It’s 10 a.m. on an October morning in Orange County, and people are already dripping sweat. The crowd, mostly made of teens and early twentysomethings, is lined up outside of Santa Ana’s Yost Theater, leaning on stanchions that slip down with every slouch. They’ve come from Southern California and a smattering of faraway states: Washington, Hawaii, Kentucky, Texas, Minnesota, and New Jersey, to name a few. It’s supposed to hit 100 degrees today, but these kids are wearing gloves. Inexpensive white cotton gloves, like the ones they sell in the Walmart checkout line.
They’re gathered for the fifth annual International Gloving Championships, the Super Bowl of an emerging sport most people have never heard of. Imagine breakdancing, with your hands, with Christmas lights stuck on your fingertips. Imagine a Day-Glo Edward Scissorhands boogying down at a Tiësto show. That’s gloving.
Gloving began as a dance at raves, but competitive gloving means going head-to-head: crowding into small blocked-off squares on a venue’s floor and freestyling along to a song, using the hands (read: lighted fingers) predominantly. Judges score the dance-off based on player’s execution, musicality, and presentation. Boosters are betting it’s the next subculture to go big: skateboarding meets e-sports.
In one line, for spectators, there’s Kennedy, aka Phantom, a 13-year-old boy who has never been to a gloving event before; his mom and sister drove over an hour from San Bernardino to get him here. Up the venue’s narrow stairway, the other line, for competitors, streams onto a balcony. DePaul University student Evan Dallas, aka Materia, is very, very nervous. “I feel like I’m gonna pee my pants,” he admits. “Indigestion is prominent.” Materia is here with his “second half of gloving,” Anna Hofmockel, gloving name FlourChild, a fellow Chicago native now attending culinary school in New York. They don’t think they’ll win today, but agree traveling the thousands of miles to be here is worth it.
Further back, Lunar, real name Raja, is wearing tiny denim shorts, knee-high fringe boots, and a crop top airbrushed with her gloving name. She wears her hair in mini–pigtail buns; unlike other glovers, she’s dressed more for Coachella than the skate park. She drove in from Phoenix with friends from the Arizona State University Gloving & Flow Arts Club, and today is her 20th birthday. That she’s one of few women present isn’t lost on her. “As a girl,” she says, when asked about her aims for the day, “it comes down to how many guys I can beat.” The Tutting Liquid Ninja Turtles, a crew of veteran glovers in their mid-twenties (which counts as “old-school” in the mostly under-25 crowd), are also present, devouring a pizza at 10 a.m.
Lunar competes at IGC.
Patrick T. Fallon for BuzzFeed News
Under a registration tent, there are the organizers, many of whom are also competing today. They work for Emazing, the company founded five years ago by Brian Lim, the now-28-year-old Angeleno who grew up watching his Chinese immigrant parents run a 24-hour doughnut shop. Emazing hosts IGC, and is also by far the biggest brand selling the gear needed to compete. In the words of the company’s president and COO Scott Elliott: “If we're Pepsi, there’s no Coke.”
Lim’s ambitious, and will proudly tell you that what started by selling lights out the trunk of his car has exploded into a projected $13 million in sales this year, six brick-and-mortar stores across the U.S. and Canada, a 30,000-square-foot headquarters down the street from Disneyland, and a staff of more than 50, many of whom are Lim’s friends from the scene. Along the way came ABC’s Shark Tank, a promised $650,000 deal with billionaire Mark Cuban and FUBU founder Daymond John, and, some rival light companies say, playing dirty to get ahead.
Today, 800 people are expected to attend the fifth annual IGC; around 140 will compete. They’ve come from the nearest suburbs and opposite coast. It’s a big ask on a college freshman’s budget, especially when many say their non-glover friends and family don’t understand the pastime. But, for the challengers, it’s worth it. They meet their online best friends IRL, compete for a $1,000 novelty check and the glory of being crowned champion, and, win or lose, hug it out after every round. This is their Comic Con and World Series and homecoming all in one.
What will it take to legitimize gloving as a sport and art form, with pro athletes and corporate sponsors and coverage on obscure ESPN networks; thriving even after EDM is no longer the reigning music trend? It’s a lofty goal, but Lim thinks today’s championships are a big step toward getting there. “With actual judges and scorecards, how can you not be legit?”
Ice Kream Teddy (right), the 2014 IGC winner, competes. "Lately, I've been known for my thumb work," he says.
