The Origin of the Statham

1

What's the deal with Statham?

Webster’s Dictionary¹ defines a Statham as:

Jason Statham (ˈjā-sᵊn stā-thəm) n. A British actor who came to prominence in the early 2000s. Star of The Transporter, Crank, and The Meg². Known for formulaic action films, tough guy demeanor, and squinting menacingly.

Most of us became aware of Jason Statham when he punched his way into the new millennium with a series of completely unrelated movies in which he seemed to play the same ex-convict/ex-mercenary/ex-special-ops dude dragged back for one last heist/job/dance. Critics were captivated by this new icon of machismo; so brimming with testosterone that he’d vanquished his own hair follicles. Audiences were enthralled for “the changing face of British cinematic masculinity³” — presumably because he subverted the tough-guy stereotypes by existing as a man under 5’10”.

Stallone, Lundgren, and Van Damme were out, and Statham was in.

Jason Statham has since managed to cultivate an entire action sub-genre unto his own. He’s never strayed far from the cinematic algorithm that brought him success in the first place — and it’s not difficult to understand why. Audiences have not grown tired of him; he continues to be a box-office draw, and his worldwide appeal made him a natural choice as guest star of global tentpoles Fast and the Furious and The Expendables. Clearly, there’s no need for him to fix what isn’t broken.

So we can all be forgiven for thinking that we had him all figured out.
He was about to prove us wrong.

2

But why Stathams?

The first flap of the butterfly’s wing that brought Statham into our workplace was a music video made in 1994 — although it wasn’t uncovered for the broader internet until 2015.

“Oh, a music video from 90s electronic dance pop band The Shamen? Yeah, I think I’ve heard of them.”

Yes. Yes it is.

Look, I know this is a lot to take in. Let's debrief.

What you just saw is renowned Hard Man Jason Statham, pre-fame, at the approximate age of 26.
Working as a backup dancer.
Shiny, gyrating, and wearing only the finest leopard-print undies.

What stuns is the juxtaposition between the image of Statham we have in our hearts versus the image we see before us.
Our Statham is a fully-clothed agent of celluloid violence.
This Statham is a free spirit who reports only to the lords of dance.

And yet, they appear to be the same man.

We are now faced with a choice:

Reject this reality and live in cognitive dissonance, or join these two identities.

3

What's YOUR deal with Statham?

I had to scrape myself off the floor after this legendary find.

Before this, I had truly never given Statham a second thought. And to be perfectly honest — aside from this one cameo, I’m still not a rabid Statham Stan to this day⁴.

It's just that I can’t get into his movies. No offense to the dude’s choices in roles, I just tend to fall asleep in action flicks; I’m really more into female-led body horror. And yeah he’s good-looking — just not really my type; I mean, he’s no first-season-of-Sopranos James Gandolfini.

This video, though. This had piqued my interest.

It’s not often that a celebrity exposé works in their favor. Usually when a famous actor has something unearthed from their past, it’s a disappointment; if not an outright crime. But here we found our celebrity in a happy music video preaching a “message of unity”.

Sure, it’s a slightly cringey message when the band appears to be several Scottish guys speaking in an affected Jamaican patois — but you can ignore them; they’re not the stars of the show anyway.

Statham has gone on record admitting to a series of desperate sales jobs in his youth⁵. We can now safely assume that one of those jobs was the selling of his own image. He may have just been doing this video to make rent.

The important takeaway was that a famed Manly Man was spotted doing something so fabulously out of character, with nary a hint of mocking in his delivery.

What we see here just may be the one true example of Machismo that Hollywood is always getting wrong.

A Man fights to live, certainly; but too often we forget of the symbolic fight.
A Man need not karate-kick his way to survival.
A Man chooses to provide for himself and/or his family.
A Man will take pride in his craft: he will treat any paying gig as a serious responsibility, and an opportunity to prove his work ethic.
A Man casts no judgment on the choices of the costume department, and treats their work with respect.
A Man earns an honest dollar by greasing himself up and feeling the beat.

I was overjoyed. It simply made me happy. It was the most pure and wholesome reminder that we all contain multitudes.

4

Emojicultural Anthropology

Please allow a brief interlude to consider: the Slack Reacts^TM.

For those of you who enjoy a blissful existence away from a screen: Slack is an employer-maintained collection of groupchats between you and everyone you work with — including a secret groupchat with everyone in the company but you.

Let’s first observe an ordinary message.

