Snowboarding: From Counter-Culture to Mainstream
Over the course of the last 50 years, Snowboarding has personified "Extreme Sports" metamorphosis from a subculture, underground movement into an iconic and globally recognized phenomena. Snowboarding's journey began in 1965, when Sherman Poppen saw has 11-year old daughters standing on their sleds in order to slide down the hills behind his house in Muskegon, Michigan. Emboldened with a business idea, Sherman quickly ran into his house, bound two skis together with a piece of rope, and labeled his invention the "Snurfer". Between 1966 and 1977, Popper's "Snurfer" sold over 500,000 units as Snowboarding's gradual rise to prominence had begun. (Howe 12) Throughout the 1970s and 80s, the Snowboarding movement served as a mirror image of the Southern California skateboarding movement in terms of its anti-mainstream ideology. According to Susanna Howe, author of Sick: A Cultural History of Snowboarding, the sport "...fought...against all odds by a by a group of people who, along with equipment, riding styles and gear, also nurtured a set of values: rebelliousness, free-mindedness, subversion, glamour, irony, and authenticity."(Howe 152) For young, snow-loving enthusiast during the latter half of the 20th century, Snowboarding served as a reaction against mainstream winter sports such as skiing, and offered them a chance to express their rebelliousness through a new and exciting medium that allowed for individuality where traditional winter sporting did not. But by the late 90s, Snowboarding and extreme sporting in general had begun to attract such a level of popular approval and commercial appeal that it could no longer continue its run as a true subculture movement. In 1994, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) decided to incorporate Snowboarding into the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, signaling that Snowboarding had made the big stage. In the coming years, hundreds of snowboarder-owned snowboard shops across the nation were pushed out of businesses by large chain sporting good stores, as the sport experienced corporatization on a massive scale for the first time. (Howe 154) Into the 2000's, Snowboarding and extreme winter sports continued an unprecedented growth in popularity as a result of the "X-Games" and the emergence of extreme sports first superstars, such as Shaun White. In 2010, X Games 16 was viewed by 35.4 million American's, and was broadcasted in over 175 countries, showing that Snowboarding and Extreme Winter sports had emphatically made the transition from an underground movement into a mainstream one.
Howe, Susanna. Sick: a Cultural History of Snowboarding. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1998. Print.
X-Games and Counter-Culture:
Throughout our course, we have examined counter-culture examples such as the revolutionary 1960s and the rise of Hip-Hop during the early 1980s. In the 1960s, predominately white middle-class American's attempted to rebel against conformist society and capitalism in general, choosing to adopt notions of "revolution" and "free love" as mechanisms to ameliorate the injustices they saw in the world. The Hip-Hop movement sprang from similar origins; disenfranchised Americans, (in this case, predominately African-American's living in urban areas) used music as to express their socio-political views and challenge the inequity in this country that caused them traumatic hardship and suffering in their daily lives. Both of these movements originated with noble, legitimate and original aspirations. But as their movements progressed, each of these "social revolutions" against mainstream society became caricatures of themselves. In the 60s, revolutionaries increasingly sought to buy commodities which connotated "cool" or identify with music just because everyone else was, too. The same thing happened in hip-hop; once artist’s in the industry realized that "gangsta rap" (music that allowed the rest of the world to see the injustices based on our racialized society, and held the potential to create meaningful change) sold records by emphasizing crime, violence, drugs and the objectification of women, making money by mindlessly producing this genre of music often became the goal, rather than raising awareness and challenging the system. Arguably, both of these movements lost their authenticity in selling out to the mainstream. The question is, do you believe extreme sports and snowboarding has done the same? Extreme sports began as a reaction against the mainstream, a rebellion that allowed its participants to express individuality, subversion, and a general rejection of the mainstream and conformity. Now that extreme winter sports are just as popular, if not more so, than traditional sports, do you believe that they have "sold-out", i.e., allowing "the man" to co-opt consumers into trying to buy the movements revolutionary principles? Or has snowboarding stayed true to its roots as best as it can in a globalizing world?
