"Smark"

gimmick

Will someone please explain to me what this derogatory term actually means. Having trawled through some old threads here, and on a few other boards, it seems to be a term thrown out by American mainstream fans at fans of smaller indies, and Japanese wrestling?

If so, what do we call mainstream fans? Right? better?

Fozzy

I've never used the term as I don't think it has a proper definition anymore. Some people use it towards indy fans, some towards people who love HHH, some towards people who love Cena, some towards people who are just fans of WWE in general, some towards TNA fans, etc

Wikipedia says: "Smark, a portmanteau of "smart mark," a phrase coined by internet smart marks to describe a fan who enjoys pro wrestling despite or because they know that it is staged"

But that's pretty much every fan, except the ones that are too young to have copped on yet

Fozzy

Wait...that definition has confused me more. It says that the term "smark" was coined by "internet smarks" and seems to suggest that internet smarks don't know that wrestling is staged. Or maybe it's describing themselves. I don't know. Stupid term

chopperbyrne

It's fairly simple.

A mark is a fan.

A smark is a smart mark, basically someone who know a lot more about the business than just what they see on telly.

People who boo HHH because they don't like his political stroke backstage even though he consistently puts on good, entertaining performances.

Fozzy

chopperbyrne wrote: »

A mark is a fan.

I thought a mark was someone who thought wrestling was real, or a fan who has a near obsessive love for a certain wrestler. Like I'm a mark for Bryan Danielson!

chopperbyrne

Nope, it's just the term they use for fans.

I assume you've probably checked that wikipedia entry about wrestling slang.

It's wrong.

Fozzy

Yeah, it was the term originally used by wrestlers to refer to all fans, back in the days when all the fans believed wrestling was real. But these days most fans don't believe that wrestling is real, so there's less marks

Charlie

Whilst this may be generalising, I think an easy example of the difference between a mark and smark is the two sections of a live audience. One cheers Cena, the other boo him.

I'm not rippin on Cena, I think he's come on alot, but generally, I think this example works well.

Those who boo Cena aren't booing him per se, but are venting their frustration at the direction the WWE has taken in the past 5 years. Those who cheer him, are buying into the product that WWE wants them to, they see no faults with the WWE, and it is the be all and all of pro wrestling.

However, I do despise the phrase and cringe when I see people refer to themselves as smarks.

Double C

It's a bull**** phrase. It's a pot calling the kettle black situation. At the end of the day, were all just wrestling fans, there is no need for retarded terms like this.

rossie1977

charlie mchugh wrote: »

Whilst this may be generalising, I think an easy example of the difference between a mark and smark is the two sections of a live audience. One cheers Cena, the other boo him.

I'm not rippin on Cena, I think he's come on alot, but generally, I think this example works well.

Those who boo Cena aren't booing him per se, but are venting their frustration at the direction the WWE has taken in the past 5 years. Those who cheer him, are buying into the product that WWE wants them to, they see no faults with the WWE, and it is the be all and all of pro wrestling.

However, I do despise the phrase and cringe when I see people refer to themselves as smarks.

not buying that explanation at all, if that were the case people would be booing Shelton Benjamin because they "are venting their frustration at the direction the WWE has taken in the past 5 years", ditto triple h and loads of others.

For me a "smark" is a guy who only follows things that are cool, hip in his eyes and hates pro-wrestling/pro wrestlers that are popular in the main-stream. A smark acts alot like the fan of certain music genres, e.g. most so called real punk fans "hate" the sex pistols because they were too commercial, ditto metallica where it comes to thrash, everybody knows metallica sold out when the starting appearing on mtv :rolleyes:

gimmick

So you are saying that a "smark" doesn't actually like what he is watching but says he is because it is cool to say so?

Personally, I reckon it is just used as an insult to someone who likes something that you don't.

Charlie

rossie1977 wrote: »

not buying that explanation at all, if that were the case people would be booing Shelton Benjamin because they "are venting their frustration at the direction the WWE has taken in the past 5 years", ditto triple h and loads of others.

For me a "smark" is a guy who only follows things that are cool, hip in his eyes and hates pro-wrestling/pro wrestlers that are popular in the main-stream. A smark acts alot like the fan of certain music genres, e.g. most so called real punk fans "hate" the sex pistols because they were too commercial, ditto metallica where it comes to thrash, everybody knows metallica sold out when the starting appearing on mtv :rolleyes:

Many 'smarks' would be fans of HHH despite his politicin (that's always been a part of the business). When I said the direction the company has taken I meant the audience its courting. There has definitely been a shift from the WWF/WWE prduct being aimed at males aged 8-34 to now being aimed at children and families. You only have to look at the crowds for that. Anyone who has been to a any WWE show in the last number of years can attest to that.