This message doesn't immediately look like something that would invite interaction, right? But it does! Unfortunately, you have to actually hover over it or click on it first in order to see that you can add your own emoji reaction to it. This icon , an ancient hieroglyphic symbol for "add emoji", is hidden by default. Ugh, it sure would be nice if somebody made this easier, wouldn’t it?

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere! Someone has helped us out by adding a reaction. Once that seal has been broken, the icon becomes a convenient permanent fixture below the message. So in true capitalist fashion: wealth begets wealth. The more reacts earned, the easier it is to earn even more.

But oh no - now we run into the issue of what to do with that emoji-adder option once it's visible to us. As soon as we click it, it opens up a complex popup with too many options to choose from. You could try narrowing the selection, but that would require using your filthy phalanges to type and search for something that satisfies you.

That sounds like a lot of cognitive load. Isn't there an easier way?

Indeed there is! You can piggyback off of someone else's hard work by simply smashing the emoji that they already added. That's the pattern you will most often see. I mean, think about it — is one emoji ever really going to encapsulate everything people would want to say? Or is it that people simply want to acknowledge they’ve seen a message, and then move on with their busy lives?

Of course, not everyone is satisfied with the first emoji. They may want to acknowledge the message with a more personal touch, so they might click the first emoji and then opt to add a different one. Subsequent visitors may feel the same.

Hence why it’s very common to see a distribution with the largest number of reactions on the first emoji, descending in number to the last emoji — like 38, 10, 9, 8, 6, 4, 4, 1. It’s fibonacci emojinacci.

Every react-worthy message on Slack acts as its own microcosm of human behavior — but nowhere is this more evident than in a channel where users are restricted from posting messages of their own.

The appeal of having a channel where only a few people can post is that a select few patricians can occasionally bless the mass of plebeians with a message from above. There is to be no discussion in this channel — the unwashed hordes are simply deigned the ability to add their commentary in the form of a 16px square icon.

If you're among the restricted group and you feel a strong urge to engage with the message in a deeper fashion, this arrangement can feel a little futile — like adding your signature to a change.org petition.
It's especially limiting if you have the kind of employer who bans custom emoji uploads (?!), in which case you should hand in your resignation immediately.

If you do have the ability to provide your own custom imagery, then this arrangement is merely an opportunity to flex your innovation muscles and start creating.

5

A Statham Experiment

My interest in this subject is influenced by being a hobbyist emoji-smith/emojineer, having provided a disturbing amount of emojis to my slack workspaces. If I haven’t already made it clear: emoji reaction behavior fascinates me.

I love seeing the patterns that emerge from the race to a first-react. This coveted ranking holds such an important job of setting the tone for future reacts. As we discovered earlier: if the emoji of the first-reaction is generic and all-encompassing enough, then most followers will feel comfortable joining its sentiment.

But what if the first emoji is not generic?

What if the first emoji was so outlandishly unexpected so as to encourage users to go to the trouble of selecting a new emoji, lest their reputation be scarred by association?

Could this first emoji be so jarring as to achieve majority emoji avoidance?

As it just so happened: I had the perfect imagery to test this in a rigorous experiment.

I worked out all the scientific steps: question, abstract, proletariat, bibliography, cumberbatch, research, control group.

The experiment would be conducted in the most logical place possible: the official internal communications channel for a large publicly-traded company.

Off to the announcements channel I went. Lurking in the bushes, notifications on, waiting to pounce to get the freshest first-react.

And so the research began.

The results were immediate, and they could not have been more satisfying.

Majority emoji avoidance had been achieved.

Just look at that last jump. 98 people avoided the Statham. This was endlessly amusing to me. I imagined 98 people stopping in their tracks — suddenly unsure of what clicking on a greasy speedoed man might say about their decision-making abilities as an employee.
For the record: it would be a fantastic choice; one to put on your promo packet.

6

The Stathaming

Once I finally stopped celebrating, I calmed down and assessed the findings of this experiment. Sure, seeing people sidestep Statham was very funny and appealed to my inner troll - but I couldn’t ignore the implications.

Deep down, I felt defensive of this emoji-child I had birthed unto the slack-space. It was as if all the raucous laughter in the room was dying down, and I was suddenly realizing that the people were laughing at Statham, not with him.

I knew then that the experiment had been a failure.

This was a symbol of something that had brought me immeasurable joy over the years, and I had failed to help others see it the same way.

As its caretaker, I was hardwired to love it unconditionally. Plus, I had the benefit of context — whereas others may have only seen a regrettably tiny image with hardly enough detail to convey a dancing person who may or may not have been inexplicably nude.

