Ultimo Gallos
Grimlock
Dreams SUCK!Nightmares live FOREVER!
Posts: 14,404 
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Post by Ultimo Gallos on Sept 27, 2022 16:13:29 GMT -5
It is rare I hear any wrestler down here use the term mark. Some of the vets use it when talking about the crowd. "We got almost 200 marks here tonight." But besides a few guys,who as assholes,none of use it in a mean way.
Years back at a show I was heckling this one heel,Cale Conners. He was a big fat pasty white dude. So I was yelling fatso at him "Yea like I haven;t heard that before. Come up with something new kid" So thinking quit I said "You look like Playboy Buddy Rose and Kane had a kid" Cale was quick "Look folks we got us a smart mark here" and went back to the match.
Later that night I was heading to the bathroom to piss,saw Cale. "Dude thank you for the Buddy Rose comment." Told him no problem. "Hope I wasn;t too harsh with the smart mar comment" told him nope. That I made me laugh.
So whenever we run into each other since then Cale and will point at each other and yell SMART MARK!
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Ozman
Samurai Cop
Chi-Town!!!
Posts: 2,374
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Post by Ozman on Sept 27, 2022 18:18:16 GMT -5
Nowadays I mostly hear the term mark used by those in the business to describe what was previously described as a smark. People who are there to simply enjoy the show are fans, while people that pretend to know all the behind the scenes politics because they read a dirtsheet, or listened to a podcast are marks.
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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Sept 27, 2022 18:30:17 GMT -5
Mark has its in the carnival days where the barker or someone working for the carnival would be able to see who had money. Getting them to spend their money on the games was the difference between a rube and a mark. So anyone who spends money on wrestling is a mark. It's one of the reasons I hated that MJF promo so much. Mark isn't an insult, I accept that I'm a mark. But yeah having some understanding of the business does not negate being a mark. "Mark" is absolutely an insult entirely because of the origin you're talking about. Those carnival games were rigged and the entire point was that a 'mark' was someone easily parted from their money. In modern parlance it's even still used to describe victims of confidence scams; to be the "mark" of a scam is to be a victim. Wrestling grew out of the carnival when theysold people on the idea the fights they were seeing was real and continued through the era of kayfabe because the central conceit of trying to make people believe what they were seeing was real was to get them to care more about it, and therefore get them to pay for more tickets and keep coming back. It also ignores how it's used in the business to day, all the shoot interviews of wrestlers calling even other industry people marks, which they wouldn't be if it was just a synonym for 'consumer'. You're sort of missing all the cultural meaning behind the term to just boil it down to 'spends money'. |
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Ultimo Gallos
Grimlock
Dreams SUCK!Nightmares live FOREVER!
Posts: 14,404
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Post by Ultimo Gallos on Sept 27, 2022 18:49:27 GMT -5
Mark has its in the carnival days where the barker or someone working for the carnival would be able to see who had money. Getting them to spend their money on the games was the difference between a rube and a mark. So anyone who spends money on wrestling is a mark. It's one of the reasons I hated that MJF promo so much. Mark isn't an insult, I accept that I'm a mark. But yeah having some understanding of the business does not negate being a mark. "Mark" is absolutely an insult entirely because of the origin you're talking about. Those carnival games were rigged and the entire point was that a 'mark' was someone easily parted from their money. In modern parlance it's even still used to describe victims of confidence scams; to be the "mark" of a scam is to be a victim. Wrestling grew out of the carnival when theysold people on the idea the fights they were seeing was real and continued through the era of kayfabe because the central conceit of trying to make people believe what they were seeing was real was to get them to care more about it, and therefore get them to pay for more tickets and keep coming back. It also ignores how it's used in the business to day, all the shoot interviews of wrestlers calling even other industry people marks, which they wouldn't be if it was just a synonym for 'consumer'. You're sort of missing all the cultural meaning behind the term to just boil it down to 'spends money'. Thing is mark has changed. Sure it use to be one thing but now it is different. I heard a big name wrestler,works for NJPW and IMPACT,say at a show "Yea I'm a huge mark for  " with being some anime. Lots of the guys use Mark as a word meaning big fan. And it is a term that if I say at the next show asked 20 people I bet I would get 10 different definations to it. I use mark to mean big fan often. Like "I'm a mark for the Ramones." Or "I'm a mark for Conan The barbarian." Hell I think I might start at the next show going around ,filming this of course,and asking everybody what the word mark means to them. |
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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Sept 27, 2022 19:16:44 GMT -5
