Otis may be a dick, but he is totally right on this one. These guys package themselves as a commodity. That includes every pro skater. When you are selling things using your image, there is a legitimate reason for a person to reject your sales pitch. Its not about personally knowing somebody. In pro skating a pro skater markets themself, and the target audience has every right to reject this commodity. And if a person commodifies their private life by having a reality show, it becomes the target audiece's right to reject that commodity as well.
Jamie, you said the last thing you want is our money. Come on now. I'm not saying that you want us to give you all of our money until we can't afford to eat anymore, but you definitely want our money. If not ours, whos? Who is your target audience? If it isn't us, its people who come on here and are influenced by us, right? I'm not saying you are like the guys at Nike who don't care about skating and only got involved in it to make a quick buck, but I'm guessing you figured you couldn't be jumping down 20 foot drops forever, and knew you had to make a living some how. That's fine. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, its quite admirable that you love skating enough that you found a way to be involved in it even after you can't skate. But, you do want our money, and thats ok.
Tedpod, the jealousy thing is stupid there are a lot of guys out there making shitloads of money skating who I like, why am I not jealous of them? And those guys who I say should be getting more, what selfish part of my morality does that go into? What is really dumb about all the shit you are saying is 1) you are just getting your arguments from magazines opinions of the boards. Of course this place does call them out consistently as industry whores, but that shouldn't give them any reason to talk bad about it... right? 2) It implies one single mentality of a board that has a membership of over 7000. To think you have an idea what everybody on here is thinking when they say what they say is ridiculous. There are a huge variety of opinions on here. Most of the time all you see is arguments in every thread, and the people who get the most hate on here aren't pros, but other posters on the board. When the overwhelming majority agrees one guy is a kook, its not because all of them are jealous, the odds are, he's fucking lame.
Money isnt the reason I started a skateboard company and the last thing I want is "your" money. I don't know you, but in every single one of your posts over the year I've been here, you've make it loud and clear your a dick. Regardless, if what you're saying is even about me, you still come across as one of the lamest dudes out. You say I made skateboarding less cool and I can "deal" with your opinion, but what are you doing to make it more cool? Spitting negativity on the board, yeah you're killing it.
Come on gipper...
the quotes were to make my point specific to Otis, since he made the statement;
but sheckler, jamie thomas and countless others are constantly using their 'personalities' to try and take my money out of my pocket so it can go into theirs.
...if they want to keep trying to get my, yours and everyone elses money then i'm afraid they're going to have to(and should) just fucking deal with it.
Obviously, we need money to stay
in business and I need money to live, but I didn't start a company because I wanted to be rich and if I did, I would be an idiot, cause the chances of some redneck from Alabama pulling it has gotta be like a million to one.
I won the lottery and worked as hard as I could. Therefore, I'm thankful and i try to support/give back to the things I'm down for every chance I get. Friends, employee's, riders, shops, kids on the come up, charities. I'm not trying to say I'm a saint cause I know for the most part I'm a dick, but I don't actually going around trying to be, so I'll look cool and above everything.
If all the only people that were in skateboarding was salty dudes like Otis, you can trust me that I'd be out, money or not. Shit would suck, I'd find some other way to support myself.
Come to think of it, I wouldn't have ever gotten into it in the first place, but luckily I had some amazing dudes to skate with growing up and that made skateboarding the best thing in the world in my mind. It's compromised now that I'm older and things are changing, but the good still outweighs the bad and skating still feels fun, so I try to contribute whatever/however I can.
...sorry for the long winded explanation, but it was flowin.
peace.
Topic: The Slap Message Boards and the Trial of Jamie Thomas (Read 86313 times)