# 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 (@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 (@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 (@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 (@AgogoKaren)\* [4:11]

> "Noted as fuck." — Bagel (@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 (@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:** 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 (@Bagelism)\*:** 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 (@AgogoKaren)\*:** 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" (@BeeCuzFuture)\*:** Veteran with two young kids and dogs terrified of fireworks; offered the grounding perspective on carrying lost people forward.
- **Maha (@Maaaaahhhaaaaa)\*:** 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.

\* Some voices are identified from context; those names are marked as likely.