“Most excellent. Dee Tee Bee has uploaded another dunkilation for my enjoyment,” you say to yourself as you click on the video in your subscription box. “Whiteside probably crushes the rim for nine minutes straight!”
The video begins to play, and you are, as you expected, enraptured by the displays of unbridled athletic power that your eyes are seeing. “It’s too bad that Whiteside is too good for Dee Tee Bee’s channel these days,” you think as the dunks continue endlessly. “It seems as if he dunks it several times in each and every game.” With each dunk, your awe only increases.
However, near the two minute mark of the video, an unwelcome thought emerges from your brain: you will never be able to dunk like this, your brain tells you. This thought is hastily pushed away; nothing will hinder your enjoyment of this particular dunkilation. The smile returns to your face, but it is slightly thinner and more forced than it was before. Whiteside’s dunk showcase continues without pause, but now the dunks have a mocking edge to them, as if Whiteside himself is only doing these dunks to prove his superiority.
“B-b-but…I could dunk if I wanted to!” you tell yourself. You look down at your flabby arms, muscles atrophied by years of nothing but video games, and your legs, clad in a pair of ill-fitting cargo shorts, similarly lacking in definition. These are the tools which were given to you in order to perform dunks, and you have neglected them.
Your gaze returns to the screen, and you are determined to watch the video without the burden of unfair comparisons. But even as the next dunk comes and goes with an “ooh” from the crowd and praise from the announcers, your focus wavers again, and all you can think about is your own growing despair. “I am worthless. No woman would ever desire me sexually,” says the voice in your brain, but now, it cannot even be called a “voice”, since these are the honest thoughts of your mind, and not just the utterances of some rogue anxiety.
There is a bottle of soda on your desk. You knock it to the side in disgust, wishing that it wasn’t a vital component of your consumption of NBA highlight videos. But just as quickly, you pick the bottle back up and take a swig, wincing as the rush of sugar enters your body. The sounds of the video play unceasingly, but now they are merely a soundtrack to your own spiraling depression.
Stumblingly you rise from your chair and stagger the few feet to your bed. Here you collapse, the ordeal having made you sweaty and breathless. The Hassan Whiteside Dunkilation, which you had been so excited to view, comes to an end with the final forty dunks heard but unseen. “Huh huh huh…unnhh,” you sob, remembering all the times in your youth you fantasized about dunking, and all the times that you fantasized about a girl. Those fantasies that were supposed to have become realities some day.
The Whiteside dunkilation was part of a playlist. Unwittingly, you have subjected yourself to another one of DTB’s infernal creations, but you lack the energy to raise yourself from the bed and close the browser window. “No…no…” you moan. The sounds of it are clearly audible even over the sound of your pathetic tears. Tears mourning not only a wasted youth and wasted time, but a wasted life.