Riggle - On Being Awesome

D URING HALFTIME AT a Boston Celtics basketball game in 2009, the Bon Jovi song Livin on a Prayer came blasting through the loudspeakers. As people relaxed in their seats, chatting, eating, and drinking, the stadiums Fancam zeroed in on the audience, projecting their images onto the jumbo screen for everyone to see. Most of them did what fans normally dothey nudged their friends, smiled, waved, covered their faces, pointed to the giant images of themselves lording over the arena. But before long, the camera settled on Jeremy Fry, a skinny, ordinary young man, apparently there with his mother.

Fry could have reacted like everyone else. He could have smiled at the camera, nudged his mom and laughed, waved to friends who might be watching at home. Or he could have done nothing at all. But instead, he bounced out of his seat and immediately assumed the role of Jon Bon Jovi in a music videolip-syncing, awkwardly dancing, and air-guitaring to the song while roaming among and interacting with a diverse and increasingly lively crowd. Giant high fives, smooth 360s, fist pumps to the beat, and arms in the air: his antics said, in loud effect, Lets all pretend were in a Bon Jovi music video! Soon the crowd was joining in, cheering him on, and enacting various music video roles.

It is hard to describe the experience of watching Fry. It is enthralling, spirit lifting, inspiring. Hes just awesome. That word is used to describe him in YouTube comments dozens upon dozens of times: This is fucking awesome; This guy is awesome; This guy is nothing but awesome; There are no words to describe how awesome this guy is. Salut from Finland. Some comments even suggest that Fry exhibits unadulterated awesomeness. We look upon him with the kind of enthusiastic joy that might make us bounce out of our seats and emulate him. Or more. At least one commenter found a renewed faith in people: This guy restored my faith in humanity. Another saw in Fry the makings of a society-structuring ideal: This man should lead us.

And for many people in the crowd that is exactly what Fry did. Much of his awesomeness seems to come down to the way he proposed and orchestrated a performance that the crowd enabled and then amplified, as women and men cheered him on, hugged him, gave him high fives, and lip-synced and air-guitared in unison. Many of them spontaneously, unreflectively, and enthusiastically accepted his proposal, breathing life into the collective effort. They might not have been as awesome as Fry, but they were consummately game.

However, as beautiful as the cooperative performance is, theres something puzzling about the overwhelmingly positive response and willingness to join in. Fry is a perfect stranger acting perfectly strangely. What exactly is so good or awesome about what he does? He is obviously not doing what one normally does in this context, and its easy to imagine people who reasonably prefer to do just that. A few fans were predictably indifferent to or even slightly irked by Frys animated proposalthey were there for the game, after all, and who is this weirdo, anyway? Although Fry had nearly the entire section of the stadium smiling, singing, and dancing along, there was one fan who roundly disapproved. Rather than ignore Fry, a man in a large blue T-shirt nudged him away. He even mimicked kicking him.

As many YouTube commenters observe, this guy totally sucks. Some go further and claim that he represents everything that is wrong with the world. Others imagine speaking directly to him: Dude get a life u suck.

Even if you dont use the word sucks yourself, you probably hear it a lot. Suckiness, for better or worse, is on our minds, and like awesome, its not a word reserved for the youthful set. In 2013, Wisconsin weather reporter Angelica Duria received cheers and a standing ovation from her on-air news team when, after six hours of reporting from a dreary snowscape, she summed up her findings: It is snowing, and it