“What are you looking at, moron?” Lionel Messi’s anger towards Dutchman Wout Weghorst after the knife-fighting quarter-final between Argentina and the Netherlands has become cult in the country. So much so that smart guys have already capitalized on it, creating T-shirts, mugs and caps. A true fashion phenomenon.
As of this weekend, cups were available on the Mercado Libre e-commerce site, starting at 1,600 pesos (about 9 dollars). T-shirts with various designs – sentence with the effigy of Messi, with the Argentine flag, single sentence – were offered from 2,900 pesos (16 dollars). And caps for 3,900 (22 dollars), as told by AFP in a report.
But that’s not all. The brief clash, where the Argentine captain launches “Qué miras bobo? Anda pa’ went, sore! (“What are you looking at, jerk? Get out there, jerk!”), is also the raw material for musical remixes and countless “memes” on social networks. A tweet with the brief 10-second video had been shared 10.5 million times on Monday. And the first tattoos “Qué mira’ bobo? ” appeared.
“Maradonised”
“We made the T-shirts right after the game,” Tony Molfese, 31, a graphic designer and store manager in Buenos Aires, told AFP. And then the phrase went viral, because Messi at one point had this low, quiet profile, but maybe people wanted him to have that Diego (Maradona) pizzazz. We love this “Maradonised” Messi. The merchant claims to have sold 500 t-shirts in 48 hours, five times more than normal.
The language used by the Argentine number 10 has itself been analyzed: in an amused tone, the media noted that the words used by Messi were both moderate and outdated.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 rather have said: “Qué miras, pelotudo? “(”asshole”)”, noted the daily Clarin. The media believes that Messi’s use of “bobo”, “betrays his belonging to field football, on clay, played in the rain, in the mud until the sun goes down”.
In other, somewhat rustic terms, from Rosario (300km from Buenos Aires) where Messi is from. The other part of the expression “Anda pa’ alla” also raised some amused eyebrows, perceived as a somewhat outdated rudeness, which his parents or grandparents could have used. But who has suddenly come back into fashion.