#Huntering like Torii Hunter Is The New #Horganing
There’s been a weak-ish effort to make a meme out of #Horganing, or posing in diverse situations with your hands up like the brilliantly-photographed Boston bullpen officer Steve Horgan. Days later, as the world continues to reap as much laughter as possible out of an epic bit of sports photography, we’ve come around to an obvious conclusion: #Huntering is way better.
The habit of gerund-ing (ha) various last names—#Tebowing, #Orring— particularly in the sports world, signifies a trend wherein people imitate an iconic pose by taking photos of ourselves doing it and posting it to the internet. The best executions show us kneeling in prayer (or diving across the screen, or whatever else) in strange, incongruous settings. (Underwater, perhaps!) The difficulties with #Horganing—or throwing one’s hands up in celebration like police officer Steve Horgan—are that:
- Horgan is not a famous name, so unlike with Tebow, saying it doesn’t instantly evoke an image in peoples’ minds. This makes it harder to get a meme off the ground.
- It’s kind of a boring pose.
To the extent that rightfielder Torii Hunter is a famous athlete who managed to completely invert himself by flipping over the right field wall, neither of these problems translate to #Huntering. So behold the results, many of them commissioned by sites like ESPN Boston and Masshole Sports:
#huntering @mattquade10 pic.twitter.com/rOFoHreVIp
— Mitch Weidner (@MWeidner2) October 15, 2013
Tori Huntering… pic.twitter.com/PazRQ9fFs1
— Jimmy Mac (@jimmy_mac1964) October 15, 2013
Yea, Torii Huntering is definitely a thing #RedSox #Tigers #ALCS @toriihunter48 pic.twitter.com/A5VluYh7a0
— Masshole Sports (@MassholeSports) October 15, 2013
@MassholeSports torri Huntering pic.twitter.com/f01BVdHt20
— Eric Wright (@ewright228) October 15, 2013
@brian_sarama @Stephenw522 torii huntering pic.twitter.com/zYe4xtuXGX
— Timmy Felschow (@Timmy_Felschow) October 15, 2013
Tori Huntering!!! LOLOLOL pic.twitter.com/4zFfYb3eWy
— Rob Patterson (@RobPatterson83) October 15, 2013
So far, they aren’t transcendent in execution as some were in early glory days of #Tebowing. But they show a hell of a lot more potential than the smattering of photos of people throwing their hands up in the air that arose out of the attempt to make #Horganing happen (an attempt in which we were fully complicit, it should be said.)
There’s a place for meme-ifying the Boston cop. But for now, that place is probably best relegated to photoshopping him into strange situations. If you’re going to snap a photo of yourself to participate in a weird hashtag game, best to do it upside down.