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lib tech is owned by mervin manufacturing. and burton is not cool because the people that work there are dicks. yes they are dicks. also, the small companys that come up with something cool, or a cool style one season, burton almost always comes out with a replica next season. it is lame. they lie cheat and steal. the only quality product is their bindings.
ive not seen anyone whining abt snowboarders, only people talking about the ridiculous contest burton did this winter. its two completely different things and if you relate to it youre probably one of those that thought it would be so cool to poach these resorts and then spent 1000$ on burton equipment to be like the other ''core'' riders at your home moutain.
not just cause its a big company. its burton as a whole that pisses me off, and this contest made it worse. they are a huge company who is telling kids to fight the big corperations and shit. if they had just said "make a video of you poaching these ski only resort's because its wrong for them to stop us" then its ok, but when they try to be all rebelious and anti establishment then it gets dumb. its like some old rich business man who owns an airline going to a bunch of kids and telling them to rebel against people like him.
oh, and i just started a thread on burtons forum. i know its not good to spread hate but someone asked for this. and its habitually fun to ee there replies.
when you go into a park do you associate the park skier's with the snowboarders who dress the same, have the same attitude, do the same tricks, etc... or do you associate them with the gaper family skiing on the landings?
hey i just posted this on the burton forum, and it goes for other people here too.
"I think you cats are missing the point. The article doesn't rip on
snowbaording in the slightest. It rips on the image burton is
promoting itself with. Burton being "non-conformist" is the same as
walmart promoting itself as a green company out there for our
beneifit. It's saying burton should change it's name to CONGLOMO and
change it's motto to "we own you and your dog."
I think this letter respects snowboarding in a big way. It just knocks on the bullshit burtons spitting."
i like eric friedmans commment on the adjacent page. saying how if 2/3 of MRG shareholders vote on it they will allow boarders, but all the poaching pretty much pissed them all off and ruined their chances.
I thought the contest was a great idea. Those discriminatory (yep I said it) resorts are perfect examples of all that is still wrong with the ski industry.
Sure Jake Burton is about as corporate as it gets, and no he is not a "rebel". But at least he got a lot of people to poach those stupid resorts, and from what I got out of it, that is all he was trying to promote. I don't recall him making any claims of being "core", he just wanted people to go fuck with those resorts. And they did, so good work as far as I'm concerned.
I have no opinion on Burton as a company or any of the other bullshit, but the contest was a sweet idea.
In a sense, skiers writing an article trying to diss that contest just makes us skiers look pouty and lame.
1. you probably have never ridden alta or brighton...
2. the author actualy comments on the fact that that they apparent feud between boarders and skiers are fueled by the "gapers" lack of knowledge of the real deal...pretty much insinuating that he knows whatsup...he doesnt bash boarders...more burton the company itself.
Oh here we go, another one of those people claiming that Alta "would be shitty on a snowboard anyway". Spare me.
I've skied Alta, many times, and there is no substance to that claim whatsoever. Alta-holics claim like it's the only hill in the known universe that has these magical things known as "traverses", what a joke.
Try hitting up Fernie sometime, boarders slay that place and they deal with the big traverses just fine, in many cases much better than the average skier tourist.
Shit, if you can't get around someone slower than you on a traverse (whether they be a skier or a boarder), then it says something about your ability to get around the mountain.
But back to the original point: Irrespective of Burton's business practices, or company, etc: his contest WAS a cool idea, people who feel the need to write articles and whine about it are just proving his point that skiing still has it's fair share of insecure lame-asses.