I just needed to supply the context, and help others get to know Statham better.

I’m a firm believer that anyone who hates an entire genre has simply not found any good examples of said genre. Like - oh, you hate all rap and country music? Really? You’ve heard everything they have to offer and have decided to impugn several industries? Try again.

The same can be said for emoji. When I see people declare their hatred for an emoji I’ve added, I like to upload at least ten more unique and fun variations of it. Sure, it’s a little contrarian and petty, but I guarantee there’s something in this game for everybody: it’s just a matter of finding something that will suit their tastes. I’ve gotten fairly good at finding ways to delight people with this method and, ultimately, win them over.

What can I say? I like to fight fire with (friendly) fire.

For some, perhaps it’s just a matter of finding their favorite color:

:color-statham-1-red:

:color-statham-2-orange:

:color-statham-3-yellow:

:color-statham-4-green:

:color-statham-5-cyan:

:color-statham-6-blue:

:color-statham-7-purple:

:color-statham-8-pink:

Maybe the sports fans would like a series of Stathams to do The Wave:

:statham-wave-1:

:statham-wave-2:

:statham-wave-3:

:statham-wave-4:

:statham-wave-5:

:statham-wave-6:

I've also decided he's a queer icon:

:statham-bg-flag-rainbow:

:statham-flag-rainbow:

:statham-bg-flag-trans:

:statham-flag-trans:

:statham-bg-flag-bisexual:

:statham-flag-bisexual:

:statham-bg-flag-lesbian:

:statham-flag-lesbian:

:statham-bg-flag-aromantic:

:statham-flag-aromantic:

:statham-bg-flag-asexual:

:statham-flag-asexual:

:statham-bg-flag-gay-man-pride:

:statham-flag-gay-man-pride:

:statham-bg-flag-nonbinary:

:statham-flag-nonbinary:

:statham-bg-flag-pansexual:

:statham-flag-pansexual:

You might want him to help you say a quick word:

:sorry-statham:

:done-statham:

:brb-statham:

:yup-statham:

:yes-statham:

:bye-statham:

:thanks-statham:

:this-statham:

:please-statham:

:nbd-statham:

:new-statham:

:nice-statham:

:no-statham:

:nope-statham:

:maybe-statham:

:sale-statham:

:same-statham:

:ktlo-statham:

:welcome-statham:

:hello-statham:

:here-statham:

:stonks-statham:

:hi-statham:

:100-statham:

:gay-statham:

:get-well-soon-statham:

:i'm-so-sorry-for-your-loss-statham:

:statham-sign-statham:

A Statham alphabet can help everyone express themselves (available for Slack at https://cyanharlow.bitbucket.io/):

:alphastatham-a:

:alphastatham-b:

:alphastatham-c:

:alphastatham-d:

:alphastatham-e:

:alphastatham-f:

:alphastatham-g:

:alphastatham-h:

:alphastatham-i:

:alphastatham-j:

:alphastatham-k:

:alphastatham-l:

:alphastatham-m:

:alphastatham-n:

:alphastatham-o:

:alphastatham-p:

:alphastatham-q:

:alphastatham-r:

:alphastatham-s:

:alphastatham-t:

:alphastatham-u:

:alphastatham-v:

:alphastatham-w:

:alphastatham-x:

:alphastatham-y:

:alphastatham-z:

And it’s important to have Stathams from all walks of life:

:nurse-statham:

:cowboy-statham:

:beekeeper-statham:

:fireman-statham:

:spaceman-statham:

:business-statham:

:goalie-statham:

:mad-scientist-statham:

:magician-statham:

:this-is-fine-statham:

:ticket-statham:

:toad-statham:

:tom-walker-statham-speedo:

:trello-taco-statham:

:typescript-statham:

:ukrainian-statham-zelensky:

:umbrella-statham:

:vacation-statham:

:vote-statham:

:wizard-statham:

:yay-fox-statham:

:yubikey-statham:

:90s-aerobics-statham:

:adelaide-chrome-statham:

:adg-statham-dance-mcb:

:adg-statham-dance-scottf:

:adjacent-statham:

:amaze-statham:

:android-statham:

:announcement-statham:

:approval-statham:

:artist-statham:

:astronaut-statham:

:atlassian-ace-on-statham:

:atlassian-charlie-statham:

:atlassian-statham:

:avocado-statham:

:awesome-statham:

:bad-poker-face-statham:

:bee-statham:

:birthday-statham:

:blob-statham:

:bongo-statham:

