1. skiing and skateboarding are not extremely similar. They wouldn't be at all if it weren't for skiers copying snowboarders (until this year finally) who copied skaters.
2. Someone who has 2 hit TV shows on MTV and is a pro athlete is not a c-list celeb. The guy who wears the barney suit is c-list.
3. Jon Olssen is similar but again not the same since unlike Dyrdeck who still skates and is a business man JO no longer rides park and has left us for the world of racing. But I'm not bitter, my point is that RD has near universal respect in the skate world even by those who don't like his style or attitude because he seems at least to be an ambivalent harmless force in a stratified disparate skate industry/community.
Skiing on the other hand is about as tight-nit as it can get which is good, but that combined with the high cost of participating which skateboarding doesn't have, has caused skiing to be slightly closed off. Skiing, despite popular styles and attitudes is still elitist, and while it'll be cool when we eventually get a TV show devoted to us, you need to remember that everyone can't go skiing, everyone doesn't live somewhere where it's possible and if you do live somewhere where the snow is great you've got 8 months at best until the snow's gone and you need to find something else to do while it's warm. I guess in that regard it's a little like surfing, something that people can admire from a far but don't necessarily have access to. We have our own celebs and when the olympics come they'll get to show off to the world. But it probably won't be anyone you'd expect... or maybe Tom Wallisch will become a household name outside of places where the skis have no camber the t's are tall and gold toothed guys shooting guns out a speeding car is a funny joke not a reason you can't leave your house after dark.
Don't worry though, if this past season has shown us anything it's that skiing can have its own unique identity, and that we can finally stop being out cooled by snowboarders. We'll get someone or someones but it won't be who we expect.