As much as I don't like burtons gear and things like that. They do soooo much for snowboarding its rediculous. They paved the way for snowboarding and I thought the contest was pretty funny. This is just everyone being mad at the huge company, but the different thing is burton was the company that started it all. They've had a huge influence on snowboarding AND skiing and was the perfect company to do this, they were the originals. They were the ones with pointed tips and split tails. Burton can do whatever it wants and turn it into gold and deserves every penny it gets. They make so much money its out of this world. They have had by the far the most influence on snowboarding over any other company. They put together so much cool stuff and everyone has there gear at some point. Just for the record I dont like burtons over pricing at all, but that doesn't make the contest any less funny, and it was in good spirits to top it all off. There the ones pushing peoples names into houses, how far do you think either sport would be without burton right now? Hell, whoever wrote that article probably wouldn't have a job. They may be worn by some jock now, and many gapers wear it too. But no one can hate on what Jake has made. He got hewlett packard to ask him if he would do a commercial for them. Can any other company come close to doing that? I seriously doubt it. Stop hating on a company that started snowboarding
okay so line or whatever built the twintip ski - just like burton invented the snowboard. then after like 10 years or something that burton has been around snowboaders don't want to buy it cuz it's everyone, everyone has it, and it's to big of a company. SO what if one day we decide that line is too big of a company and we want to give our money to independent companies making skis out of garages and stuff. then line, that started out as a independent company, is now the big corporate that it once overtook. then more independent companies start up right.
???????? You trippin'? Smokin' the crack maybe? Spending a little too much time with that Leprechaun in the tree?
I don't know what you read, but I wasn't hating on Burton or making any opinion on Burton as a company, in fact I made a point of saying that I was not giving any opinion on the company, because I don't think that really has anything to do with it.
If anything I was hating (oh my, such a strong word) on the article and the lameness in the ski community that it showcases. I was supporting the idea of the contest...
I just think that burton went in the wrong direction with all its fame and money. a company can still make lots of money and still be a really legit company it just depends on who runs it and how its run
o haha sorry, I didn't mean it like a bash of you, not really sure why I qouted you actually....I think it was because I was reading yours and i just clicked qoute reply so I could post quicker. I'm forgetful like that
How do you honestly figure? How can you honestly sit there and say a company is being discriminatory over something that the potential customers have complete control of?
The company is providing a product. The product they happen to be providing is skiing. Not snowboarding, not snowsports, not snowsliding. Just skiing. That is what they are open to provide. If someone wants to use their facilities, they grab two skis instead of one board. It's not as if that person has absolutely no option and no feasible way to ever be able to utilize the facility.
There is nothing wrong with the ski industry and there certainly isn't anything wrong with those resorts. There is obviously a market for those areas, or else they would not exist, and if boarders want to create a boarder only mountain, go right ahead.
Hmmmmm, well, if you put it that way, then I guess I just got........ owned.
I really have to agree that you are corrrect in that capitalism allows for anyone to set whatever rules they want for who to sell to. I guess in a sense it's no different than starting a restaurant and saying that you will only serve people who wear green shirts. It might be kind of dumb and make no sense, but it is the option of the restaurant to do so if they choose.
I'm going to have to concede that "discriminatory" was a bad word choice.
I think what really bothers me is the excuses that people come up with for the no-snowboard policy. Eg "snowboards don't work well on our lift/in our terrain/they are all thugs, etc." The stereotyping that goes on there really.... grinds my gears.
However if they were to just put it the way that you do, then I guess it is an acceptable (albeit still unreasonable, stupid and unnecessary, in my opinion) policy.
Good post, definitely made me think. You must have a massive brain :) Peace
you call that owned???????
That dude owned himself. Does anyone here actually buy the frisbee-golf analogy? There are good reasons you can't play frisbee golf on a golf course. Banning snowboarding is more like banning 3 irons on a golf cours; it's arbitrary. Of course it doesn't amount to racism, but it's wrong for one of the reasons racism is wrong. You shouldn't deny a specific group of people a privilege because of something arbitrary about them. When you don't have a good reason for something like discrimination, it usually means that something besides reason is driving the policy, e.g. fear or dislike of out-groups. If there were good reasons for discriminating against snowboarding, then the author would have placed them front and center. He wouldn't have relied on sentimental trash about the spirit of skiing and our indebtedness to avalanche scientists. And think about the form of the argument about the avalanche scientists and ski patrollers: Why should that make Alta for skiers only??? Just because a certain group of people have deeper history and roots to a certain place, it doesn't mean they can ban anyone who looks different. The great irony is how fascist these arguments sound.
Sure there is also some irony in white, upper-class snowboarders talking about oppression. But why should white, aflluent people care less about fascism? Sure, they don't resemble your typical oppressed group; there is definitely some irony in there. But it's a distraction to go after someone's cultutral background instead of their argument; it's ad hominem.
