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| techydude |
 Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 6:08 am |
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Joined: 09 Jan 2007
Posts: 2
Location: Melbourne Australia
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This is a letter I sent to Thrasher Magazine on Sat January 7th 2007, with minor changes/additions afterward, after seeing another of their subscription ads.
dear Thrasher Magazine,
i flip through the monthly skate mags in the shop, & usually buy one from the range, & have sampled most of what's out there. while flipping through Thrasher, i flipped. who ever came up with a couple of your recent subscription advertisements should have their balls nailed to a popsicle & be pushed back into the Jurassic era for being so dumbly exclusive. the first was a picture of a tragically weed-overgrown abandoned vert ramp and the caption "ADAPT OR GO EXTINCT". The second was a young kid, surrounded by other skater kids in what appeared to be a contest setting, doing a skateboard flip-trick while wearing roller-blades, & the caption "DON'T BE A DORK... SUBSCRIBE".
as a 35yo skater who'd literally never picked up a skateboard until a year ago (& lovin it!), i've invested a lot of time learning my skate history too. the attitude behind this sub ad is emblematic of mainstream skate media/culture - an overwhelming focus on street skating & its narrow youth-directed, fashion-focussed, insane-stunt-performing culture. if it'd been an ad for a skate shoe company (etc), i would have ignored it & kept reading. but i didn't think i'd see it so dumbly pushed in a sub ad from Thrasher. kids will - quite by themselves - often try to boost their own ego's by criticising anything outside their direct experience. Thrasher is preying on that (normal) juvenile mentality, and as an organisation in a position of power & authority is essentially saying "that's OK kids, fruit-booters ARE dorks to be riddiculed, street-skating is the only way to go". WTF???
i don't mind that the mainstream market is (currently) mainly 9-19 year olds and catered to accordingly. but it's being promoted almost to the exclusion of everything & everyone else. has it not occurred to the marketers that it's the oldies who were there skating all those years ago developing what's now considered niche skating styles, some of whom would love the opportunity to get back on a longboard & carve their local streets, hills or beach boardwalks, with or without their kids in tow? and for those still up for it, get back into a bowl or vert-ramp, or local slalom scene? do the marketers forget that it's us oldies who have a hell of a lot more disposable income than 9-19yo kids, ready to spend it on quality gear advertised in quality inclusive media? but all they see as they _walk_ around their neighbourhood is magazines for kids, boards for kids, shoes & clothes for kids, & attitude for kids.
yeah, i know skaters have prided themselves on having an almost impenetrable club, and it's obvious this exclusivity mentality is partly what's driving the current direction of mainstream skate culture. but can't you guys see where it's heading?!? you should, 'cause it's been happening for over a decade! the definition of what it is to be a skater - from sponsored pros & ams, to even just ordinary suburban kids - is getting narrower every year. if you're not jumping down 10 or 20 stairs, leaping 10 foot gaps, or sliding down a rail into hospital, no one in the mainstream skate media wants to know you! the pool of talent capable of pulling off these increasingly amazing stunts will continue to dwindle (that's a simple demographic fact).
an industry that mainly produces products for such an ever-narrowing market is ripe for cheap competition and will continue to disappear up its own butt hole, for example street decks able to be manufactured so cheaply resulting in blanks & shop decks which undermine name brand market share, which undermines their capacity to support their teams, which undermines the sport & competitions. Thrasher's pages are dominated by advertising to make its cover price kid-friendly. you're painting yourselves into an ever-decreasing corner. you call this adaptation?!? any economist, not to mention some within our industry, will tell you it's slow, painful suicide.
why the hell isn't "any skating is good skating" a guiding principle for a skate mag, most of all for Thrasher who's literally been there through it all? us 'oldies' are out there, there's lots of tiny niche groups & websites for us, but we exist _despite_ the prevailing attitude, not because of it.
and don't give me that shit that you're just "reflecting what's out there". the skate media holds the keys to what we see outside our own little worlds, just as much as the skate-fashion marketing departments - you are linked at the hip - for better, or worse. for evidence of that, just download Transworld's "2007 Media Kit" to see they're totally hell-bent on the youth market 'at all cost' - even their long term sustainability. but Thrasher Magazine & your local & overseas peers, and the sport in all its diversity can (or at least could) be seen not just on paper, but web, DVD, podcasts & even tv. i believe you still have the muscle & capacity to afford to broaden the scope of what's covered, and thus create a sustainable future that keeps skaters rolling beyond their 19th birthday.
