My point is that the whole dynamic is potentially dangerous and undemocratic. Did you read my whole text or did you just selectively pick out a sentence to write about? I completely agree with your goal, which is to combat racism and ignorance. I am very sceptical that the means of annonymous social media callouts are the right one.
Honest question: Would you be for a kind of rider's manual (like the one powell had in place at one time), where sponsored skaters would agree to guidlines of what they were able to say in public and whenever a phone could be recording them?
Ah and once again, because I love writing it: Fuck that stupid jock asshole Brandon Biebel!
My first question would be how do you define democracy within the market? I'd argue that the market is inherently undemocratic, since we all have dramatically different levels of power. The only aspect that even remotely relates to democracy, since none of us can vote on who is sponsored, is we (sort of) "vote" through our purchases and our collective community sentiment towards a skater. How do we democratically push a company to hold it's skaters responsible? Should we create new laws through our gov. representatives in the legislature and/or via propositions? How do we hold individual responsible for legal but shitty actions? (I'm not sure what Beibel did is 100% legal, but I'm not a lawyer or a cop.)
As for a guide, I think Powell's guide was overkill and it was part of the reason Mike V. left, but I don't think it'd be a terrible idea for the companies to sit their riders down and say, "The days when a sympathetic writer or editor edited out the beyond stupid shit you say is partially over. Do whatever the hell you want on social media but for fuck's sake don't be dumb and post racist or sexist shit. And, don'tshow yourself cheering on an attacker who is beating a mental I'll dude."
The TMs know that the dudes aren't there because they're smart (altough some might be brilliant). They're there because they can skate, are personable, have a sellable image, and have the right friends. Gatekeepers are terrible for many reasons but they also did a good job protecting some of the dumbest skaters from themselves. (How bad it is to protect these dudes is another conversation.)
Some skaters don't do their own social media and it is inauthentic and lame but it certainly saves them from being as dumb as Beibel who made his own problems by not only being shitty by cheering on some disgusting shit but by putting himself on blast by posting it on Instagram.
Topic: Fuck Biebel (Read 175610 times)