I have had some difficulty street performing this summer. Along with other factors, suddenly everyone started ignoring contact juggling and all I could hear were whispers of this f-word. Then some got loud, “I saw that on TV!” an American tourist would exclaim in the middle of my show. “Fuh-Fuh….” they say
“nope, this is contact juggling” and I explain to them that they’ve been duped into thinking a ball can magically float as hand them a ball to try themselves. “This is a skill that I have taken 9 years to learn, it is not as easy as they make it out to be”.
I call it the F.ball with good reason. The first offense was the misleading advertising, as it single handedly convinces the entire American public that contact juggling can be learned in an instant with one false advertisement. The second is the less-than-perfect manufacturing process can be proven with a few easy tests. The latest blow includes using a mock website with the registered trademark of Sphereplay for their own commercial gain (which they have since taken down upon request). Ouch, that’s Low ZoomTV, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
I have begun an information campaign, simply trying to inform people about the problems with this product and this company, in a re-educational campaign about what contact juggling is really about.
Check out the videos, they are very revealing!
Dawn,
you Canadians don’t understand capitalism. it is what made America great, and why you Canucks still suck off our tailpipe. We get some people to make something really cheap. We then spend a lot of money packaging and advertising it, by telling people lies that aren’t severe enough to lead our tough libel laws to get fired up, and then we get people to buy the stuff so we make WAY more than we spent on advertizing. The product does not need to be good or useful or valuable, and it CEWRtAINLY doesn’t need to be as good as other things already out there. We just ocnvince people to BUY, and they do, and if we convince them good enough, they Keep buying even if what we sell sucks, becuase people BELIEVE it is cool.
You guys just don;t get it , which why America is the greatest country in the world, and we are all christian and white and are the envy of the world because of our freedoms, that no one else has.
is all this clear?
Dawn,
Kudos on being just about the only contact juggler who has handled the Fushigi controversy in a clear and level-headed manner. Really good stuff, and I’ll be looking for more 🙂
Tony,
You’re a piece of work.
-Kyle
i think the positive thing about the campaign is that it’s introducing a lot more people to the art. Probably 9 out of every 10 people will be pissed the ball isn’t magic, but there’s that 1 that will actually get into contact juggling.
i’m that 1 out of 10. i’ve broken multiple balls through my five month training period but having them readily available was a huge plus in keeping me motivated. i can now keep the ball rolling and flowing indefinatly while i perform and i have the confidence that if i break one, they’ll make more. this ultimately means i’ve no qualms with perfoming over concrete or asphalt and the fushigi’s truly are tough… there’s no telling hows many times i’ve dropped one on rocks, concrete, tile, asphalt, all before it broke…so while for some it’s cheapened the art, for me it’s opened new avenues… and when i have those that ask stupid questions like, “does that have a magnet in it?” or “does that have something in it like a mechanism?” you just say “nope, it’s just a ball, here try it yourself”… easy enough right?