Patrick T. Fallon for BuzzFeed News
“Any more questions on the smell rule?”
Around noon, in the alley next to the venue, Corey Defeo, aka Ice Kream Teddy, is doling out instructions to the judges. Teddy is IGC’s red-haired reigning champ; he's been gloving for seven years and coordinating competitions for three. The judges, who — in addition to their role as tournament officials — can also compete, are dressed in red and blue T-shirts screen-printed with Emazing’s mascot in a referee jersey. Some guzzle water bottles, some vape, and others pick through an arrangement of perfectly curated stoner snacks: Ruffles Sour Cream & Onion chips; traditional and Choco Chips Ahoy; two flavors of Pringles; cans of Monster energy drink (IGC’s biggest corporate sponsor); Little Debbie Oatmeal Pies; a box from a restaurant called Wings filled with, presumably, wings.
The smell rule Teddy references (quite literally, if someone reeks, the judge has the right to politely eject them) speaks to the nature of the game: kinetic young people in close quarters. “I have been that fucking person, and it feels like shit,” Teddy continues. “So, yes, it’s something that you want to be reminded of when you are that person but not to the point of, like, embarrassment.”
The scorecard is divided into three categories: execution, musicality, and presentation.
Patrick T. Fallon for BuzzFeed News
The competition is styled after dance-offs or rap battles, and takes place on a venue’s floor instead of on the stage, dozens of battles happening at once. In the dark theater, individuals are paired up and face each other, crouching down, just inches apart — like a chicken fight minus another person’s shoulders. The DJ plays 90 seconds of music (usually EDM, though everyone insists that, technically, you could glove to anything: country, rap, metal), during which one of the glovers does a light show right in his competitor’s eyeline, dancing along to the song’s melodies, beat drops, and mood. Though the competitors practice their moves beforehand, it’s all freestyle: They don’t know what song will be played prior to the round. Once the song ends, the other competitor freestyles to another 90-second song. During the performances, at least one judge takes notes and decides on a score for each. The glover with the highest score takes the round.
What makes someone a winner? The scorecards are broken up into three categories: musicality, presentation, and execution, which is divided into tricks and transition. When individual competitors and judges are asked to define good gloving, though, the answers vary. Some people favor hand tricks like tutting and finger rolls, while others prefer to incorporate full-body movement, like pop-and-lock techniques.
Illustrations by Ben King / BuzzFeed News
Others, like Lunar, say the narrative you create with your movement is most important. “Every show I give is a different story for a different person,” she explains. “It goes off vibe; it goes off who you are as a person.” That’s why performing at eye level is key; like virtual reality glasses, it transports your opponent-as-audience to another world. What’s set in stone is what not to do: Glovers lose points for mistakes like repeating moves within a performance or accidentally smacking their opponent in the face.
The competitor registration line leads to a card table where girls in IGC T-shirts sit with clipboards, checking in those who preregistered and finding space for those who haven’t. Under a constellation of disco balls and strobe lights, the hosts ask to see everyone’s ID, but many are so young they don’t have one. Twenty-one-year-old Alex “Cypher” Balladares, an Emazing employee and IGC competitor, calls downstairs on his earpiece to figure out a solution.
Meanwhile, others do finger tricks with their IDs or give informal light shows to their neighbors in line. One fiddles with a GoPro camera, and several others commandeer an empty table to put new batteries into their lights. Light sets range from $20 to $180, depending on how custom they are. The lights themselves are small but versatile, about the size and shape of a bloated penny, and can be programmed to change color when they move. Once registered, each participant is given a name tag, which everyone agrees is quite uncool, but the glovers abide.
Materia battles Folly Turtle, the captain of the Tutting Liquid Ninja Turtles.
Patrick T. Fallon for BuzzFeed News
The day is broken up into two tournaments. The 16-person Legends bracket, which closes out the event, is the tournament of champions. The Legends include the winners of this year’s local tournaments (called BOSSes, short for "Battle Of Supreme Swag"), the previous IGC champions, and a handful of fan favorites voted in via Emazing’s website. They are joined by the two winners of that day’s open bracket tournament, which is how IGC begins.
“The open bracket tournament is more or less the last chance qualifier to join [the Legends] bracket,” Teddy explains. Today, 128 competitors will enter the open bracket. They include IGC regulars who’ve never won before, people from out of state making their IGC debut, and total rookies just getting into the scene.
