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See in my mind, I think the Ackman thing is great. (Note that I hate Ackman's cultural presence in general and find him an utterly despicable person politically and culture war wise)
<1% of the people complaining about this on the internet were aware of the Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, RI; fewer still were otherwise aware there was a tennis tournament in Newport last weekend; fewer still regularly follow the minor leagues of professional tennis. Ackman, in faking his way into a wild card spot and getting murdered, affirmed just how good the pros are, even on the minor league circuit, and just how cool it is to be professional tennis player, even on the minor league circuit. Ackman, in buying the status of a minor league tennis pro, affirmed that being a minor league tennis pro is high status.
When tech billionaires get into rock climbing or BJJ, it raises the status of pro rock climbers and BJJ instructors. They're richer, they're cooler, they're more respected.
Now there comes a point at which you've sold too much, where the status becomes worthless when everyone can buy it. A lot of fashion items that were once rare and hard to acquire and required one to travel to certain places, be "in the know" or connected, or were simply expensive, are now no longer the same signal of status.
So, in some ways, gamers should be flattered that Elon wanted to pretend to be them. The important thing is that he ultimately be forced to prove it, like Ackman, out on the court.
Isn't there a difference here in that tennis is, to use the language of gaming, PVP? The way you put it here, tennis as a sport is validated in part because of the way that real tennis pros effortlessly destroyed Ackman. That doesn't seem the case with Musk.
It could be if he streamed himself playing a competitive game. I don't know if PoE2 or Diablo IV have active PVP scenes, but in the past Musk has claimed to be good at PVP games, like Quake. But he has not bragged about these recently. It might be one thing if Musk claimed to be fantastic at Starcraft II or League of Legends or something with a competitive pro scene, and then played against actual pro players and got crushed. That might validate the scene. But he has not done that, and has just tried to show off his supposed achievements in ways that avoid direct comparison.
(That said, I would indeed find it entertaining to watch Elon Musk play Maru in Starcraft II. Though it may not be that revealing - I feel like anybody who has any acquaintance with pro Starcraft knows that the guys who play it are unstoppable - it would at least be very funny to watch.)
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Gamers are not flattered because no one but Elon ever wanted to be an accomplished PoE player on top of a world-class business career, and Elon did it in such a cringe way that if anything, he tanked their status along with his.
Also re: "The tennis tour get money, the guys playing got attention, and nobody got hurt" - this doesn't apply to gaming as much because paying money for a boosted character and gear is widely considered illegitimate cheating in gaming as opposed to a well-deserved reward for the hard-working Chinese professional item-farmers.
If they are so much better than him, they should be able to slaughter him despite his PtP account though, right?
Maybe the gamers feel low status because all their grinding doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the end.
PoE2 is not a player versus player game, and as far as I recall Elon was not on any leaderboard.
So what's the problem? He paid for a fancy toy and still sucks.
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