In an instagram post a few months ago, Steve Stepp signaled his rather dire outlook for the future of skiing, noting that “no one wants to give an opinion”. Trolling or not, Mr. Steve has a point. Discussions of freesking’s metamorphosis have been largely confined to neurotic debates of aesthetic preferences (big pants vs little pants, wavy arms vs afterbang ect..).
While it is undoubtably fun to decree the optimal pant size diameter, these conversations rarely get close to pinpointing the reasons for skiings legitimate communal changes. Nonetheless, the median skier is clearly perceptible of some unknown forces changing the tides of this sport. But what are these forces exactly- is Tom Wallisch pulling some secret levers of influence? I thought I would make some anthropological claims about this beloved activity and see what you guys think.
I. intro intro intro
I remember being baffled by the idea of quitting skiing. The allure and grandiosity of the Refresh-era had effectively starstruck a whole generation of kiddos. There was a clear hierarchy in skiing, and mythical figures like Tom Wallisch sat on top, in all its glory. Like many on this site, I eagerly copied the unquestioned ethos of tall-t’s, afterbang and listening to gun-talk. Perhaps amplified by childhood wonder, it felt possible to instantiate the obvious coolness of freestyle skiing.
So when a skier like Jon Brogan stepped away from the sport, it provoked some serious confusion. How could someone decide to walk away from such a fabled position in freeskiing? My childhood self imagined it as a loss of joy in his life, but also as a literal loss of reputability.
I find this thought indicative of what it meant to be a core skier during the Refresh-era. Skiing generally occupied 100% of ones social identity- and it was worth it! Extreme sports were fresh and exciting, existing in a novel space where once random kids from Åre Sweden and 7 springs Pennsylvania suddenly had the capacity to harness a higher volume of awe than ever before and subsequently reflect it on themselves as freeskiers. The self-mystification of these athletes could only be limited by their own imagination. Tom Wallisch posing as Jesus for the JOSS 2009 edit was a joke, but not far off from his genuine reception among young kids.
Looking back, the era of freeskiers as rockstars was clearly a product of novelty, and the money that accompanied its sensational momentum.
Eventually, the rockstar aesthetic outpaced the sport itself. When the novelty of freeskiing wore off and its entertainment value depreciated (thanks YouTube and Instagram)-an interesting transition occurred. Progression continued to increase exponentially, but this time without the same fame and fortune. Competition skiing was severed from the core of skiing, relegated to an entertaining but ultimately unattainable subset of wealthy skiing gymnasts. The once obvious hierarchy and image of freeskiing fissured. The emergent crisis manifested in freeskiing needing to redefine itself and realign with new virtues, as being purely “dope” was thoroughly exhausted and artificially afforded by the extreme sports hype bubble.
II. What does this mean about freeskiing?
To paint an accurate picture of freeskings evolution (or devolution), you need to take into account that communal and skill-based activities depend on their perceived status to survive. This relationship is cyclical. A universally cool image incentives progression and content production at the upper levels, which subsequently functions to uphold the mystique and attractive power of the sport.
Those who have pursued risky progression in skiing may understand this best. At a certain point, flinging ones body onto a piece of steel 15 feet away is not done simply for fun, but because there are additional social incentives. While this argument may sound like heresy to some people, the ski-because-its-fun-doctrine fatally ignores the self-centered facet of our sport, making it incapable of explaining its communal changes.
I would argue that if freeskiing suddenly lost all cachet, a remarkable amount of people would eventually leave the sport, despite it being objectively fun. This is not a bad thing, but it would be good for our community to at-least acknowledge how comparison is the “social currency” of our sport, and that the value of this currency depends on skiings coolness. If freeskiing’s aura crashes, then so does long-term participation.
Ski-ballet is a fairly good example. For a moment in time, it was all the rage and fabled to be enjoyable. Once ski ballet lost funding and events, everybody quit.
Following this logic, the artistic reinvention of new wave skiing should have been predictable. Post refresh-era hype, it wasn’t cool to be excessively flamboyant. Yet, up-coming skiers wished to continue skiing and maintain the value of their social currency. By establishing new communal standards, upper level skiers had essentially re-incentivized their content production in the sport. The dissonance of refresh-era egoism was wiped away, and a new cycle of freeskiing ethos was established. This is clear in skiers like LSM and Magnus Granér, who both won superunknown at the inflection point of freeskiing's hype.
Will freeskiing meet a similar fate as ski-ballet? I doubt it, or at-least much less drastically. Ski-ballet was unable to reform itself and relied much more on events to attract participation than freeskiing. Either-way, we should take some notes from our deceased cousin.
