Embarrassed to Scooter?

Basically, after seeing the poll that I made a week or so ago, I have to admit, I wasn't shocked to see that so many people are embarrassed that they ride scooters. I've seen "Pros" get embarrassed for scootering around certain people as well. I got an email from Andy Wegener, owner of Sunshine Distribution which contains, Elyts, AO, 841, and Raptor, and he had this to say.

Just wanted to know what your guys' thoughts on the matter are.

"I was surprised to see that according to your survey on IS almost 40 % of the riders are embarrassed around some people to ride scooters. I'm not sure what people these are but my take is these are members of other action sports that sometimes look down on our sport.

This actually targets a very sensitive topic as it can ruin our sport if we don't do anything about it. Scooter riders have to become self-confident about our sport plus there is absolutely no reason that we have to hide. Scootering is already huge in some countries and once it will get into the X-games in a few years the sport will explode and will blow every other action sport out of the water. We will get there without the support from skateboarders or bikers and there is no reason to jock them but have every reason to be proud of our own accomplishment. Most of today's riders will be opinion leaders then that all the new kids will look up to. The more important it is to hold the flag up high and only support brands that fully support scootering and prominently showcase scootering on their web sites. These are the ones that will re-invest their money into the sport, sponsor events and riders and will pay them enough salary so they can make a living of scootering. The more money they make the more companies will get on and compete for riders. Competition is good and the more the better -- it keeps everybody on their toes and puts more money into the riders' pockets. Skateboard or BMX companies will never do that and I have yet to see a Nike or DC logo on a flier of a scooter contest or a scooter rider on their web sites.

Another reason why we have to find our own identity and should try to stay away from skateboarding as far as we can is that we will alienate them if we try too hard to copy them and their lifestyle. When rollerblading came up in the mid 90's they made the mistake that they copied the style, clothing and even logos from skateboarding which triggered a massive wave of hate against them. What made things worse was that skateboarding was in a crisis while rollerblading was exploding (due to the X-games) and companies were throwing money at them. Skateboarders then started a massive hate campaign, told every kid that came into a skate park how gay their sport is and that skateboarding was the only cool thing to do. If an older guy tells a younger kid what he's wearing or doing is gay he will most likely believe it. And boy did it work: One weekend you saw a kid on rollerblades and the next week he was on a skateboard. Rolllerbladers shifted in droves to skateboarding which eventually helped to turn their sport around. But skateboarders did not stop there. They told every sponsor, TV network, marketing agents, contest organizer and their mother how uncool rollerblading is and that they would pull out if they would touch inline. From then on rollerblading was nowhere to be seen, it only went downhill and never recovered.
Skateboarding is in a steep decline again today and we have to be extremely careful not to trigger their hate again. They know very well what to do to get kids on their side.

Some riders might argue that skateboarders might respect them more if they wear clothing from skateboarding companies. Wrong. I had a fairly big snowboard clothing company in the early 90's when snowboarding was huge. There was quite a rivalry between skiers and snowboarders and they prohibited snowboarding and many ski resorts which we hated them for. Snowboarding eventually took over anyway and became the cool thing. Many skiers even went so far that they were wearing snowboard clothing which made it even worse and we lost any respect. By not wearing their own clothing they obviously admitted that skiing was gay. We had more respect of skiers that stuck to their own thing than to a follower that wanted to be cool. Skateboarders hate everything new and it took years until they even respected bikers. Most still think of scooterers as little kids in full body armor that drop in or don't understand the concept of taking turns. On the other hand we experience all the time that when our pros ride new parks skateboarders stop skating, watch in awe and even cheer when they see what a scooter pro can do. It will come.

It's better to stay away from skateboarding (and BMX) as far as possible and find our own identity. There are plenty of companies in our sport that are fully committed to scootering and make great products. Buy their stuff and clothing - that's the only way our sport will grow.

Andy
Sunshine Distribution, Inc."
President