Glovers test their gloves, glove lights, and batteries.
Patrick T. Fallon for BuzzFeed News
Outside, Teddy is still going through the rules with the judges, but they are starting to get antsy, catching up with friends and asking for clarification on scoring. “General etiquette rule, guys, hey, general etiquette rule…” Amid the murmuring, Teddy is getting frustrated and erupts: “GUYS, UNTIL I SAY, 'THANK YOU, I’M DONE,' I NEED YOU ALL TO BE 100% QUIET.” The crowd continues to talk.
Two days earlier, in a small conference room at Emazing’s Anaheim headquarters, Teddy explains how he went from gloving for fun to working part-time on Emazing’s customer service team to his job today, as the company’s wholesale and competitions coordinator. He is passionate to the point of boisterousness, often talking over co-workers to get out a point. He describes everything using his version of motivational startup speak, fitting for a salesman born of two salesperson parents.
“When you walk in here, you know everybody doesn’t just want to be here; they feel the need to be here. If anybody isn’t giving 110%, you look at them like, You good? You need a nap, buddy?”
Teddy won IGC last year, and feels good about his chances for a repeat. His confidence wavers only when asked what seems to be an obvious question: Why should he, the “competitions coordinator” for the company that’s putting on the event, get to compete? Does anyone ever complain that it’s unfair?
“Umm…”
The judges kill time practicing moves before the contest begins.
Patrick T. Fallon for BuzzFeed News
For the first time, Teddy is the one who’s cut off. “Yes,” says Cypher affirmatively. Everyone laughs.
“Yeah, I got a lot of pushback,“ Teddy admits. “Honestly, working here does give me an advantage. And it’s the same advantage for anybody else that works here: The fact is, I’m around gloving all the time.” But aside from that, he insists, it’s just his hard work paying off.
“After IGC 2012, up until then there had been a rule that if you won BOSS, you could not compete until the next IGC. The idea is to create multiple champions and create multiple stars,” Teddy explains. “I disagreed with that. I firmly believe that if you are the best, you should get to compete until you are dethroned, until someone actually is better than you. And I fought Brian [Lim, Emazing's founder] very, very hard on that statement. And I said, ‘If you don’t change the rule, I’m just going to keep getting second every single time until you change it.’” According to Teddy, he did — Lim bent, and soon thereafter appointed Teddy to his competition-coordinating role. And that’s how Teddy became both the person in charge of explaining the rules to the judges and the day’s possible winner.
“ONE HUNDRED PERCENT UNTIL I SAY, 'THANK YOU, I’M DONE,' LIKE NOT A WORD, SO I CAN GET THROUGH.” The crowd quiets. “Thank you. OK, remember that there are people here — some of them are in this very group, who have flown out here or have driven an obscene amount of hours to be here. So keep in mind that when you have this shirt on you are a representation of why they flew out and why they drove out here: because they love the same thing you do so goddamn much.” He wraps up: “Thank you so much, have fun, because really, this is about to be a great event. Bring your A game because I’m sure as fuck gonna need it.”
In between battles, glovers receive tips to up their game.
Patrick T. Fallon for BuzzFeed News
After a morning of harried preparation and patient waiting, everyone piles onto the floor of the theater, which was built to host vaudeville shows in 1913. It’s dark, but you can make out rich red velvet curtains draping over the walls, at odds with the purple and blue club lights shining from the rafters and the massive DJ booth dominating the stage. What’s most noticeable is the neon tape on the floor, marking off squares each dueling duo will use to compete.
Gloving wasn’t always competitive. Brian Lim started doing it recreationally, attending raves with his now-fiancé as a senior at UCLA in 2010. But when EDM festivals started banning gloving soon thereafter, citing fire hazards and concerns about drug use, Lim got to work. “One way to prove gloving was legitimate was to make it a sport,” he says. Lim and his team created the leagues, the format, the rules, the scorecard. He hired someone to set up teams at colleges, to spawn a new generation of competitive glovers (who, not coincidentally, could become Emazing customers). He started weekly “Friday Night Lights” jam sessions and regional BOSS tournaments at his stores, plus today's winner-take-all annual one, and called it the International Gloving Championships, even when kids from Orange County were the ones competing.
Brian Lim delivers his State of Gloving address.
Patrick T. Fallon for BuzzFeed News
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