The headbutt: it’s the new butt of internet jokes.
As swiftly as a speeding shot on goal, riffs on Zinedine Zidane’s infamous moment of soccer rage have invaded cyberspace.
Though fans across the world are clearly divided on whether the French star deserves condemnation or sympathy for headbutting Italy’s Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final, the web has been typically merciless.
Some jokes take the form of interactive games.
Wondering, for example, how many Marco Materazzis you could knock down with a single butt to the chest? AddictingGames.com gives you the chance: just a left click of the mouse, and the Zidane figure goes to work against a sea of Italian defenders. The game gives you a red-card score at the end.
On Wednesday, the most viewed video on YouTube.com, the popular site for user-posted videos, was A New Way to Solve Problems, from Austria, in which a succession of a dozen or so innocent street encounters culminate in — you guessed it — the headbutt.
Example: A tourist with a map asks a cyclist for directions. The cyclist gets off to help, but can’t. ”You don’t know?” the suddenly angry tourist exclaims. THWAK! A header to the chest.
Just under 600 000 people had viewed the video by late on Wednesday, and many added comments supportive of Zidane. So did the video’s makers: ”We are not against Zidane, he is still the best. Ok!!”
Also on the site is a video where, instead of simply collapsing after the headbutt, Materazzi erupts in flames, too.
Zidane made his first public comments about the headbutt in an interview on Wednesday on French TV. He offered repeated apologies — especially to children who watched it — but not regrets, saying Materazzi made cruel insults to his mother and sister.
It might be some comfort to Zidane fans that the France captain isn’t the only one being mocked.
Another video circulating widely for the past few days is actually from 2004. In an ad for Britain’s Guardian newspaper, a fictitious soccer team — dubbed Italy’s, by the various users who’ve posted it to YouTube — is practising for the Euro 2004 championships.
But what are they practising? Tumbling to the ground in exaggerated agony, clutching themselves and gesturing for the referee to take notice. — Sapa-AP