We've already lost most what we used to love about skateboarding, shops are all we have left, and if it's Nike and Adidas that sustain them, well then so be it.
That was an otherwise excellent post, but I kind of naively disagree with this bit. I don't believe in 'things we used to love about skateboarding' because obviously the act of skateboarding for personal reasons in whatever way one feels like is still there and won't go away, regardless of the flavor of the month that type of fundamental freedom is timeless. People everywhere in the world still skate out of love and create amazing productions (video, merch etc.) out of that same love, which is the type of productions-made-products skateshops originally used to carry or at least, were ideally meant to support back when most didn't have to turn into shoe stores. Independent productions are still going strong and the Internet makes that prevalent every day if one knows where to look.
I'll reiterate but one thing I have against those big corps in skating is their aggressive marketing, they've been monopolizing entire stores and media outlets (to the point where every article is intended to double up as ad space, when there is always so much independent stuff coming out that should be considered) by forcing them into a mainstream race and that's been at the expense of the other, less profitable, yet more organic productions the shops could have been carrying, and the media could have been covering. Essentially they successfully eliminated most of the grassroots competition (which had indeed set up everything just right for them to do just that, like you were saying) only to make themselves the major, when not sole source of income for those enterprises, nowadays they're pretty much cupping their balls with every interaction, barely disguising that they might or might not stop giving a shit soon; in the meantime magazines are filled with commercial articles, the kids' heads are filled with logos and bullshit stories on how it's actually this brand or that brand that singlehandedly defined skateboarding first (... the jokes), the shops are filled with product they don't want and can't sell. Fuck, even videos are filled with dudes skating in shoes most of them would probably never go out of their way to purchase if they weren't showered in free pairs. That's actually just slowly burning the cred and interest of those publications and shops because no one likes being subjected to blatant advertising; too many swooshes and side stripes in a magazine not just in ad space but also in the contents to the point where it feels forced (hint: it's been for a decade) and the magazine loses their readership, too many of them in a shop and it jeopardizes the future of the shop (because then what, the companies will either pull the plug eventually, or offer to buy your store?). And those companies won't care about their demise because they'll have moved onto the next three skater-ran enterprises to leech on then fuck over by then already.
Options have been eliminated and skater-ran enterprises (unless they choose to remain focused on the underground and smaller distros) now have a very limited source of companies to do business with and even then the pressure is always on that it's barely a temporary safety net. It's short-term safety after short-term safety with complete disregard of the actual culture of skateboarding (e.g.. how it's actually practiced by skaters throughout the world to this day and not just in a fantasy world where pick-a-company reigns supreme) as well as its activists. But a lot of people are so used to getting fucked, it's almost like they no longer even feel it, let alone consider alternative options to maybe keep skating more than just a business and avoid getting fucked.
Skaters have always been into shooting themselves in the foot anyway. First the skater-owned brands feeling so complacent they thought they could fuck skaters over (not so fond memories of that two-year-long phase during which the glue on éS shoes wouldn't even hold up for a session, or all the switches in factories in the mid 00's etc.), then (for some) choosing not to give a shit about the consequences of buying Janoski's only to come back crying when the first handful of skate brands started to tank, then by settling for the easy route and trusting outside corporations to fund everything (in metropolitan areas...) for them. And now the industry is pretty much hanging on by a hair to just a few of those guys' balls who might or might not scratch the itch as soon as it starts feeling uncomfortable, and in the meantime everyone's panicking to stay afloat and aligning themselves with the most sterile shit, leaving no room to anything else, hoping not to be the first ones to get cut. The reoccurring problem every time? Short-term thinking.
Well that's too long of a bitter post already...
Topic: Seen It On #SkateTwitter: “Adidas Skateboarding Chopped Their Entire Sales Team” (Read 12353 times)