, Super Odd, Super Rare’: Meet The Twins Who Have Different Dads
” Family ‘It’s super weird, super odd, super rare’: meet the twins who have different dads When DNA test results shattered everything Lavinia and Michelle thought they knew about their family history, they also revealed something never before documented in the UK.”
Asian Mothers, Bad Feelings: Notes on An All-conquering Stereotype
“A certain image of the tiger mom— strict, cold and demanding—is ubiquitous in popular culture. Why?”
‘They’re Gonna Make Me Cry’: I Competed at a Speed Puzzling Championship
“You might think of puzzling as leisurely, but it’s now a sport. I entered a national competition and discovered a passionate community.”
AI Got the Blame for the Iran School Bombing. The Truth is Far More Worrying
“LLMs-gone-rogue dominated coverage, but had nothing to do with the targeting. Instead, it was choices made by human beings, over many years, that gave us this atrocity.”
Women Are Being Abandoned by Their Partners on Hiking Trails. What’s Behind ‘Alpine Divorce’?
“As stories of men leaving their dates in ‘sketchy situations’ go viral, experts say these incidents could stem from big egos and poor communication.”
Where Duolingo Falls Down: How I Learned to Speak Welsh With My Mother
“Once violently defended from extinction, Welsh is still a part of daily life. By learning my family’s language, I hoped to join their conversation.”