III. A new challenge
A subset of core skiers today are remarkably the least vocal about their passion for skiing (atleast Zootspace-esque skiers seem shy despite producing arguably the best ski-film of recent years). Compared with core skiers of the past, there is an increased intentionality in limiting skiings grip on ones social identity. Dissociation from the activity through posting snowboarding videos is an indicative trend. This is completely fine: there is more to life than skiing and people can do whatever they want! Nonetheless, it might have some interesting implications on how young adults perceive freeskiing today.
In other words, what lead to this "socially reticent skier”? My best guess is it’s an epiphenomenon of heightened social consciousness among millennials. Young adults in the mid-2000’s operated happily in cultural vacuums, and so did skiing. The entropy of core skiers was simply to get more invested in skiing. This progression is fettered in certain skiers that are increasingly conscious of skiing’s haut-bourgeois roots and countryclub-esque requirements. Whether this has had a tangible impact on freeskiing, I am not sure. But I could imagine a situation where we have less skiers pursuing content production into their mid 20's, who otherwise would have in a previous era.
IV. What does this mean for the future of freeskiing?
Ski ballet’s demise exemplifies that events are incredibly important in the later stages of a sports evolution. Currently, Freeskiing is bleeding both funding and events. I can only predict this will lead to freeskiing’s community shrinking more each year. In the mean time, I imagine Freeskiing will be sustained in microcosms that are reflective of mid-2000s conditions- where freeskiing seems cool, and only cool. The healthiest of these groups being among highschoolers and wealthy competition skiers. Additionally, retention of content producing adult freeskiers will become more difficult. I can’t say more than this, but I would be curious to hear what Mr. Stepp was thinking.
Rough recap of main thoughts:
Freeskiing will always exist in some capacity because it is objectively fun, but "funness" can’t explain changes in freeskiing — one needs to be a little more misanthropic
Free skiings perceived social aura/cachet( i.e. skiing being cool) is the most ignored principal in understanding past, present and future changes in freeskiing..
What is impacting freeskiing’s image?
The novelty of extreme sports wearing off — the bursting of the extreme sports entertainment bubble due to hyper-accessibility to incredible content
Money matters- but there is a bit of a causality dilemma between freeskings “coolness” and funding — initially, funding entered the sport because freeskiing had the momentum of being new and cool… while freeskiing today depends more on funding/events to legitimize and uphold the liveliness of the activity
Heightened social conscious of freeskiing as a country club'esque activity (this is for a select group of skiers)
P.S. Despite a heavy dose of cynicism, I love to ski and will hopefully be a lifelong skier. The goal here was to potentially understand freeskiing’s implicit characteristics, rather than decreeing the correct form of freeskiing's image. Let me know what you think!
While it is undoubtably fun to decree the optimal pant size diameter, these conversations rarely get close to pinpointing the reasons for skiings legitimate communal changes. Nonetheless, the median skier is clearly perceptible of some unknown forces changing the tides of this sport. But what are these forces exactly- is Tom Wallisch pulling some secret levers of influence? I thought I would make some anthropological claims about this beloved activity and see what you guys think.
I. intro intro intro
I remember being baffled by the idea of quitting skiing. The allure and grandiosity of the Refresh-era had effectively starstruck a whole generation of kiddos. There was a clear hierarchy in skiing, and mythical figures like Tom Wallisch sat on top, in all its glory. Like many on this site, I eagerly copied the unquestioned ethos of tall-t’s, afterbang and listening to gun-talk. Perhaps amplified by childhood wonder, it felt possible to instantiate the obvious coolness of freestyle skiing.
So when a skier like Jon Brogan stepped away from the sport, it provoked some serious confusion. How could someone decide to walk away from such a fabled position in freeskiing? My childhood self imagined it as a loss of joy in his life, but also as a literal loss of reputability.
I find this thought indicative of what it meant to be a core skier during the Refresh-era. Skiing generally occupied 100% of ones social identity- and it was worth it! Extreme sports were fresh and exciting, existing in a novel space where once random kids from Åre Sweden and 7 springs Pennsylvania suddenly had the capacity to harness a higher volume of awe than ever before and subsequently reflect it on themselves as freeskiers. The self-mystification of these athletes could only be limited by their own imagination. Tom Wallisch posing as Jesus for the JOSS 2009 edit was a joke, but not far off from his genuine reception among young kids.
Looking back, the era of freeskiers as rockstars was clearly a product of novelty, and the money that accompanied its sensational momentum.
Eventually, the rockstar aesthetic outpaced the sport itself. When the novelty of freeskiing wore off and its entertainment value depreciated (thanks YouTube and Instagram)-an interesting transition occurred. Progression continued to increase exponentially, but this time without the same fame and fortune. Competition skiing was severed from the core of skiing, relegated to an entertaining but ultimately unattainable subset of wealthy skiing gymnasts. The once obvious hierarchy and image of freeskiing fissured. The emergent crisis manifested in freeskiing needing to redefine itself and realign with new virtues, as being purely “dope” was thoroughly exhausted and artificially afforded by the extreme sports hype bubble.
