One of the great things about skateboarding in general is the lack of rules for each individual rider. If you want to skate vert, you can do so without ridicule. If you want to skate street, go for it, and no one will say anything.
One thing that I remember growing up about the lack of rules associated with skateboarding was one magazine in particular: Big Brother Skateboarding magazine. That magazine broke all the rules in the skate magazine world. They didn't care about swearing, nudity, and taboo topics. It truly was a good example of what skateboarding should be, just all out chaos, with a slight hint of control in the realms of personal skateboarding ability. That's not to say that you should be good at skateboarding by any one person's definition, but rather skate how you want, when you want and whatever you want.
I know, this is convoluted but hang with me for a second...
The mid 90's saw an explosion of freedom of speech in regards to skateboarding thanks to Transworld and Thrasher, both great skateboard magazines in their own rights, censoring Steve Rocco's infamous ads that were 100% uncensored. When Rocco came out with a "suicide" ad for World Industries latest run of skateboards, Transworld wouldn't run the ad. So Rocco pulled out all his ads and only ran ads in Big Brother magazine. A bold move at the time, but one that would go down in history as a credible move in a world that boasts freedoms in regards to skateboarding (which in many places is illegal).
Fast forward to today. Big Brother magazine is no more, and World Industries isn't as big as they were back in the mid 90's nor as controversial. There are still a few magazines that promote skateboarding, one of which is Skateboard Mag. That magazine is not your average size and hasn't been around a long time. Transworld and Thrasher are still great magazines but they seem to be a lot more kid friendly now, then when I first started reading them.
Skateboard Mag ran an article from guest editor Chet Childress, and he called out Consolidated Skateboards for running their Don't Do it Campaign.
For those of you that don't know what that campaign is about, it is all about fighting industries such as Nike from profiting off of the popularity of skateboarding, rather than allowing skateboards to run the industry.
Consolidated was set to run a rebuttal on the article but was blatantly censored by Skateboard Mag and the full page response was never printed.
Freedom of Speech is one of the greatest things that this country has for us as citizens.
Recently I too was censored by a few music magazines because my review of music they gave me would not help "advertising" sales inside their magazine. Is this also the reasoning behind censoring Consolidated Skateboards?
Has Skateboard Magazines gone this soft? Will Nike pull out of ads because someone said their a joke and should be thrown out of the skateboarding industry?
I'm not sure.
I know one thing though, according to a recent interview in
olliemag.com, Consolidated skateboards owner, Birdo, says that the Don't Do It Campaign is NOT a marketing ploy and is not meant to increase sales and more over hasn't even helped sales at all!
Sounds like the swoosh is not only not welcomed in the skateboarding world according to consolidated, consolidated is no longer welcome to air opinions in SkateMag.
I side with Consolidated on some things, but they are fighting a monster...a monster that has deep pockets.
Here is the response:
For more on this go to
consolidatedskateboard.com and find out more.
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