Fozzy

charlie mchugh wrote: »

Many 'smarks' would be fans of HHH despite his politicin (that's always been a part of the business). When I said the direction the company has taken I meant the audience its courting. There has definitely been a shift from the WWF/WWE prduct being aimed at males aged 8-34 to now being aimed at children and families. You only have to look at the crowds for that. Anyone who has been to a any WWE show in the last number of years can attest to that.

Kids have always watched WWE though. Most people here were kids when they started watching. Have the demographics really switched that much?

rossie1977

gimmick wrote: »

So you are saying that a "smark" doesn't actually like what he is watching but says he is because it is cool to say so?

Personally, I reckon it is just used as an insult to someone who likes something that you don't.

i never said that not sure how you are reading into that, i can be the biggest smark at times when it comes to wrestling/music etc so i guess i am insulting myself

charlie mchugh wrote:

Many 'smarks' would be fans of HHH despite his politicin (that's always been a part of the business). When I said the direction the company has taken I meant the audience its courting. There has definitely been a shift from the WWF/WWE prduct being aimed at males aged 8-34 to now being aimed at children and families. You only have to look at the crowds for that. Anyone who has been to a any WWE show in the last number of years can attest to that.

when vince starting taking WWF global he aimed his product at children/families and continued to do so until about 1996ish. Even though the attitude era happened i still think vince realises that children/families are still a good market to court because there is shed loads of money to be made from them. I have been attending live WWE events across the world for 11 years now, in the states the live audience is still very much young males 18-30, here in ireland in the shows i have attended children and their parents make up the vast majority of the audience, it can become very annoying at times attended a show here :mad:

rossie1977

Fozzy wrote: »

Kids have always watched WWE though. Most people here were kids when they started watching. Have the demographics really switched that much?

thats actually an excellent point, how many people were adults when they first got into wrestling, not too many i bet

Charlie

Fozzy wrote: »

Kids have always watched WWE though. Most people here were kids when they started watching. Have the demographics really switched that much?

The core demo, yes. My parents allowed me to watch wrestling in the mid 90's, in fact, my old man would even watch it with me. However, their opinion changed around 98 when they saw some WWF programming. It was clear that the product back then was no longer aimed at 'family entertainment'.

Yes, kids have always watched wrestling, but for an important period that was 'un-officially' so to speak, the product was not primarily aimed at them. Its like with movies such as Aliens and Die Hard. Were they aimed at Kids? No. But did young boys manage to watch them, hell yeah. However Die Hard 4 was aimed at a younger audience. Did this result in a film which wasn't true to the originals and irked older viewers who remembered the first 3, I would think so.

Charlie

rossie1977 wrote: »

thats actually an excellent point, how many people were adults when they first got into wrestling, not too many i bet

Most of the fans that made the late 90's a boom period for the WWF and WCW. These are the same people who no longer watch the product and are the difference between raw being a 3.5 and 6.0 and are also some of the fans that have contributed to the UFC's success of the last 2 years.

Charlie

rossie1977 wrote: »

when vince starting taking WWF global he aimed his product at children/families and continued to do so until about 1996ish. Even though the attitude era happened i still think vince realises that children/families are still a good market to court because there is shed loads of money to be made from them. I have been attending live WWE events across the world for 11 years now, in the states the live audience is still very much young males 18-30, here in ireland in the shows i have attended children and their parents make up the vast majority of the audience, it can become very annoying at times attended a show here :mad:

i'm not disputing that Kids=money, they clearly do. However, I do feel that there are alot of disgruntled males out there who despise aspects of the WWE product that are pushed towards that moeny making family market.

I attended the Raw/SNME taping at Madison Square Garden, the testing ground for wrestling, during the summer. Any time Cena was shown on screen or was in the ring, there was a massive back and forth between Women/Children and males aged (20-30) chanting "Cena Rules/Cena sucks" respectively. these were the same males that created a huge cheer when Cena was RKO'd by Orton (who is suppose to be the heel) into a chair. To me, this exemplified the difference between a smark and mark.

Fozzy

charlie mchugh wrote: »

The core demo, yes. My parents allowed me to watch wrestling in the mid 90's, in fact, my old man would even watch it with me. However, their opinion changed around 98 when they saw some WWF programming. It was clear that the product back then was no longer aimed at 'family entertainment'.

I don't think the core demo really has changed much at all. Here's a line out of this week's Figure Four newsletter about Raw's ratings for 12 days ago:

Show averaged 5.7 million viewers with a 2.57 in males 18-49, a 3.5 in males 18-34 (a LOT of dudes watch this show), and a median age of 33.

The core audience appears to be the same as it ever was, there's still a lot of older people watching

Vince135792003

Raw's rating should be skewed at a higher age group since it's on late at night over there but for sure, a big part of WWE's audience remains older males. I still think they have steered the direction of the show to target a more younger age group however and that has it's positives and its negatives.