If you were fooled by that little screed, I hope you aren't old enough to vote.
^Whoa, hang on, I only conceded that "discriminatory" was not the right word choice, that's all. He made a good point there, gotta give him that.
I'm still on the same page as far as my overall sentiments on how bullshit the no snowboard policy is, the contest being a great idea, and the article in Powder being lame as hell.
The only concession that I'm making is - I'm willing to stop using the word "discriminatory". Other than that, I will still stand 100% behind my first posts, now I'll just use "stupid, unreasonable, biased, and unfounded." or something like that, instead of "the d-word".
It's only semantics, the overall view on the subject remains the same.
Similarly, if anyone believes everything you just said, they shouldn't be old enough to vote. Youre an extremists just like the other guy and theres a reason guys like nadar and cheney arent president. you're blind with opposal of his views and the writer of the letter is blind with his.
Sure he makes some good points about burton and their methods of obtaining their image, but its really been pretty harmless to the ski industry and has helped burton maintain their image. thats what a business is all about right? making money and growing. businesses arent required to help push their sport or lead it in any direction. They dont have to have positive relations to parallel sports. Theyre just their to make money and if they have to ruffle a few feathers to do it, they will. Its business.
That being said, he definitely destroyed burton with the "if burton really wants to fight facism they'd move their factories out of china" line.
The guy you quoted made a good point. Racism is different from the snowboarding ban because you can't switch races like you can change gear, you don't have a choice. But just because people can change doesn't grant you the right to deny them privileges because of the way they are. Maybe you don't share my values; instead, you have market values, and only believe in proprietary freedom and private property. But that ideology works against you. Those companies are obstructing the invisible hand at their own loss. It's only a matter of time before the good ol' boys on their boards have to deal with reality. Capitalism's true beauty is NOT that it allows arbitrary denial of services. Sure, it may temporarily permit that to happen, but in the long run it wears it down. Maybe all of the shareholders in these companies are rich Sun Valley types and don't care about return on their investment. or perhaps they believe that it's worth losing revenue from snowboarders in order to maintain their clientele. Either way, the holdout resorts will soon do what the vast majority of ski resorts did, for the very same economic reasons.
Yeah, and that's why I said that thing about being owned. Gotta give credit where it's due....
As for the rest, I think we're pretty much on the same page about the no-boarding policies and the article, so no need to argue, you're preaching to the converted.
I wouldn't be so quick to say that. I honestly doubt that Salomon wouldn't take the opportunity to monopolize the industry. i would argue that the only reason that ski companies haven't started trying to monopolize is that the consumer base isn't there. You see snowboarding companies everywhere on everything because a lot of people wear streetwear from a large company (like Burton) because of the company's presence and hype. Snowboarders have tons of companies to choose from in regards to equipment and outerwear and clothings while skiers are seeing companies come (Amplid, Moment) and go (Siver, Predatorwear). But I do agree that a lot of companies push good product. we're lucky that the turnover of companies forces producers to put out good product in an industry that is largely self-sustaining.
That is a sick article and does touch on some great points and arguments... But I really didn't have that much of a problem with the whole poaching the mountains thing. Sure there were some pathetically Ironies that have been pointed out pretty clearly in this article but I actually thought it was pretty cool that they gave'r on the poacing thing. Don't get me wrong, I think the fact that it was Jake Burton who came up with, and supported this idea is a joke.
On another note, I think the fact that there exists ski hills which are exclusive to snowboarders or skiers is just stupid. It may be true that snowboarding couldn't exist without skiing, but in the same way, "New school" skiing couldn't exist without snowboarding - or at least couldn't have evolved in to even close to what it is today without the influence of our one planking friends. Personally I find that when I ride with snowboarders I can get just as hype as I can when riding with my friends who ski.
Look at pros like Pollard and Benchetler who's styles have been pretty much created by a snowboarding background. And to all of you fans of Mahre, Pollard, and Pep fans, Snowboarding was definitely THE biggest influence when coming up with the idea of skiing without poles.
might have been a little controversial / harsh at some points, but i really kind of agreed with the whole "everybody looks the same" idea. I board and i never really liked Burton in the first place. This Just made me dislike them a little more.