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I miss the days when skate shoe brands were built around a group of skaters who were friends. The Nike team is just a pile of skaters with no personal cohesion. Sure, there are people who are friends within the team, but the team is built around the brand and that rings hollow to me.
uh when did this happen? e....S in 2003?
Maybe not shoes, but skate brands used to at least be built around crews. This is one of the reasons skaters have a love for a company or image, it speaks to them.
I’ve said something along these lines years ago, but it’s relative to this thread;
Nike DOES NOT CARE ABOUT SKATEBOARDING, it cares about money, and yes of course brands like Emerica, Lakai care about money, but they have a deeper feeling about preserving the culture of skating.
Look at the Stay Flared tour, two brands out there TOGETHER with a common theme of pushing skateboading, yes it’s promoting brands as well to drive sales, but the fact they are doing it united and don’t see each other as “the competition” shows it’s not ALL about sales.
Brands like HUF that moved in a different direction to just skating only had a pro skateboarding team, this is because their roots are in the culture of skateboarding.
You think you would ever see the day Nike and Adidas or NB and Cons get together to promote the very culture they are trying to profit from? HELL NO, why?
Because they only care about money, not the culture or the future of skateboarding as a whole.
It really surprises me that skaters that love it enough to talk about every aspect of it all day on an internet forum with total strangers can’t or refuse to accept this. I like giving my money to companies that care about the very thing we are all passionate about vs giving my money to a person who see’s the culture I love as a cash cow.