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If y'all are cool with a precedent being set where skaters come up through Instagram, barely skate, and get all this attention as an "influencer" propped up by the industry than that's on you. You can continue to parasocially support by commenting "stoked for them" and "get that bag" under every corny lifestyle article and brand endorsement post while getting nothing of value in return.
It doesn't just go for Beatrice, though she's one of the most high profile examples, but for any person of any race or gender being propped up as a representative for skateboarding while doing none of those things to earn that place. Skating as an industry is subject to certain kinds of capital constraints, and as a subculture it's subject to certain kinds of cultural constraints; in other words, it's a zero sum game. The more this influencer type BS is given money and encouragement, the more it takes away from people who actually care about skating and are trying to contribute to it and progress it in a productive way.
The question is not, 'Is skateboarding big enough for everyone?' But how do we highlight who/what is worth highlighting with the available resources of the industry. Because while skateboarding can grow and small board brands that no one pays attention to can emerge with their own opportunities, what's considered cool and who the respected figures of the industry are will always be a limited circle. I think if we encourage people to take this kind of approach then we allow Vogue and the NYT to dictate what's cool in skating, regardless of their actual merit as skateboarders, and those people are ultimately rewarded with pro status over others. Call it fear based, but I think if you care about the integrity of skateboarding then its reasonable to call this kind of stuff out for the problems it raises.
When have institutions like this ever determined what’s “cool” in skating? Also it seems like your issues lie primarily with Dill, not with Beatrice - who is simply living her life. No need to villify her.
Like GH, my problem's will Dill and the industry. Couldn't care less about Beatrice herself, there's a hundred Beatrices of varying degrees.
Fair enough, and I agree it’s fair to criticize a company owner for making someone pro you don’t feel has earned it yet.
But I still feel like you’re making some unfair assumptions by saying:
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any person of any race or gender being propped up as a representative for skateboarding while doing none of those things to earn that place
Who are the other people being propped up you know of. And let’s pretend for a second dropping a video part actually was the only way to officially obtain pro status. Wouldn’t she actually be extremely fucking close to doing all the right things?
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it's a zero sum game. The more this influencer type BS is given money and encouragement, the more it takes away from people who actually care about skating
I truly don’t believe this is true. I know this isn’t that serious of a topic in the grander scheme of the world, but thinking there’s not enough to go around isn’t always the healthiest perspective.
This has become the Kook Me Amadeus rebuttal thread and everyone but me hates it.
If you're asking about an example of someone being propped up as a representative of skateboarding who earned that spot I'd cite Alexis Sablone, who was getting a lot of media attention from outside skateboarding as a figurehead around the time the Olympics were happening. She came on the scene with a part in "PJ Ladd's WHL" in 2002 when the market for female skating was a fragment of what it currently is. She's consistently put out great parts like the one in a Converse video recently which had her in contest for Skater of the Year, doing absolutely buck shit, pushing women's street skating forward (and she ain't young). She's one of the central advocates for women's skating, helps design skateparks, and doesn't gloat over herself in every interview.
My latter point was that there hypothetically is room for everyone in skating, assuming brands keep emerging, but the mainstream and money in skating will always be relegated to a select few. I think people should be rewarded at that echelon for criteria other than
solely 'are they popular on Instagram', 'do they fit a particular demographic', 'can he/she/they be made to look cool in puff pieces'.