First of all, if this is an "April Fool's Joke," it's a pretty high-profile FUCK YOU to local skateshops/ Mom andPop
operations. Really ugly, really sad.
Secondly, we all know the basics of this debate:
Corporate people outside of skateboarding want our dollar. They
take great skaters, pay them well, to insinuate themselves into
our culture. Not a new or amazingly inventive tactic, but tried and
true. A tactic that works.
We can't blame the skaters. They have families in most cases, they
have their own politics on how to approach it. Even Lance once said
(I paraphrase) "it's pretty punk to take the money from people who don't
aren't part of us." In a way, I agree.
The debate can go on and on, about authenticity, about intent, about the
gentrification of our precious culture, about whether or not to keep skating
to the skaters, etc.
In the end, it's just up to you. With what you buy, with what you want to
represent and encourage. Simple enough.
You want to support skating? Buy shoes from people who have given their
life to skating, who love skating. Not to name names, but you all know the
companies started and run by people who love skating.
Not to get esoteric, but Jose Ortega Y Gasset quipped:
�Revolution is not the uprising against preexisting order, but the setting up of a new order contradictory to the traditional one"
Let Nike be Nike. You ain't going to hurt a Giant with tiny dull spears.
Fuck the Giant.
Go skate.