A long time coming.

I, like a good few people I know, used to constantly buy BMX magazines. Ride, Dig, Cream and any other lesser known BMX magazines I could find - even Ride US (and that's really saying something. I'm talking about before they made their more recent improvement in content so that interviews weren't purely photo-based and might actually contain some kind of text somewhere in the entire issue). I'd buy things I knew were probably going to be bad just because I enjoyed reading about something I was fully into, and it was cool to see other people's opinions on it. Recently, I've bought about 2 magazines in the past few months (Both of which were Dig). I used to buy Ride every single month without fail, then read it cover to cover, but I simply can't be bothered any more. Paying £3.40 to read the inane rants from unoriginal writers stating the tediously obvious gets pretty old pretty fast. The photography was still as top quality as ever, and the majority of the interviews and features were good, but who actually cares about what "Certain People" (no need to make it personal...) think about other "Certain People"? Similarly, why have sections of magazines dedicated to talking about internet-based news (Especially when they're as accurate as last month's issue was, such as the section about H-Man's bike "getting stolen" and "getting it back" from Billy at Brixton, when the guy who's bike was stolen was nothing to do with H-Man at all, and there was a hell of a lot more to it than that (Not to mention it being pretty old by then, anyway...))? I know that's essentially what I'm doing here, but this is free, and I'm not really in the same position of authority and power that magazines are. The internet is threatening print magazines more than ever, and while magazines continue to squander their advantages over internet sites, it seems like they're becoming closer and closer to being over-run. Complaining about a lack of originality in the way "Kids" ride today seems pretty ironic when the article you're saying it in is pretty much a template of every other "I hate the way BMX is today" article.

In completely unrelated news, here's a completely hilarious, incredibly original and well informed piece from 20negative. Oh, wait... But seriously - I don't mind people talking about the 'negative' sides of BMX, but at least make it relevant to BMX. iPod shuffles, skinny jeans, tight t-shirts and fluorescent Nikes have long been the staple uniform of the scenesters in the majority of the UK, so attempting to use that to take the piss out of BMXers seems pretty weak. Similarly "lol, bikes are getting smaller and lower, lol" got pretty old when people started having a go at Fly when they released the Tierra and Blackeye were talking about the Cory Jarman signature frame. That was at least a year ago...

Anyway, that's enough from bad-tempered Mark for the day.

EDIT: One last thing - I should probably point out the newest Ride "Interview" issue is actually pretty good.