"Mark" is absolutely an insult entirely because of the origin you're talking about. Those carnival games were rigged and the entire point was that a 'mark' was someone easily parted from their money. In modern parlance it's even still used to describe victims of confidence scams; to be the "mark" of a scam is to be a victim. Wrestling grew out of the carnival when theysold people on the idea the fights they were seeing was real and continued through the era of kayfabe because the central conceit of trying to make people believe what they were seeing was real was to get them to care more about it, and therefore get them to pay for more tickets and keep coming back. It also ignores how it's used in the business to day, all the shoot interviews of wrestlers calling even other industry people marks, which they wouldn't be if it was just a synonym for 'consumer'. You're sort of missing all the cultural meaning behind the term to just boil it down to 'spends money'. Thing is mark has changed. Sure it use to be one thing but now it is different. I heard a big name wrestler,works for NJPW and IMPACT,say at a show "Yea I'm a huge mark for " with being some anime. Lots of the guys use Mark as a word meaning big fan. And it is a term that if I say at the next show asked 20 people I bet I would get 10 different definations to it. I use mark to mean big fan often. Like "I'm a mark for the Ramones." Or "I'm a mark for Conan The barbarian." Hell I think I might start at the next show going around ,filming this of course,and asking everybody what the word mark means to them. Internal self-reference and external reference maps differently for lots of things, though. "I'm a slut for (X)" gets used a lot in some circles too by people who would love to proclaim how much they're a slut for milkshakes while not wanting to be called a slut by somebody else who is not talking about milkshakes. The pejorative use of 'mark' to describe somebody else isn't really simple to overlook. I was pointing out how the origins of the term are an insult, and how there's still pejorative use of the term today. |
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Post by Cyno on Sept 27, 2022 19:19:05 GMT -5
Wrestling fans are all technically marks in the same way that wrestlers who lose at least one match are all technically jobbers.
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tirtefaa
Unicron
If you wanna know the truth, you gotta dig up Johnny Booth.
Posts: 2,837
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Post by tirtefaa on Sept 27, 2022 22:28:28 GMT -5
“Mark” comes from the carny days as a term referring to someone who falls for parler tricks. If you know how it works, you can’t be a “mark.” You can be smart and appreciate the craft, but you know how the sausage is made. I'll take it a step further and compare it to a street hustler performing 3 Card Monty. According to the terminology, the mark is someone who doesn't know the hustle and plays the game with the assumption they can win the game. When they get fed up with the game, they leave. The smark on the other hand, knows the game is fixed, plays the game, loses...then gets on the internet and complains about it. Then they continue go back to play again, repeating the steps. So who's the real "smart mark"? 😉 |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 27, 2022 22:34:51 GMT -5
The whole mark/smark thing is extremely cringe and I see a lot of wrestlers (mostly older ones) looking down their noses at fans, as if we are dumb f***s for actually enjoying what they do.
It makes no sense to me. Without these "marks", you'd probably be an unemployed bum. Considering most of these old wrestlers are alcoholics.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Sept 27, 2022 22:34:55 GMT -5
And as Regal says he's one of the few with experience in that environment so if he thinks it's insulting others shouldn't use it either. The ironic think is some wrestlers are bigger "marks" than the people watching. Even back in the day people paying had it figured out, they're basically parents keeping acting like Santa is real long after their kids worked it out. Insert Hogan tweet here. I always say this. The amount of actual wrestling fans who were completely in the dark as to wrestling's nature is vastly over-estimated by the old timers. If you were in the front row of wrestling shows back in the day, you would have seen stuff that would make you question stuff. like there are cartoons from the 50's that showed wrestling having a script and such. like the first paper to come out and say it was fake was like in the 40s... very few people ever considered Wrestling 100% real. edit: and I can only talk about it personally... I watched Wrestling all the time as a kid and never thought it was any more real than any other live action TV Shows I watched. |
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Post by ARI WOW WOW on Sept 27, 2022 23:13:19 GMT -5
You're either a filmmaker or you're a dumbo who thinks films are real. People who know 'films are just artsy productions where viewers suspend disbelief' isn't a real concept, its just made up by those aforementioned dumbo people who think films are real.
Tells you a lot about the person saying senseless shiz like this dont it?
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Malcolm
Grimlock
Wanted something done about the color of his ring.
Eternally Confused
Posts: 13,481
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Post by Malcolm on Sept 27, 2022 23:50:29 GMT -5
I always thought mark had become simply synonymous with fan and since it was used exclusively between fans something of an inside joke as a nod to the carny days of wrestling like using "Carny" to describe a promoter trying to cheat people.
from all my years online, i've never seem mark used insultingly. in fact, it's been used positively such as "I'm marking out, bro" "I gotta get that cuz I'm such a mark for Mr. Perfect".
