Replying to Have we gotten dumb?

I am 19, and I have recently started to get into the whole newschool movement, and I love it. I am on my way out of racing, and it is such an exciting direction for the sport. But a disturbing trend that I am seeing, is letting the image become more important than what you throw down.

I have skied all of my life, and I never really liked skiing with a backpack on. It affected my balance, and if I fell, I didn't want to worry about getting impaled by a screwdriver, or breaking sunglasses or a camera, or even squishing my food. It made sense to me that whenever I had the chance, I would ditch the pack.

Why is it then, that all of a sudden wearing a backpack is a measure of on slope style. I understand that a backpack filled with avalance gear is more important than your skiis if you are going under the ropes, but in many years of skiing I have yet to see an avalance on a groomed run.

HEY IDIOTS---Just because Seth wears a backpack when he rips a psycho mountain line in some remote Alaskan mountain range 1000km from an outhouse, doesn't mean you have to wear one when you slide down the blue runs at your local mountain.

DAKINE must be laughing their ass off right now. They make these extremely well built packs, designed for the backcountry skier who needs spots for avalance gear, etc, and every kid in the city wants one to put their extra set of mittens in to ski at the local dope slope.

Why is stupid trendy???????