Published on 14.12.2022
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Argentine » The repartee of an angry Messi to a Dutch player following the quarter-final won by Argentina “What are you looking at, moron?” became a fashion phenomenon in her country. T-shirts, mugs, caps were launched on the market in a few days with a linguistic analysis as a bonus. The brief clash, where the Argentine captain launches, at the address of Wout Weghorts: “Qué miras bobo? (…) Anda pa’alla, bobo!” (“What are you looking at, moron? Get over there, moron!”), Filmed Friday in the mixed zone following Netherlands-Argentina by the TyC Sports channel, was replayed on a loop by the media Argentinians, dissected, and… monetized.
From this weekend, mugs were available on the Mercado Libre e-commerce site, starting at 1,600 pesos (regarding $9). T-shirts with various designs – sentence with the effigy of Messi, with the Argentine flag, single sentence – were offered from 2900 pesos (16 dollars). And caps for 3900 (22 dollars). The repartee was also raw material for musical remixes, countless “memes”, the subject of dominant searches on the internet immediately following the match – the words “bobo”, “andapaalla”. A tweet with the brief 10-second video had been shared 10.5 million times on Monday. And first tattoos “Qué mira’bobo?” appeared.
Messi’s words were interpreted by most of the press as the righteous anger of a genius victim of both Dutch fouls and refereeing. An inhabited, enraged, “maradonian” leader, summarize several media. But they have also been singled out: the daily The nation (conservative) observing that “the most extraordinary footballer in history (…) can also be a vulgar man”.
The language itself was analyzed: in an amused tone, the media noted that the words used by Messi were both moderate and outdated. In common “insulting” language, an Argentinian would have said instead: “Qué miras, pelotudo?” (c..)”, noted the daily Clarín. An Argentinian, or rather a Porteño (inhabitant of Buenos Aires). Because Clarín believes that Messi’s use of “bobo”, “betrays his belonging to football in the fields, on clay, played in the rain, in the mud until the sun goes down”. In other words a bit rustic, from Rosario (300 km from Buenos Aires) where Messi is from. A “pure Rosarism”, summarizes the newspaper. ats
