Contrarian-ism

Around Halloween, I get excited about haunted houses, Halloween parties, and other various Halloween-themed extravaganzas, especially in LA where there are theme parks that dedicate their attractions to the glorious (and gory) occasion, including Universal Halloween Horror Nights, Knotts Scary Farm, Halloween Haunted Hayride (near Griffith Park/ zoo) area. Then I’m immediately reminded how crowded these things get and how people go there because of the hype and coolness of Halloween, surging in on the wings of hype and popularity, much like the “everyone’s doing it!”

A lot can be said to be contrarian. Examples of going contrarian vary from the stock market to sports betting to scheduling lunch hours to everyday daily life, including such counterintuitive but definitely worth-it acts like Go to Disneyland on a Tuesday,  go against the really hot stock that everyone says to buy now, go against the really public NFL team on Sunday like the Dallas Cowboys or Green Bay Packers, go to lunch during non-peak hours like 3PM or 11AM so that the restaurants aren’t packed, talk to the member of the opposite sex that is alone and not being talked to by other potential suitors, etc.

Basically, do what other people aren’t doing. This takes some courage as it has the high risk of backfiring spectacularly and you looking like an idiot if it doesn’t work out (see betting on the Jacksonville Jaguars the last few years), but it really does have inherent value, just in the fact that other people haven’t pumped up its value to where the popular option is overinflated. There’s really nothing I like better than getting through traffic really quickly at 9:30AM when rush hour has died down, or sneaking out of a restaurant with my food in hand at 11:30AM while seeing the lunch crowd starting to form, or going to a sporting event the game after a big game where the stakes aren’t as high but the venue and the game is just as real.

The coup de grat of contrarianism, of course, is grabbing the waiver wire add in fantasy football that no one really cares about but has almost just as much value as the hot waiver wire grab. The 2 HUGE waiver wire targets this week were Anthony Dixon and Bryce Brown, co-running back committee members who everybody and their mother were picking up (literally everyone has the same information and everybody knew that these 2 guys were excellent pickups after CJ Spiller and Fred Jackson went down last week). It also doesn’t take much skill to get these guys. Contrarianism requires a certain amount of finesse, of skill, of the confidence to know that while you’re not getting the best option for $100, you’re getting an almost-as-good option for less than the $70 inherent value and thus getting the better value. It’s similar to getting just as good results with the generic toothpaste as the brand-name, everyone’s-gotta-have-it toothpaste. And it’s good on your wallet/ FAAB budget/time allotment cuz time’s the most valuable resource. Instead, get the bargain Stepfan Taylor (who scored 2 TD’s last week as a goal-line vulture to the banged-up Andre ellington) who might be just as good and doesn’t cost as much.

Contrarinism. Try it. Or don’t because you want to be contrary to what I’m doing.

 

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan