Postby jumptheshark » Fri Sep 21, 2018 1:21 pm
OK not saying LWC's forecasts of doom and gloom and industry conspiracy is on point, but discounting any group, youth or otherwise is pretty stupid, esp from someone working in the biz.
Your points about needing some cash and a set of wheels is right, but kids are kids and they find a way. They have never been the ones buying new gear. Go back through any sport and you see that kids scrape together enough for used kit and them wipe the floor with you on it. I never had new windsurfing kit despite doing it throughout my youth. Had the perpetual, I raised half and my dad would kick in the other half but none of it was new.
Kiteboarding has probably the ripest second hand market of all sports. Can be done on a shoestring. Picked up a killer kite for $230 a year or so ago that shows no sign of quitting.
People don't get freaked out by their bikes and shed them just to get rid of the night terrors. Were also the most narcissistic bunch who fall for fashion trends year after year. No one is worried if their bike is a 2016 or 2018 model. In fact they don't even list the year model in their gear adds. We freakin list it for footstraps. DUDE, I mean, sir, is that a 2019 ultra directional board restraintifier invented by Duotone?? Nah man, its just a leash.
Youth will do whatever they want. The ones that kite are doing the cool stuff. Oh Snap! Maybe that's it!! Maybe, just maybe, all the hate toward the stuff they have always gravitated towards has driven them off and they just don't see the draw in dangling! Airstyle has killed kiteboarding's future!! Maybe its all our fault as lame ass kiters that nothing we do attracts them?!
Hey LWC, have a look back through the annals of kite mag history for us and see what it is those youth targeted adds and articles depict. Oh yeah, its all Dre and the gang doing the shit you saw on the scoop! All the old slingshot marketing, Inept Crew from Hood River, the groms like Nico and Jessie at kite point. Wasn't dangling and juggling they were into, it was Real's camel toe monster of a slider, C kites and keeping it low. Ruben, Hadlow, Tom Court, Dre, Moe Gould, Lou, Bertrand, Josh Stone, Elliot Leboe, and any of the other top riders from the days you speak of. What were they into ??...….. Boots. Every single one of em. They were the youth at the time, and the companies and populace on places like this shit on them non stop, so no one followed. Naish has never put out a pair of boots. Cab wouldn't give Dre a pro model board. Mags lit them up, but this forum did nothing but complain about it all looking the same. Pretty ironic from a forum headed by a guy working on trick 4000 that is just a recombination of the same 4 moves. It was constants complaint up in here about where kiting is going, and what we have lost, and how the old grannies at the beach just love it when we juggle our boards. Well then, It's old grannies you get.
We have done it to ourselves. Kill the cool and say goodbye to the youth.
Last edited by
jumptheshark on Fri Sep 21, 2018 2:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.