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# This Is Gaslighting 101
- URL: https://goodoil.news/this-is-gaslighting-101/
- Published: 2026-10-06T21:00:30.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-06T21:00:29.000Z
- Description: It’s very difficult to believe that there wasn’t at least one Aussie who matched or came close to the calibre of those contestants. Someone whose spot Rachael Gunn stole.
- Author: Kevin
- Tags: Sport

> *Documentary maker Maclain Way heard about* [*Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun,*](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business%5Fmedia/527143/raygun-s-first-interview-the-energy-and-vitriol-that-people-had-was-pretty-alarming?ref=goodoil.news) *in much the same way as the rest of the world – as a viral meme.* 
>  
> *But when he got the chance to make a film about the Australian b-girl, it was an opportunity to delve more deeply into the modern phenomena of viral fame, he told RNZ’s Saturday Morning.* 
>  
> *“That you can do something, maybe something somewhat innocuous, get filmed, and then overnight you go from someone that no one knows your name to suddenly the next day everyone in the world in some ways knows your name,” he says.* 
>  
> *Fortunately for Maclain and his filmmaker brother Chapman, rather than hide under a rock, Gunn wanted to tell her story.* 

Of course she did. 

> *I think we just wanted to talk to someone who lived that visceral viral storm.* 

Let me stop here for and say she got everything she deserved. 

> *\[…\] Competing in Paris against three others, Raygun showcased moves that paid homage to her home country, including a sprinkler dance and a kangaroo hop.* 
>  
> *But she lost 18-0 in all three rounds and became the subject of online mockery almost immediately.* 

No, what she did is embarrass Australia. 

> *Maclain found Gunn to be “open and honest” about the experience, he says.* 
>  
> *“…the ups, the downs, the pain of it, the excitement of it, things that she thought were great and fun. I think that she expressed confusion in a way that I empathised with.* 
>  
> *“My opinion of the 2024 Olympics is that it was the Raygun Olympics”, he says.* 
>  
> *“I’m talking about the entire story of the Olympics over here was Raygun. I think in a way, that was fascinating to us.”* 

Jesus wept. But it carries on. 

> *“Those Olympic rings, those are the most iconic brand in all of sport. For a break dancer from Australia to come and swallow up as much press and oxygen as the coverage on her allowed was just mind-boggling to us.”* 
>  
> *He got to dive into the world of TikTok and algorithms, he says, for the first time as a filmmaker.* 
>  
> *“I was stunned at the echo chamber on TikTok in a way that I really did not have an understanding of before I made this documentary.* 
>  
> *“Where you have one person say one thing and maybe it’s funny, maybe it’s actually a genuinely funny thing that gets a laugh or a giggle out of you and it’s something to do with Raygun, but then you get 60 copycat versions of it and it becomes this dystopian TikTok echo chamber.”* 
>  
> *Something about Raygun, her uniform and her break moves hit the algorithm hard, he says.*

Right, sure, she’s the victim here. 

> *“That just made this thing explode so much bigger than anyone could have ever, ever expected.”* 
>  
> *Gunn had little expectation that she would do well in Paris, he says.* 
>  
> *“If someone said, ‘hey, what’s the thing that was the most unexpected thing about making this documentary?’ To me, it was honestly Rachael’s awareness of how bad she was going to do at the Olympics.”* 

Then why did she go? 

> *Gunn was in it for the love of breaking, he says.* 
>  
> *\[…\] He never understood just what it was that caused the massive, sneering online pile-on, he says.* 
>  
> *“There really wasn’t a crime committed here. As someone who has made true crime documentaries, what Rachael did on the scale of bad to not, she didn’t do anything really that bad on a general scale of criminal behaviour.”* 
>  
> *He became close Gunn and her husband Sammy Free while making the film, he says.* 
>  
> *“Sammy was still a little nervous about doing this, maybe necessarily a documentary like this, given that his wife had endured what she had endured not that long ago.”* 

That explains a lot. 

> *Gunn was more “foot forward”, he says.* 
>  
> *“I want to be given an opportunity to explain how this happened and how it got there. And also put hopefully put to rest some baseless conspiracy theories that I somehow cheated my way into this. I think that was important to Rachael.”* 

Imagine if I got picked for the All Blacks despite not knowing how to catch a rugby ball and run fast. This is the level of incompetence we are talking about here. Despite no concrete evidence, that she cheated her way into the Olympics is a pretty reasonable thing to say. 

Rachael Gunn is not a nice person. I say that based on the fact that she sued a production, based, as far as I can remember, on copyright breach of her “kangaroo” move, or something like that. 

She’s also very smart. You can’t help but think that everything was pre-planned and that she deliberately made a mockery of herself so that she would go viral. 

But the saddest part of all this, and what got many people angry, is that the other contestants were incredible. If you watched them you’ll know what I mean. It’s very difficult to believe that there wasn’t at least one Aussie who matched or came close to the calibre of those contestants. 

Someone whose spot Rachael Gunn stole. 

Source: [https://www.rnz.co.nz/life/screens/movies/paris-2024-was-the-raygun-olympics-says-doco-maker](https://www.rnz.co.nz/life/screens/movies/paris-2024-was-the-raygun-olympics-says-doco-maker?ref=goodoil.news)