II. What does this mean about freeskiing?
To paint an accurate picture of freeskings evolution (or devolution), you need to take into account that communal and skill-based activities depend on their perceived status to survive. This relationship is cyclical. A universally cool image incentives progression and content production at the upper levels, which subsequently functions to uphold the mystique and attractive power of the sport.
Those who have pursued risky progression in skiing may understand this best. At a certain point, flinging ones body onto a piece of steel 15 feet away is not done simply for fun, but because there are additional social incentives. While this argument may sound like heresy to some people, the ski-because-its-fun-doctrine fatally ignores the self-centered facet of our sport, making it incapable of explaining its communal changes.
I would argue that if freeskiing suddenly lost all cachet, a remarkable amount of people would eventually leave the sport, despite it being objectively fun. This is not a bad thing, but it would be good for our community to at-least acknowledge how comparison is the “social currency” of our sport, and that the value of this currency depends on skiings coolness. If freeskiing’s aura crashes, then so does long-term participation.
Ski-ballet is a fairly good example. For a moment in time, it was all the rage and fabled to be enjoyable. Once ski ballet lost funding and events, everybody quit.
Following this logic, the artistic reinvention of new wave skiing should have been predictable. Post refresh-era hype, it wasn’t cool to be excessively flamboyant. Yet, up-coming skiers wished to continue skiing and maintain the value of their social currency. By establishing new communal standards, upper level skiers had essentially re-incentivized their content production in the sport. The dissonance of refresh-era egoism was wiped away, and a new cycle of freeskiing ethos was established. This is clear in skiers like LSM and Magnus Granér, who both won superunknown at the inflection point of freeskiing's hype.
Will freeskiing meet a similar fate as ski-ballet? I doubt it, or at-least much less drastically. Ski-ballet was unable to reform itself and relied much more on events to attract participation than freeskiing. Either-way, we should take some notes from our deceased cousin.
III. A new challenge
A subset of core skiers today are remarkably the least vocal about their passion for skiing (atleast Zootspace-esque skiers seem shy despite producing arguably the best ski-film of recent years). Compared with core skiers of the past, there is an increased intentionality in limiting skiings grip on ones social identity. Dissociation from the activity through posting snowboarding videos is an indicative trend. This is completely fine: there is more to life than skiing and people can do whatever they want! Nonetheless, it might have some interesting implications on how young adults perceive freeskiing today.
In other words, what lead to this "socially reticent skier”? My best guess is it’s an epiphenomenon of heightened social consciousness among millennials. Young adults in the mid-2000’s operated happily in cultural vacuums, and so did skiing. The entropy of core skiers was simply to get more invested in skiing. This progression is fettered in certain skiers that are increasingly conscious of skiing’s haut-bourgeois roots and countryclub-esque requirements. Whether this has had a tangible impact on freeskiing, I am not sure. But I could imagine a situation where we have less skiers pursuing content production into their mid 20's, who otherwise would have in a previous era.
IV. What does this mean for the future of freeskiing?
Ski ballet’s demise exemplifies that events are incredibly important in the later stages of a sports evolution. Currently, Freeskiing is bleeding both funding and events. I can only predict this will lead to freeskiing’s community shrinking more each year. In the mean time, I imagine Freeskiing will be sustained in microcosms that are reflective of mid-2000s conditions- where freeskiing seems cool, and only cool. The healthiest of these groups being among highschoolers and wealthy competition skiers. Additionally, retention of content producing adult freeskiers will become more difficult. I can’t say more than this, but I would be curious to hear what Mr. Stepp was thinking.
Rough recap of main thoughts:
Freeskiing will always exist in some capacity because it is objectively fun, but "funness" can’t explain changes in freeskiing — one needs to be a little more misanthropic
Free skiings perceived social aura/cachet( i.e. skiing being cool) is the most ignored principal in understanding past, present and future changes in freeskiing..
What is impacting freeskiing’s image?
The novelty of extreme sports wearing off — the bursting of the extreme sports entertainment bubble due to hyper-accessibility to incredible content
Money matters- but there is a bit of a causality dilemma between freeskings “coolness” and funding — initially, funding entered the sport because freeskiing had the momentum of being new and cool… while freeskiing today depends more on funding/events to legitimize and uphold the liveliness of the activity
Heightened social conscious of freeskiing as a country club'esque activity (this is for a select group of skiers)
P.S. Despite a heavy dose of cynicism, I love to ski and will hopefully be a lifelong skier. The goal here was to potentially understand freeskiing’s implicit characteristics, rather than decreeing the correct form of freeskiing's image. Let me know what you think!
