Traditions, Table Tennis, and Fireworks
Host: Superhighgasfees ❤️ (@SHGFees) · Sat, 4 Jul 2026 · ~27 min · 5 speakers
TL;DR
- A pop-up Fourth of July Space that started in grief and ended in ping pong smack talk. The host opened up about a friend he lost to suicide roughly a year ago, and the room turned it into a plan to honor him at NFT NYC.
- Sho (likely @AgogoKaren) floated turning that honoring into a recurring tradition — a drink, a game, something the friend would have wanted — every year at the conference.
- Bagel (likely @Bagelism) revealed a full second life as a competitive ping pong player and cheerfully appointed himself the man to beat, spawning an extended contest of trash talk.
- BeeCuzFuture (likely @BeeCuzFuture), a veteran, tied it together: the people we lose stay with us in the habits and traits we carry forward.
- Everyone signed off to go watch fireworks, wrangle terrified dogs, and, in the host's case, walk down to the pier with his brother.
Highlights
[0:26] What's behind the PFP. Sho reflects on why these Spaces work: you never know what's behind an anonymous avatar, and hearing someone's story lets you realize someone else has been through what you have. It set the tone for a room that spent the hour trading hearts.
[1:00] The host on why he almost skipped NFT NYC. He explains that a friend took his life around NFT NYC last year, and he'd attached the whole event to that loss — until he decided that going and celebrating the friend's life, rather than staying home to grieve, was part of moving forward.
[3:05] Building a tradition out of it. Bagel offers to say a prayer, and Sho pushes it further — go get a drink, do something the friend loved, surrounded by people who know the story: "that could even start a tradition." The friend, it turns out, was a table tennis guy, which is where the whole afternoon quietly pivots.
[4:11] "Isn't that ping pong?" Sho's deadpan fact-check of "table tennis" is the hinge of the episode. Bagel confirms there are dedicated ping pong lounges in New York — a place in Flatiron called Spin, 20-30 tables, two bars, "a ping pong dojo with a bar" — and reveals he plays there in a league.
[6:10–13:45] Bagel, secretly an athlete. What begins as a chill stoner-collector persona gives way to a genuinely detailed ping pong résumé: standing five or six feet back from the table, hitting backspin and topspin, playing multiple grips, a backhand as good as his forehand. He promises a "clinic," and Sho promptly promises to kick his ass and put him in the corner.
[11:15] "Noted as fuck." Bagel accepts the challenge in the vocabulary of his old fraternity pledge master, which lands hard enough that the host just repeats it back in disbelief. The bit spirals into a mock "ping pong funeral" for whoever loses.
[14:01] The man who beats people with a phone. Sho threatens to play with her foot; Bagel counters that he can play with the bottom of his phone — and that Wally, the pro who owns the place, once beat him 11–0 using the back of his phone. Sho announces she's going to go microwave her bagel.
[16:00] Carrying them forward. BeeCuzFuture, drawing on loss among his veteran friends, offers the afternoon's steadiest thought: over time you notice a habit you got from your mom, a trait you carry from your friend — "the people that matter to us, they're still here with us." The host answers with a quiet story of feeling his friend's presence one day while driving, the first moment he really accepted it.
[21:29] "You just called him fat." Bagel compliments Maha for living large at all the fancy NFT dinners, and Sho catches the pivot mid-sentence: she thought he was building to praise, but no — he just called him fat. Maha takes it in stride as the room's competitive-soccer contingent gets outed.
[24:32] Bagel's apology that wasn't needed. He closes by worrying he made the space too much about himself — "I'm a bit of a yapper" — and gets told, warmly, not to apologize: sharing hearts is the whole point. Maha co-signs, telling him to stop being shy and "shill yourself hard."
Topic timeline
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 0:00–3:00 | Grief, honoring lost loved ones, why the host nearly skipped NFT NYC |
| 3:00–4:30 | Starting a tradition; the table-tennis memory of the friend |
| 4:30–14:30 | Bagel's ping pong lounge life, technique, and escalating trash talk |
| 14:30–16:00 | Wrapping the ping pong plan; hotel-reservation nagging |
| 16:00–17:50 | Carrying loss forward (BeeCuz); the host feeling his friend's presence |
| 17:50–21:15 | Fourth of July traditions — fireworks, skittish dogs, family, soccer |
| 21:15–23:00 | Roasting Maha, Larry Bird philosophy, golf and driving-range challenges |
| 23:00–27:00 | Closing thoughts, gratitude, "shill yourself," goodbyes |
Notable quotes
"Isn't that ping pong? Yeah, okay, just checking." — Sho (likely @AgogoKaren) [4:11]
"Noted as fuck." — Bagel (likely @Bagelism), accepting a ping pong challenge [11:12]
"He 11'd me with the back of his phone… He's a pro. It's crazy." — Bagel, on lounge owner Wally [14:18]
"The people that matter to us, they're still here with us. We carry them forward." — BeeCuzFuture (likely @BeeCuzFuture) [16:xx]
"I thought you were gonna praise him on being out there, but no, you just called him fat." — Sho [21:29]
"Everyone's gotta learn a thing or two from Larry Bird… be a garbage man, go play sports and talk your shit." — Bagel [21:48]
Who said what
- Superhighgasfees ❤️ (@SHGFees) — host (Speaker 1): Ran the pop-up, opened up about losing a friend to suicide, and shaped the day's throughline of honoring him at NFT NYC before slipping off to watch fireworks on the beach.
- Bagel (likely @Bagelism, Speaker 2): The afternoon's engine — grieving a beloved woman one minute, delivering ping pong trash talk the next, and closing with an over-earnest apology for "yapping."
- Sho (likely @AgogoKaren, Speaker 4): Cohost calling in from Hawaii, dog-wrangler on firework duty, and the room's chief instigator — she named the honor-a-friend tradition and started the ping pong roast.
- BeeCuzFuture / "Dan" (likely @BeeCuzFuture, Speaker 5): Veteran with two young kids and dogs terrified of fireworks; offered the grounding perspective on carrying lost people forward.
- Maha (likely @Maaaaahhhaaaaa, Speaker 3): Longtime regular and lifelong soccer player who praised how open the space had become — and gracefully absorbed being called both fat and competitive.
Worth a full listen
- [10:57–14:20] The full ping pong sequence — Bagel's clinic promise, the "noted as fuck" exchange, Wally-with-a-phone, and Sho threatening to microwave her bagel — moves too fast to quote cleanly and is best heard as one escalating bit.
- [16:00–17:50] BeeCuz's reflection on loss straight into the host's story of feeling his friend's presence while driving — the emotional heart of the room, and the reason the tradition talk matters.
- [24:32–26:47] The closing round of gratitude, where Bagel apologizes for sharing too much and the whole room refuses to let him — "we share our hearts" — before scattering to fireworks and family.