'Skater Surveillance 101'

I don't know if you read 'Adbusters' but there is a chilly little article this month about 'How Skating Lost It's Soul'. It's essentially about how Nike co-opted the skate culture by making shoes with such fat profit margins that indie skate shops had to carry them. Aside from recommending Adbusters as a good read, I recommend going out and getting this months issue just for this article.

They talk about how Nike hired Ph.D., Anthropology students to write up ethnographies of skaters. Listen to this quote from former pro skater and current SF based writer Ocean Howell,"I really objected to the Orewellian market research. Focus groups are one thing but much more invasive tactics are becoming standard practice. A friend of mine worked at one of the major US clothing companies desperate to target skaters. It's design rooms were filled with long lens 'sniper photos' of skateboarders walking down the street, riding their boards, sitting around drinking soda...Ordinary skaters were subject to menacing levels of surveillance."

Ok. Got the picture? Now re-read that paragraph and substitute 'child' for 'skater'.

"It's design rooms were filled with long lens 'sniper photos' of CHILDREN walking down the street, riding their boards, sitting around drinking soda...Ordinary CHILDREN were subject to menacing levels of surveillance."

Anybody else see a problem here? US corporations hiring firms to surreptitiously photograph children (Don't even try and tell me these kids are over 18 on the aggregate) with telephoto lenses?
If you happen to do this for a living well fuck you...I hope the cops catch up to you soon.

SIDENOTE: I love Adbusters and commend their bravery for doing a cover story on Torture. That said, the cover art was weak as hell. There's literally thousands of real torture pics they could have chosen but they opted for a production assistant strapped down in an aseptically clean 'torture room' This is the same publication that blew my mind by publishing the photo below from the infamous 'Highway of Death' in Iraq. C'mon boys...you can do better than that.



Here's a torture pic!



and trust me. This is nothing. We do abominable things in the name of the 'War on Terror' but this pic you see above comes from an administration that assures us 'We do not torture' The picture you see is from the Abu Gharib archive and shows a pile of zip-tied, hooded men getting beaten by a US soldier...

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By the by...looks like Rovie Poo is about to get Frog-marched out of the White House. Check out this great Jason Leopod update HERE. I'm all tingly...

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and please...

Stay Naked.

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