Why I Shrug at Atlas, the Robot Who "Does Parkour"

I talk shit to robots. All the time. So when I heard there was one named Atlas who could do parkour, I admit, I got concerned. Especially when I saw the familiar “Robots takin’ over!” reactions online.  Maybe the enslavement of humankind was nigh and I was about to get banished by The Borg to Matrix la la land.  But then I watched the video and I’m not impressed. I mean, he’s not exactly flinging himself up the side of a building, now is he?  He completed that box jump obstacle after obstacle after 20 freaking tries and the wannabe robot collaborators are acting like he revolutionized the art of movement. I mean, come on, there are third graders who could do what Atl-ass did on the first try, only when they do it, we don’t call it parkour—we call it recess. You want to impress me? Show me a video of Atlas skipping across the heads of crocodiles on the Nile while simultaneously composing and singing a hip hopera about the 2008 financial crisis. You don’t think a person could do that? Because I’m pretty damn sure Lin Manuel Miranda already has! And as much as I admire Lin Manuel’s steez, I’m ain’t about to pay no $500 to see Hamilton[1] and I ain’t about to declare him my overlord. So, you want to crown Atlas? Who ain’t even close to Lin Manuel Miranda’s level! Well go ahead and crown him! But as of right now, robots are who we thought they were! And I’m not letting ‘em off the hook.

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For some reason, I think of parkour as being practiced mainly by beach bros from So-Cal, but it originated in France, and it’s freaking everywhere.  A few months ago, a story came out about an Egyptian Women’s Parkour movement. Strangely, video footage seems almost non-existent, but the photos are impressive and it’s a cool story—women facing harassment from a male dominated society finding empowerment in busting some way more rad moves than Atl-ass.

Women in Iran—another country where women deal with street bullying on the regular—are doing it too .Here, we even have video footage but, be warned, it may make you dizzy and includes some moves that are probably better classified as gymnastics and free-running than pure parkour.[2]

These rebellious women’s parkour movements instill confidence and they even provide training on practical methods of escape. And in war-ravaged Yemen, parkour seems mainly like stress relief. There it’s practiced amidst abandoned tanks and bombed out buildings—and where quick sidebar—the United State is aiding the Saudi effort to bomb out even more people and buildings. It’s contributing to the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world and has sparked international condemnation. But hey! Look at all those amazing parkour courses we’re creating!

Yeah, not so much.

So to sum up, human beings and robots do parkour for different reasons. Robots do it because they’re subservient to their programming, while humans do it to fight the power. Not that both of these things aren’t impressive—they are! They're each very impressive! For homo sapiens!

But let me just say this. Now that I’ve started beef with Atlas and made a name for myself, I would love to just grab a beer with the dude and squash shit. Maybe even do a song together or have a charity boxing match.

Unless that that little punk is scared.    

[1] Yeah, I know he’s not starring anymore. But I won’t give up that much $ even if he comes back.  

[2] Free-running and Parkour are very similar but in parkour supposed to be getting from point A to point B in the most efficient albeit still pretty dope way. In free-running you can throw in flip here and there just for the hell of it….also, have to add that the song in the Iranian parkour video is some secular rap by American, Christian rapper Sivion. Why? Because it’s a small world after all.