In fact, the only people who use the term negatively is, ironically, "smarks".
To me, it's simply just another word that's become so morphed/corrupted/co-opted/bastardized/whatever over the years, the word doesn't have a real meaning or definition to me anymore. Like "communism".
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Post by Limity (BLM) on Sept 28, 2022 0:20:02 GMT -5
I always thought mark had become simply synonymous with fan and since it was used exclusively between fans something of an inside joke as a nod to the carny days of wrestling like using "Carny" to describe a promoter trying to cheat people. from all my years online, i've never seem mark used insultingly. in fact, it's been used positively such as "I'm marking out, bro" "I gotta get that cuz I'm such a mark for Mr. Perfect". In fact, the only people who use the term negatively is, ironically, "smarks". To me, it's simply just another word that's become so morphed/corrupted/co-opted/bastardized/whatever over the years, the word doesn't have a real meaning or definition to me anymore. Like "communism". Oh man I HATE when people use the word communist or communism. 99.9% of them that do are wrong and dumb. Even the random few people that think they're being radical by claiming to be a communist. Nope, you're just as wrong and dumb. |
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Post by hentery on Sept 28, 2022 7:20:53 GMT -5
Can it be pinpointed when or around when the term emerged, where and by whom? I’m reasonably sure it came from rspw back in the day. First time I heard it was from Scott Keith or some associated account. In fact if you run it through google trends (2004-present for time frame) he’s the second most associated term. I’d wager money he heard it from Somewhere else used it and fans who read him thought it was normal or a badge of pride or something. All conjecture from a couple quick google searches so not definite. Normal answer would be meltzer but he says he dislikes the term. |
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Post by Gremlin on Sept 28, 2022 8:29:03 GMT -5
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wildojinx
Wade Wilson
Posts: 26,847
Member is Online
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Post by wildojinx on Sept 28, 2022 12:14:24 GMT -5
Isnt Mark also used in hip-hop slang (ie, in Dre Day, "I thought I was a mark cause I used to hang with Eazy")?
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Post by hentery on Sept 28, 2022 15:32:54 GMT -5
Isnt Mark also used in hip-hop slang (ie, in Dre Day, "I thought I was a mark cause I used to hang with Eazy")? It’s carnie slang used everywhere. It’s not inside wrestling it’s a show biz term |
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Ultimo Gallos
Grimlock
Dreams SUCK!Nightmares live FOREVER!
Posts: 14,404
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Post by Ultimo Gallos on Sept 29, 2022 15:39:59 GMT -5
Can it be pinpointed when or around when the term emerged, where and by whom? I’m reasonably sure it came from rspw back in the day. First time I heard it was from Scott Keith or some associated account. In fact if you run it through google trends (2004-present for time frame) he’s the second most associated term. I’d wager money he heard it from Somewhere else used it and fans who read him thought it was normal or a badge of pride or something. All conjecture from a couple quick google searches so not definite. Normal answer would be meltzer but he says he dislikes the term. My memory ain't the best. But I swear I remember seeing the term SMARK in an issue of the Observer,from not long after I started reading it in 91. |
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Post by hentery on Sept 30, 2022 4:49:55 GMT -5
I’m reasonably sure it came from rspw back in the day. First time I heard it was from Scott Keith or some associated account. In fact if you run it through google trends (2004-present for time frame) he’s the second most associated term. I’d wager money he heard it from Somewhere else used it and fans who read him thought it was normal or a badge of pride or something. All conjecture from a couple quick google searches so not definite. Normal answer would be meltzer but he says he dislikes the term. My memory ain't the best. But I swear I remember seeing the term SMARK in an issue of the Observer,from not long after I started reading it in 91. Wouldn’t surprise me. Meltzer is known to change his mind on words. His “I don’t like the term” is a recent tweet. I’d love for someone to dig up more info because I loathe to credit anything to Keith beyond the tribalism he helped create in wrestling fandom. |
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Post by Starshine on Sept 30, 2022 6:37:31 GMT -5
What about Dumarks? Do they exist?
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Sept 30, 2022 8:30:20 GMT -5
I just consider myself “wrestling fan”. If everything was like UWFI and had no pizzazz, I doubt I’d be interested to start with. But even as a kid I rewatched stuff like Bret Hart vs. Mr Perfect and Ric Flair vs. Savage and Razor vs Michaels before I ever got online found out what marks, smarks and work rate even meant. I can’t recall any period in my fandom where the in ring aspect didn’t engage me in *some* manner.
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