I called the dude who runs the shop earlier this morning and kind of figured out why the fuck up.
Apparently absolutely none of the locals knew the exact circumstances of Pablo's passing. I'm guessing they, as well as many people from non-English speaking countries, only got the bad news from some bullshit medium where most substance gets diluted, i.e. IG stories. From what I understood, they all thought Pablo had passed doing something 'glorious' such as filming for GX1000 the whole time, consciously taking high risks doing what he loved. When I told them it all went down on flat ground as he was casually skitching back from Jesse Vieira's trial, they sounded flabbergasted and the extent of the poor form seemed to click for them.
Despite the appearances, the shop claims to have a lot of respect for GX1000, and has been working with the brand since the day it became one or so they told me. They did admit to being embarrassed by both the shirt and clip prior to putting it up (with full emphasis on that one shithead...), but I'll get to that.
People overseas will always have a less direct and more foreign, and romanticized perception and interpretation of entities and events (of any kind) than locals. In this case I think this is a side effect of GX1000's edgy image having been promoted so much (as far as in pop culture - GQ etc...), the associated guys have reached myth status to some people who are vulnerable to that shit, and developed some kind of hero persona that transcends their own names and existences. To a lot of uneducated people in the world who never had any real life interaction with their role models, those dudes are just names who might as well be mere notions or cartoon characters instead of living physical persons which is indeed wrong and disrespectful, but common when you're young and have never done interesting in your life I guess. My point being, it's definitely easy for people who are completely disconnected (geographically and culturally) from a situation to entertain their little fantasy world with whatever little strong news they might grasp, and form their distorted representation of everything that may shockingly contrast with actual reality.
The kid is a nobody who just so happens to be tight with the locals and showed up that day. Definitely the dumb kind to look for attention with shock value and he actually did get some on the spot. According to the shop, when they got the footage back from that day they were actually bummed (again, with everybody assuming Pablo's passing had to do with taking risks whilst doing something for GX and mystifying the story), and spent a while asking people around the shop whether or not it would be acceptable to post such a clip. They were iffy about using it, but also about the idea of potentially 'censoring' something (not a bad trait as it's what led up to exposing the kid's stupidity eventually; hopefully it'll open his eyes on how much he blows it). I'm guessing the people they consulted knew even less about Pablo than they did, who had to talk out of their asses, convince them it was cool and they should try and run with it as a tribute or some amateur bullshit. So there definitely was confusion on the shop's end.
I'm just being the messenger providing their take on this (as well as my own analysis...) in case people might be interested. By no means am I trying to justify any of the shit that went down. Regardless of the circumstances of one's passing, such reappropriation is always uncalled for. To be fair, it's not the first time I catch a shop 'trying to pay tribute to pspliff' by doing bogus shit such as posting the photos of the actual accident covered up with little emojis in their stories. Unprofessional as all hell but in such a case, I think it's the confused skaters' hearts trying to express something over the businesses they are supposed to represent - just doing it all wrong and on the wrong IG accounts. From an outside perspective it conveys the idea that shops want to capitalize on a recent human tragedy they have nothing to do with, which is a horrible look, but in most cases I can really distinguish mostly thick confusion and awkwardness.
Now the kid's situation is different. Dude showed up like that that day knowing he was going to be around skaters, and filmed. It's clear cultural reappropriation as an attempt to make his vanilla ass stand out, and get reactions. I'm glad he got exposed and called out on his shit, and just looking at his IG I think he might in need of some kind of mental help. That 'joke' he scribbled on his shirt, I could never see myself try and pull whilst sane. How one's heart doesn't stop upon them just writing down such absurd trash is beyond me.
The shop just put up a new version of the clip without the references, although the kid is still in there but without the close-ups on his shirt. I'm supposed to write a recap article featuring the clips all the participating shops sent Vans that's coming out tomorrow. I'll include the clip, but will call the kid out in the article and link to this thread.
Since I'm doing that, I also got an apology email from Vans even though they (nor I) had nothing direct to do with the whole ordeal in the first place besides sponsoring the event; the clip hadn't gotten their approval. The guys are clear and I'd say the shop definitely did shit all wrong this time, but they've realized it and in general a lot of stuff had gone over their heads (thinking of it now, I don't believe any French media ever really described Pablo's accident, and on SLAP we probably know way more about it than the general public); it's really mostly on the kid for scribbling nonsense on himself without having one fucking clue about life to begin with.
TLDR - shop basically had no one around to explain the extent of the meaning of the shirt to them. Vans is sorry even though they never directly had anything to do with this. It's on the kid for being the one bringing up someone's name into his bullshit and thinking pro skaters are basically stars belonging to pop culture as opposed to fellow human beings I assume. Fucked.
Topic: Truck 1, huh? The rudest shit I've ever seen. Cancel this dude, and the shop. (Read 12205 times)