With the Met Gala recently ending and an abundance of new iconic fashion looks gracing the carpet, Nova thought we would give you our top ten faves from previous years.With the Met Gala recently ending and an abundance of new iconic fashion looks gracing the carpet, Nova thought we would give you our top ten faves from previous years.
These kinds of questions have been known to go viral from time to time, with the question of âAre there more wheels or doors in the world?â sparking debate on the definition of a door in recent memory. These questions are like âWould you rather?â or other such party games in that, the truth is, the correct answer canât really be known, and the fun of playing comes from the debate based on logic and speculation.
However, the debate of man vs animal seems to inspire a different kind of conversation. When it comes to manâs physical prowess over nature, people seem drawn to recall a primal history of humanityâs triumph over nature.
Many arguments in favour of a âmenâ victory draw upon the idea that this fight already happened, and goes something like this: In some distant fantasy of the past – men, in fewer numbers than 100, had to fight gorillas (and other powerful animals) all the time (for dominance over land and food) and did so successfully, hence, civilization as it is today.
However, this vision of prehistory is tinged with the awareness that things are very different now, and weâre less able to deal with the harsh environment our ancient ancestors thrived in. The hunter-gatherer life is dangerous, wild and scary. Humanity has changed, we made compromises for the sake of society and technological advancements, we are smarter and more comfortable than our ancestors, but undoubtedly softer. Supermarkets happened. Plumbing happened.
This has led to a reverence over the wild and animalistic. âStrong as an oxâ and âFierce as a Tigerâ are common phrases that reference the qualities of nature humans have moved on from. However, for some, these are ideals they still try to emulate, even compete with.
In the late 1980s, Mike Tyson was on a trip to the zoo. âWhen we got to the gorilla cage there was one big silverback gorilla there just bullying all the other gorillas.â Tyson told The Sun âI offered the attendant $10,000 to open the cage and let me smash that silverbackâs snot box. He declined.â.
This story is now legend amongst even the most casual of boxing fans – it serves two purposes, it tells people that: one, that Mike Tyson hates bullies (very cool) and two, he fancied his chances in a fist fight against a gorilla. Back in the 1980s, Mike Tyson was just about the most formidable man on the planet, and the mythologising of that period of boxing history elevates Iron Mike to the level that some people are convinced he could win.
Mike Tyson isnât the first athlete to claim physical brilliance by tapping into the animal kingdom. In fact he might not even be the most famous boxer to do so. Muhammad Ali is perhaps the most quoted athlete of all time, and surely amongst his most memorable lines is:
âI’ve wrestled with alligators, I’ve tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning and throw thunder in jail. – I’m so mean I make medicine sickâ
Arguably the best trash-talker of all time, Aliâs proclaimed dominance over nature is clearly a grand metaphor. But it is precisely within the grandiose that we can observe the origins of this fascination of man vs beast.
His references to Thunder and Lightning and rhyming poetry aligns him with heroes cast in bronze and marble, or figures painted on temple ceilings. When we look to those figures in classical mythos, we find even more stories of humans in combat with animals. Samson and Hercules both triumph over lions in biblical and Greek tradition respectively and Native American and Russian heroes wrestled with bears while Beowolf and St George slew dragons.
All of these legends, from Hercules to Tyson, to the great 100 men vs a gorilla hypothetical, have had a significant effect. Overconfidence amongst men when it comes to animals – A YouGov survey in 2024 found that 1 in 25 men think they could beat a bear or a gorilla in an unarmed fight and a survey this year found that 1 in 50 men think they could beat a horse in a 100 metre sprint.
These stats amount to 4 of the 100 men having the oomph to run headlong to fight the gorilla⌠and subsequently send the remaining 94 running in horror after witnessing what happened to them.
But the online discourse has been entertaining when people arenât taking the debate too seriously, even celebratory of significant athletic achievement, with some people putting together their âfantasy teamâ to fight the gorilla.
While humans have a long and turbulent history of battling nature, boasting, theorising and normalizing – It is important to remember that it is a history of overconfidence.
