Industry backyard #2

Core brands, independent, true, real... Do you know who owns your favourite brand?

The whole action sport business is super much about being core, saying the right stuff, tucking your knee the right way, listening to the song from the latest videograss flick and wearing the dopest ass hardcore gear... You spend a trezzillion hours reading magazines, googleing the whole internet, watching videos to learn what this weeks gotta get is. But are you aware that the warm shower you feel doing it is the industry taking a pee down your neck!

The smaller brands may seem more credible than huge corporate ones, but do you know who owns them? Quiksilver, Burton snowboards are the action sport equivalents of Coca cola, Phillip Morris and Nestle... they OWN their whole market.. and we promise you, they don't do it for the love of the game.. only dollars count! And be sure, mark-ups are more important than contributing to the (imaginary) society of skateboarding, snowboarding, skiing and all the other snake-rollerblading shit out there.

So when you're at your local dealer next time, please take a second to think..why is that billabong super 14-ply extra tex jacket cheaper than the Holden hemp one..well..it's because billabong makes maybe 100000pcs while Holden (or Airblaster etc) make like 400pcs, and they care about their products, use environmentally friendly fabrics and they actually do contribute in pushing their sport in a good way.

So before you buy.. think about who gets your money.. do you really want some greasy pig of a turd CEO to have your money just because you need new shoes to practice tre flips?