As others have stated, your justification is worthless. I will 100% commit to doing the tour if you change the name. And will make a significant personal donation too. But not while the name remains
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As a French teenager in the 80s, the term âhooliganâ has a very strong baggage of ultra violence from UK football âfansâ, as it was all over the news. Racism, homophobia, violence, misogyny⊠indeed in French âhooliganâ is now the commonly used term for any sort of violent sports âfansâ.
But Wahoo has always been US-centric, so I can understand the lack of context. Though as pointed out, in this age of trigger warnings and corporate blandness, especially in the US, Iâm surprised that there isnât more concern from their PR people.
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Is it interesting that the core of the sufferfest understood this with the original national flag. Sure there were some detractors but most OS happily accepted the lazergoat as it had a good meaning.
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@Rupert,
Please feed back to your corporate bosses that while the term may be embraced by millions of your customers in America, it is NOT embraced by the majority of customers in the UK and Europe and is an impediment to the Wahoo brand growing in this region. Others on this forum have fully explained why we donât like it, and I donât think I have seen a single forum user supporting the term as something âfunâ.
I donât think Wahoo would think to make a play on words involving the letters KKK. Many of the European football hooligans of the 1980âs were also white supremacists, and racist, far right/facist ideological extremists.
I understand you are simply the messenger from the company in this forum and nobody here should blame you, or disparage you.
I thank you for continuing to support and post in this forum and for your work in continuing the development and marketing of SYSTM including Sufferlandria. I hope you can take the overwhelming objection in this forum to the term âhooligan back to your corporate marketing bosses if only so that they might consider some more scientific, larger market research in Europe over the brand acceptance.
Once again, many thanks for your help,
Sir Stephen
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Câmon, really??? âOur original definitionâ? FFS.
FWIW, unless Wahoo has been around since 1896, good luck w that.
I am honestly embarrassed for Wahoo corporate at this point. Who is running this $&@# show?
And so sorry sir @Rupert gets run out to deliver this garbage.
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@sabassissore I am in America and certainly never âembracedâ the word. I donât think I am alone here. I came to Wahoo involuntarily when they bought Sufferfest. I find it sad and insulting that they equate my subscription with any level of support for the name.
If that is their position and they remain steadfast in supporting this narrative, they leave an obvious solution for their subscribers, just not one they really want.
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Since everyone is being offended I am offended by the term bicycle since in my youth bicycle was the brand of athletic supporter we were forced to wear in those horrid gym classes.
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Posting without comment (on the really really #&*$, should have been killed off long ago, marketing phrase that somebody somewhere came up with thinking it was clever when it really isnât) but hereâs what ChatGPT came up with when I asked him/her/it to define âWahooliganâ
The term âwahooliganâ is not found in any standard dictionaries and appears to be a invented word that combines âWahooâ and âhooligan.â
âWahooâ is a nickname for the Wahoo fish, a species of mackerel found in tropical and subtropical oceans. It is known for its speed and aggressive behavior when caught by anglers.
âHooliganâ is a term often used to describe a person who engages in unruly or disruptive behavior, typically in a group or as part of a mob.
Therefore, it can be inferred that a âwahooliganâ might refer to someone who displays aggressive or rowdy behavior, potentially in a fishing or sporting context. However, without further context or usage, its meaning may vary.
I donât personally know this ChatGPT person but 
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I totally agree with âkillingâ off this offensive term. Chip should be way more than aware that any form of the word Hooligan is extremely offensive to most Europeans. That makes it way easier for the competition to make inroads and costs the Company goodwill and sales
As to a term to replace it, Iâm at a loss.
Also, Iâve been around for a while and have a degree in Business Management. The name would have never made it out of committee.
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I know this is a new account but until now I couldnât be bothered to set up the separate Wahoo account in order to post. But I have been using âThe Sufferfestâ for many years.
When I first saw the term âWahooliganâ I disliked it. I know that most of the comments refer to how Europeans feel about the term Hooligan, but where I grew up in the U.S. a Hooligan was a teenage criminal; equal to a âHoodlumâ or a JD
So hopefully whomever at Wahoo reads these posts will see this and know that not all Americanâs like the term.
thanks
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Given that ChatGPT is trained by analysing the internet this is strong evidence that the term has zero brand recognition 
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Weâre actually trying to help Wahoo here because we quite like the products both hardware and software and donât want to see the company go bust. (Otherwise I would generally agree about Political Correctness being over done, but this is the world we live in now)
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Wahoo is wrong on this, until the offensive name is dropped you can count me out.
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That is a really good point, actually.
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I think this might have been a core branding decision error⊠the very name. Fish and bicycle, hard to make any snappy connections. Well there is one common expression, ââŠlike a fish needs a bicycleâ, but thatâs not really promising.
Apparently Guinness did an ad campaign featuring fish on bikes, the images are on the internet.
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The saying was a feminist slogan, coined by Irina Dunn , âThat a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.â
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Those slightly longer in the tooth might just remember Yahooligans. This was the kids website of the very popular internet company Yahoo!. It was in very common parlance in the period 1996 - 2006 and I expect was the inspiration for the Wahooligan term. The name did ultimately change to Wahoo Kids and was subsequently shuttered. Those not liking the Wahooligan term will find some irony in the following âŠ
Wikipedia says:
Yahoo! Kids, originally known as Yahooligans!,[3] was founded in March 1996 by Yahoo! to provide children with a venue to find appropriate, safe Internet content.[4] The website was the oldest online search directory for children.[5][6][7] The websiteâs editors stated that Yahoo! Kids was âcool, goofy, fascinating, fun, hysterical, philosophical, surprising, sedate, silly, seismic, popular, obscured, useful, and interestingâ.[5] In October 1999, The New York Times reporter Michelle Slatalla noted that Yahooligans! was a âheavily trafficked siteâ, with 463,000 visitors accessing the website in August 1999.[8] In October 1999, the website received an Alexa Internet rank of 991 out of 22 million content websites.[9]
In 2004, Yahoo! entered into a partnership with DIC Entertainment (now WildBrain) to establish Yahooligans! TV, which gave users access to DICâs 3,000 hours of animated children programs. DIC president Brad Brooks stated that the partnership âoffer[ed] advertisers a cross platform purchaseâ.[4] Yahoo! sold the ads and the revenue from the commercials was split between the two companies.
FWIW, back in March there was a thread about the difference between a Sufferlandrian and a Wahooligan, according to ChatGPT:
Also, keep in mind that ChatGPT is only updated to the webâs goings on as of January, 2022 (from what I can find). But, the first reference to Wahooligan on these forums goes back to June 2020, when the forum was first established:
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Sorta kinda. Remember that the forum was just SUF before it was ever wahoo and that second post you link has been edited 9 times with the last 1 being in 2022 by Sir Cody Moore (ex of The Sufferfest) and, I imagine, it was edited cuz The Company insisted on adding the Wahoolimabob name to it as well as calling it Wahoo X.
See image below:
Also, whatever ChatGPT (which can be manipulated pretty easily) says and whatever The Company says, Iâve personally only come across 1 person who actually, genuinely considers themselves to be a {insert THAT name here}. Neither in the forums nor on FB have I heard a single person say, geez, I really like that name, I hope they donât change it.
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On my calendar, I have reserved a week for the Tour of Sufferlandria.
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