Anecdotally, every time I go to a WWE show over here, the audience is made up of more younger kids each time I go.

I work with kids and from senior infants up you get a group of kids, boys and girls mad into wrestling (Cena is their Hogan). It boggles my mind sometimes because when I was in primary school which I guess was centred around the "dark years" of WWE (1992-1997), only a few kids were into it.

Actually here's one for everybody. I was playing a game one time called "A famous person I'd like to meet is...... What wrestler do you think a 9 year old kid said?

His exact phrase was "The diva Ashely"

Charlie

Perhaps I didn't phrase it right, but I believe that the demo that the product is being aimed at has definitely switched from what it was during the boom years.

Cena the character is an example himself. Cena of around 2003/2004 was using the freestyle gimmick which personally I found hilarious and entertaining (despite the fact he was a heel) However, as soon as it was time for his push for the title and to be a top tier guy, that aspect of his character had to be dropped. Parents wouldn't be to happy buying merchandise for their kids from a chap who was coming out with this

However, during the 90's characters such as Austin and Rock, had their attitude ramped up as the were pushed.

Following up on Vince's point, I would imagine that AM Raw over there is primarily made up of a young audience, much like Livewire was in my day.

flahavaj

It seems at this stage that the term smark has so many meanings its become a useless term and almost derogatory.

To me the term smark in the truest sense of and most original sense of the word is a wrestling fan who doesn't just watch wrestling o TV, they've gone out of their way to find out more about the industry through reading newsleters, reading the net and other sources. They would be wise to backstage goings on such as reasons why guys disappear off telly apart from kayfabed explanations. They're familiar with who the booker is, who's puling the strings backstage and and the reasons why decsisions are being taken in the wrestling world. In short pretty much anyone who posts here would be to me , a smark.

The Cena explanation above is pretty bogus. Yes, smarks tend as a group to agree on a lot of things, like booing Cena a few years ago. But they are also just as likely to change that opinion at the drop of the hat. Now there are many many internet fans who think Cena's now the greatest thing in the world as haters. Similarly the HHH thread at the moment shows that smarks can be just as divided in opinion as anyone else. Someone will always be flavour of the month with smarks, at the moment its Hardy, next month it'll be someone else. We're a fickle bunch and the truth is that we might think we know it all but at the end of the day we know **** all more than the TV fan about what REALLY goes on backstage and often I wish i could go back to the days of being a wide mouthed kid who honestly had no idea who'd win any given match.

Charlie

flahavaj wrote: »

The Cena explanation above is pretty bogus. Yes, smarks tend as a group to agree on a lot of things, like booing Cena a few years ago. But they are also just as likely to change that opinion at the drop of the hat. Now there are many many internet fans who think Cena's now the greatest thing in the world as haters.

As I said though, the booing wasn't really a reflection of Cena as a worker. When I was at Raw, as far as the internet fan was concerned, the tide had turned. Cena had won alot of praise for his matches. However, that night in the building, many males would still boo the $hit out of him because of the reaction he garners with women and children, these males see themselves as true wrestling fans, and resent they fact that they are being disenfranchised by this other section of the audience, of whom the WWE product is now being geared towards.

This illustrates indeed how fickle smarks are. Amongst themselves they will praise the in-ring skills of Cena, but when confronted with Cena the merchandise man and a younger audience, they will boo him.

The Sparrow

I always thought that a smark was a derogatory term that ppl in the wrestling business used to describe ppl who read the internet and are somewhat smart to the business but then act like they know everything. As in a mark is somebody who is completely fooled by the business but a smart mark knows a little but thinks they know a lot. To me a smark is somebody who scoffs at all of the stupid marks but who in reality is actually only marginally smarter than them.


Basically an internet nerd who writes stupid articles thinking that they know more than wrestlers and promoters. The joke being that ppl in the business look at these ppl and laugh at them because they think that they are so smart but they can still be worked but just in a different way.

Most of us really!:D

Charlie

woooo232 wrote: »

I always thought that a smark was a derogatory term that ppl in the wrestling business used to describe ppl who read the internet and are somewhat smart to the business but then act like they know everything. As in a mark is somebody who is completely fooled by the business but a smart mark knows a little but thinks they know a lot. To me a smark is somebody who scoffs at all of the stupid marks but who in reality is actually only marginally smarter than them.


Basically an internet nerd who writes stupid articles thinking that they know more than wrestlers and promoters. The joke being that ppl in the business look at these ppl and laugh at them because they think that they are so smart but they can still be worked but just in a different way.

Most of us really!:D

Bingo! Give that man a banana. I think this thread sums it all up really (Not having a dig at anyone of those posters, well not really )