:brownbag-statham:

:buff-doge-statham:

:burndown-chart-statham:

:cancelled-statham:

:chef-statham:

:chorus-line-statham:

:chris-rock-statham:

:will-smith-statham:

:christmas-elf-statham:

:cocktail-statham:

:coffee-statham:

:cone-of-shame-statham:

:confetti-statham:

:crying-statham:

:dementor-statham:

:disapproval-statham:

:dj-statham:

:double-booked-statham:

:eating-statham:

:evening-statham:

:excite-statham:

:fire-statham:

:flow-statham:

:french-statham:

:friday-statham:

:frozen-statham:

:gorilla-statham:

:grim-reaper-statham:

:groovy-statham:

:hot-statham:

:hype-statham:

:jason-statham-rainbow-glow:

:jason-statham-transparent-mirror:

:jason-statham-transparent:

:jason-statham:

:jason-stathaming:

:json-statham:

:kuchikopi-statham:

:laugh-cry-statham:

:lifting-statham:

:link-statham:

:lol-statham:

:marge-statham:

:meow-link-statham:

:michael-myers-statham:

:michael-rosen-statham:

:mike-vtfm-statham:

:minecraft-statham:

:mongo-statham:

:morning-statham:

:mufasa-statham:

:nerd-statham:

:oodie-statham:

:panic-statham:

:party-parrot-statham:

:party-statham:

:poker-face-statham:

:rofl-statham:

:rosie-the-riveter-statham:

:sad-panda-statham:

:sailor-statham:

:scream-statham:

:serious-statham:

:single-ladies-statham:

:smoking-statham:

:splashing-statham:

:spooky-statham:

:stabilized-statham:

:statham-bongo:

:statham-centipede:

:statham-heart:

:statham-jasoning:

:statham-petting-cat-and-dog:

:statham-rainbow-transparent:

:statham-rainbow:

:statham-shadow:

:statham-statham:

:statham-transparent:

:stathambs-up-left:

:stathambs-up:

:stupid-sexy-flanders-statham:

:sweaty-statham:

:tada-statham:

:tasmanian-statham:

:mario-statham:

:luigi-statham:

:waluigi-statham:

:princess-peach-statham:

:yoshi-statham:

:hotdog-statham:

:potato-statham:

:stat-ham-can-statham:

:banana-statham:

:lightbulb-out-statham:

:lightbulb-statham:

:devil-statham:

:angel-statham:

:terrier-chihuahua-dog-statham:

:chihuahua-dog-statham:

:brown-tabby-cat-statham:

:white-cat-statham:

:gray-cat-statham:

:orange-cat-statham:

:chungus-statham:

:black-cat-statham:

:matrix-cat-statham:

:shrug-statham:

:done_statham:

:i'm-a-little-teapot--statham:

:is-this-a-pigeon-statham:

:scared-statham:

:hear-no-statham:

:see-no-statham:

:speak-no-statham:

:super-slow-statham:

:slow-statham:

:jason-statham-transparent:

:fast-statham:

:super-fast-statham:

And finally, for the hesitant - a refreshingly blank canvas with just a hint of Statham - the La Croix of Stathams:

:stickman-statham:

:moderately-minimal-statham:

:semi-minimalist-statham:

:minimalist-statham:

:invisible-statham:

And of course, I’ll continue to create more iterations - just to ensure that everyone can find a Statham that speaks to them.

My lofty goal is that one day Statham will join the ranks of 🤣, 😃, 🎉, and 💗. May he one day be seen as a symbol of celebration and joy.

Acknowledgments

Having read this far, you may have helped me to achieve my goal.

This has been an ongoing project, and my journey to making it a reality has been aided by so many people along the way.

To the members on Slack who supported this journey, you are the real heroes.

To the members who were my backup in the race-to-first-react: you are the MVPs.

And to countless others who aren’t forgotten in my heart (but may be inadvertently forgotten on this blog), a loving to you all.

I hope everyone will feel proud to click on a Statham react and join his dance party.

Works cited

1. ^Jason Statham. In E. M. Sanchez (Ed.), Merriam-Webster. Brown, J. (2020).
2. ^IMDB.com. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
3. ^"Scholars tackle soaraway success of Jason Statham". Times Higher Education (THE). 21 December 2017
4. ^"Local Idiot Insists That A Several-Thousand-Word Essay is Insufficient Evidence of Fandom". Self-Awareness Weekly, June 2022
5. ^"Jason Statham, for Your Amusement". Esquire. 26 May 2015.