If you don't get the kids involved you will never be recognised by the big companies as a sport worth advertising with/in. This doesn't mean that the sport isn't a credible activity but it shows that it sucks in terms of its overall image until you change the age of its participants.
All of the big surf-clothing companies spend vast amounts of money on teamriders and videos. The sports they choose is surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding and a bit of wakeboarding. They never had any interest in windsurfing and they will never have any big interest in kitesurfing.
The reason is because both activities are largely done my men aged 30-50+years.
Yes, there are some great kids participating in both sports now but this is not a true reflection of the actual demographic of these sports.
So, no matter how many great tricks and mega kiteloops we come up with we will never be cool in the eyes of the youngsters until we leave it up to them to mould it into what it should be.
If I read through most forums I would come to the conclusion that kitesurfing must be seriously uncool with all of this nerd talking going on and the average age being being closer to retirement than High School.
If Snowboarding wouldn't have been able to attract the youngsters onto the slopes we would still all be riding hard-boots and alpine boards. (like myself
)
So maybe there should be an age-limit on forums. If you are over 25years you aren't allowed to comment or post anymore and that would include me