[al_borland]

I got one at a tae kwon do tournament when I was in middle school. It was my first time entering something like that, I lost immediately and was not feeling great about it. I just wanted to leave. My dad made me go back to pick up a trophy from this giant table full of participation trophies. I didn’t want it. I don’t know what happened to it. I didn’t understand why anyone would want a memento of an embarrassing loss. Participation trophies are stupid, or for people who are too dumb to realized they lost and it’s a pity trophy. Picking up that trophy was worse than the actual loss, I remember being more upset about that dumb trophy than anything else.

This was back in the 90s.

In something like a foot race, I get it. Most people running a marathon aren’t trying to win, they are just trying to finish, or hit their personal targets. They can still have a “win” without coming in first. But in a sport where there is a clear winner and loser, I felt insulted getting a trophy just for showing up. At 11 or 12 I already felt too old to be treated like that.

[mrugge]

I think this marathon attitude of not trying to win but to hit personal targets could be applied in other areas of life and in other sports even with clear "winners". None of this is about the destination. We all arrive at the same one.

[_DeadFred_]

I like having a physical representation of something I did that pushed myself. In the case of a marathon it's normally a t-shirt. No one makes fun of that. But that t-shirt is 100% a 'participation trophy' but worse, it's literally announcing to the world when worn 'I participated'.

So many anti-participation trophy tough guys wear these participation trophies all the time. Vietnam hat? Participation trophy. Fun run shirt? Participation trophy. Iron man shirt? Participation trophy. Police/military challenge coin? Participation trophy. Facebook picture post of an event you did? Believe it or not, participation trophy.

But then it's given to a kid? Beyond the pale! Ridiculous! Why give them a memory/momento that they played baseball, that they showed up to sparing event, or did a form demo in front of judges. All things very intimidating to kids. I remember showing up to pee-wee football after doing badly in the game. As a kid it was intimidating to show up after doing poorly. That stuff can be as mentally pushing themselves as a marathon for an adult. Such a weird/small/toxic mindset to criticize rewarding that behavior, or thinking the kids that showed up all season for a losing team didn't accomplish anything.

[al_borland]

What I got was a literal trophy, not a t-shirt or something else. A t-shirt or other momento for an event is fine, but a trophy implies a win.

There was a vendor at the tournament selling throwing stars and stuff. I got one of those. That was my momento from the event (which I still have a know exactly where it is decades later). It was something I wanted that I wouldn’t have got had I not pushed myself to show up. Running across that is a fond memory, while running across that participation trophy brings up pretty terrible memories.

I’m not against rewarding pushing yourself for showing up, but as a kid, the trophy was the wrong reward for me, it felt insulting. An event t-shirt would have felt much better.

[UncleMeat]

I got participating trophies from soccer or karate when I was a child. I also got larger trophies when I won events. Even as a freaking eight year old I understood that this was the same as a t-shirt. It was a fun memento from a sports season or a sparring tournament. I do not believe I know a single person who feels negatively about such things.

Surely after years of screaming about participation trophies there should be some evidence that this harmed kids if it were a real thing, right?

[al_borland]

The first trophy I ever got was when my first ever soccer team took first place for the season, so maybe that distorted my view. The only other trophy I ever got was that tae kwon do participation trophy, so I wasn’t collecting these things at every event like t-shirts. A trophy felt like it meant something, which is why the participation trophy felt so humiliating.

I could argue that harmed me. I never entered another tournament after that. The walk to pick up that trophy is a core memory, and one that I didn’t want to relive at any future events. Had I gone, lost, but got a cool shirt, I probably would have been down to get more cool shirts. Had I gone to more, maybe I could have improved and won a trophy that actually meant something.

[UncleMeat]

And I enjoyed my trophies that I got merely for participating even alongside the ones I got for winning. They became memories that I could relive. "Oh, that was the season where my good friend Kevin was on the team."

When people screech about participation trophies being modern degeneracy I want to see actual data demonstrating some real harm. Because from where I sit I see a nice thing being done for children and joy coming from that.