Rachael Gunn, who is competing at the Olympics under her dance name Raygun, is a university lecturer who specialises in the cultural politics of breaking. She’ll have plenty to write about after Paris. Breaking never wanted to be an Olympic sport .
It’s a culture, an art, a movement. But fearing that it would be hijacked by the mainstream, as it was in the 1980s – when it became, in Gunn’s words, “stale joke” – the breaking community complied only if it could participate on its own terms. On Thursday night, Paris time, it appeared breaking might not be quite mainstream enough for the Olympics.
The internet lit up with commentary about Gunn. Some of it focused on her moves, some on her age (she’s 36; another competitor is 40) and some of it on her Australian tracksuit. Rapidly, she became a meme.
One of her moves was likened to a kangaroo hop, another to the sprinkler, another to trying to get the quilt off the bed. The story was picked up around the world. “An Australian professor had some breaking moves, and people had thoughts,” wrote NBC New York .
“Everyone Is Obsessed With This 36-Year-Old Breakdancer Named ‘Raygun’,” wrote Buzzfeed . “‘Raygun’ the 36-year-old Australian breakdancing professor is our Olympic hero’,” wrote US site SBNation , who said the field was stacked with pioneers, champions and “an Australian professor who was just there to get funky”. Last year, when Gunn published an academic paper critiquing the sportific.