question is, have you got the balls for it? or will you just walk away when the kids say you're too old?
yours sincerely,
Anthony May
Melbourne Australia
techydude at gmail dot com |
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| Cappy |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 9:28 am |
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Joined: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 11580
Location: Cloud cuckoo land
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Magazines have a hard job today. In the past, with skate pictures they did make the move, they had the leader job.
With the Internet, Web-Videos, burning DVDs easy, they just walk with the crowd.
Just a circle with advertiser and, the pro�s that are sponsered by those advertiser.
If they write about old farts, instead of the "hip" pros, they will loose the ads, too.
Even adults have more money to buy skatestuff, the mag would need to get the right advertiser/companies or they will run out of money.
You have answered alot in your text yourself 
The other point is the "poser" market, alot of those advertiser/companies just use this current "skate culture" to sell there shit to non-skater. And in this non-skater market is alot more cash to make, as in the skateboardmarket itself.
Why are there not much graphics on the t-shirts, just logo�s |
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| skateight |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 10:08 am |
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ORDER OF THE SKULL
Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 2857
Location: Earth
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Well said, Anthony.
And very true, Cappy.
It's all pissing in the wind, they'll continue doing what they want regardless. |
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| slob-air |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:06 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 27 Oct 2001
Posts: 63506
Location: S&B HQ
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Cappy wrote:
If they write about old farts, instead of the "hip" pros, they will loose the ads, too.
That's not true, Cappy. You'd think it was, but it's not the case. Concrete Wave has been approached by most of the shoe companies, cell phone companies, drink companies that advertise in the streetskating magazines. 'Course, Michael Brooke turns them down as he only allows hard goods advertising within his pages, but they have all aproached the mag for space. |
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| slob-air |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:09 pm |
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Joined: 27 Oct 2001
Posts: 63506
Location: S&B HQ
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Sorry, with one caveat: a certain board company stressed to one magazine that if they showed pool riding or any non-streetskating stuff, they'd pull their ads from that magazine.
Oddly enough, said company has one of the top vert riders and an OG pool ripper on their brand. Weird. |
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| Cappy |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 1:07 pm |
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Joined: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 11580
Location: Cloud cuckoo land
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Only one caveat? I don�t know if other Skate companies jump on that blackmail bus if they see, mags (not only cw, juice) would show more as only streetskating. For most skate companies, street skating is "the" market. For them it�s all! I mean there would be a pressure to do a whole line of other deck, trucks etc.. just to not lose customers.
It�s a closed circle and as the blank discussion has showed, none of them will break out of it.
The softgood market will always throw some bucks in for ads, aslong they think they get it twice back. But we see how worse can that go, we don�t want to have that again, or?
But "only street skating" ,mags etc. don�t think or cry about them, the market will sort itself out anyway. There is enough stuff for everyone, companies and customers. The only thing that will change if the monopol of streetskating falls, is that the geographical distribution for "other" skatestuff goes better. And i don�t have to write "other skating", "only streetskating" "oldschool" and "newschool" any longer, fuck all this shit - it�s all skateboarding!  |
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| mosu101 |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 3:11 pm |
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ORDER OF THE SKULL
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
Posts: 5086
Location: Australia
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the kid in Blades doing a kickflip was from one of the "Kings of the Road tour teams" Probable skates better than both of us.
if you dont like Thrashers approach (yes it is juvenile) dont buy them buy Concrete Wave which offers something for the "matured Skate Market".
Funny how in Sydney a majority of the street skating grommets skate vert. |
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| PlayGod |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 4:52 pm |
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ORDER OF THE SKULL
Joined: 05 Nov 2003
Posts: 3882
Location: Dirty South
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| slob-air |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 5:27 pm |
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| ask the doctor |
| Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 11:48 pm |
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ORDER OF THE SKULL
Joined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 4680
Location: san jo, bro.
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sorry, I missed this one.
old post, but still funny!  |
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