How Did They Become a Strong Team
TL;DR · OriginThe source is the headline of a single baseball column. "How the Tigers Became a Strong Team Again," by the reporter Park Dong-hee, ran in Naver's sports outlet Magazine S on…
Origin
The source is the headline of a single baseball column. "How the Tigers Became a Strong Team Again," by the reporter Park Dong-hee, ran in Naver's sports outlet Magazine S on May 3, 2013. Korean fans shorten it to "Ta-eo-gang."
The claim was well founded when it was published: the KIA Tigers, champions in 2009, were sitting on a .722 winning percentage in April of the 2013 season. What followed is the problem. KIA finished that regular season eighth and missed the postseason entirely. Less than half a year after publication the headline had been completely hollowed out, and the headline itself became the joke.
Spread
Becoming a meme inverted its meaning. It was written to explain why a team had gotten strong; it is now used to forecast that a team is about to collapse. It is a curse wearing the form of praise. The shape generalized into "how did X become Y," with both slots swapped freely.
The way it is deployed is unusual too. To wish for an opponent's defeat, people deliberately post something flattering about that opponent — reverse voodoo, or prayer-meta as Korean communities call it. It started in baseball but is most active in esports communities, League of Legends above all.
For what it is worth, the original column was not permanently wrong. KIA won the championship again in 2017. The prophecy landed four years late — an ending the meme almost never mentions.
How it is used
- Praising a team you expect to win, precisely because you want them to lose.
- In the "how did ___ become ___" form, pointing at something you think is about to fall apart.
- Calling out an article or post whose optimism arrived far too early.
- Citing past rosy forecasts that missed.
