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and I always thought his marketability was limited at best given his gangly looks and his nerdy personality. But what do I know?





you sound gay as shit...dude's a dolphin and i dont even follow nor care about that shit.





Hey, I agree that he is one hell of a swimmer. His record 8 Gold Medals will likely not be broken anytime soon, if ever. The comment I made about his marketability was in reference to all the clowns in the media saying how he basically pissed away millions and millions of dollars (like upper 8 figures) in endorsements. I just don't see how he ever would have gotten to that figure. Forgive my evaluation of his looks and personality, but thank God I don't spend time evaluating men, so I had to wing it in reflecting my views about how much he really stood to gain in marketing. Fact of the matter is that he is a product of all the sacrifices that he had to make in training to be a world class swimmer, and he didn't have the luxery of having much of a social life during the many years of training that he has had to put in, which is why he comes across as being socially awkward to many people. But still he tries to be a normal young man and fit in, which is clearly reflected in what happened in the bong incident. However, none of this detracts from what he has done as a swimmer. Clearly, he is the greatest swimmer of all time (atleast one of the greatest anyway), and as such, any talk of filing criminal charges against a man who made so many sacrifices in bringing so much glory and excitement to his country is the real crime here.

However, you have to admit that our society tends to reward looks (and annoying, over the top personalities) over talent. Just look at the state of the music industry today for example. That's why I doubt he would have gotten anywhere near 100 million dollars in endorsements (which is a number some members of the media have thrown out), which in no way dismisses his worthiness of that amount in endorsements. I mean, I think most people would have said he deserved that much and more.