(VIDEOS) Air Guitar World Championships Are Here! Are You Ready To Fake-Rock?!

We've all had dreams of being a rock star. Getting on stage, grabbing a pick, slinging the guitar over you, stepping up to the microphone and screaming (insert city name). But most of us won't take the time, practice and callus pain of learning to play guitar to reach that point.

Enter the Air Guitar World Championships, happening now in Finland. For the first time since 2019, the event is in-person and contestants from all over are tuning their nothing and stepping up to the stage to astound audiences with flails, kicks, strums and long hair.

The event got started back in 1996 in an attempt to "promote world peace". The way their website explains it: “Wars will end, climate change will stop and all bad things will vanish when all the people in the world play the air guitar”. Obviously they need to try a little harder, but we are here for the effort.

Back in 2019, an American named Rob "The Marquis" Messel took the top prize, and he will be competing once again this year.

Rob learned about taking Air Guitar seriously in, of all places, the US Army. A friend he met from basic sent him a YouTube video. It was of a friend of his who was the three-time Chicago Air Guitar Champion. His name? Nordic Thunder. How perfect.

Rob visited Chicago a while later, saw one of the show, and he was hooked. Now, years later, he has become the top of the air guitar world, taking his faxe (fake axe guitar) to new heights. In honor of his greatness, we've found some of the best air guitar performances the internet could find so we can all revel in greatness.