spoko

Somewhere, somehow, a long time ago, my brothers, friends and I were playing dota.

It began as any other regular night - a team of warriors gathered on ventrilo, fingers hovering ready over the "asdf" keys, eyes pinned intently on the monitor. Little did any of us know that the seemingly routine gameplay and chat would quickly turn into a fateful occurrence.

The war began. Battles were fought. Blood was shed. But the inevitable was just that, inevitable. Our team could not possibly lose, and we continued to trounce our opposition. Sadly, there happened to be one player on the other team who was playing like a fool. And of course the rest of his team was giving him lip for it.

Team: hey do us a favour?
Fool: lol?
Team: stop embarrassing yourself and gtfo.
Fool: lololol.
Team: do you even speak english?
Fool: lawl.
Team: whatever, you're terrible at this game, you should just quit.
Fool: spoko!

PAUSE.

What did he say? spoko? Unless i'm very much mistaken, that word is not from the english dictionary. Now the next part is a bit fuzzy for me, I'll admit i don't completely remember how we obtained the meaning of this new mystery word. But whether we searched it on the internet or we asked the fool what he was trying to say; we did. Actually, it now occurs to me that we couldn't have asked him, seeing as his vocabulary in the english language consisted solely of different spellings of the word "lol". Which i believe is barely a word anyways. But that's besides the point.

spoko: to do one's best based on what's expected of them.

I'll be honest and say that i don't really know what the second part of that definition really means. But i really like the first part. And i love like how the word sounds.

Mind you, after the fool said "spoko", he went on to play even more terribly than before, and his team members never let up on him. Regardless of this, the word has stuck with me ever since. Maybe it's because it was a short and easy way of saying something lighthearted. Maybe it's because every time i hear or say the word, i picture a funny little foreign man with beady eyes playing games at his computer and saying "lawl spoko!". Or maybe i simply like how the word spoko sounds.

I kinda feel like this awesome little word applies to a lot of things that happen in life. Now that i've obtained this powerful new word. You will not hear me stop using it. And if you see me chuckle when i do, you can take part in picturing funny little foreign men with me.

When you're terrible at dota, and nobody appreciates you... juspoko!