How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ski Bomb
Boy, did I ever have it wrong. After diving into the deep end on divisive issues in skiing, exploring how our sport intersects with broader movements like politics, identity, and meaning (silly me for following my passion!); after analyzing why things happen instead of taking them for granted like a good boy, I finally came around to the truth. Why worry so much about why things are the way they are? Let’s just get on with it already, and learn to love the Ski Bomb.
What is the Ski Bomb, you ask? Oh, well, it hangs over all of us, you see! Built by debt-leveraging finance bros, influencers, and–the deepest thinkers of them all–anonymous Instagram commenters, it’s a neat and tidy message spread over wonderful social media to all us skiers: Don’t think, ski! it says. Don’t worry, buy! it entreats; Fear not, repost! Those messages hang over my computer at my desk on a post-it note. I might start making bumper stickers.
Yes, I mostly learned of this on the natural, organic world of social media. There, I was put in my place by the rational and thoughtful hivemind. It told me a few times to give it a rest; that delving into touchy subjects in our subculture or investigating how skiing just might be political not only perpetuates a negative culture war, it creates it. Shit; what a mistake to source from decades of examples in magazines and blogs from inside and outside of skiing in the hopes of having a wider discussion. Oops, I guess I should have known better than to harsh skiing’s mellow. My bad!
Because everything is cool, right? Any differences or toxicity inside or out of our subculture is surely unworthy of being presented to us. Who needs that? Just look at how we came together, with the hunters, goat farmers, and granola-pounding free-heel skiers, and reposted enough on social media to single-handedly take down the sale of public lands. Good job us! Everything is fine now! We can finally go back to shopping for our quivers' 17th pair of skis and scrolling ski memes on Insta, right? Phew.
Yes, the Ski Bomb is just alright, my friends. And learning to love it has indeed been blissful. I’ve found myself more filled with online shopping-induced dopamine than I thought my little brain could stand. I’ve clicked affiliate links enough to become a bonafide economic powerhouse! My jacket from last year wasn’t the right color, anyways. Neither were my pants. Or my crampons. Or my shovel, or my Sorels that will never wear out. They’ll all look great in the landfill.
Oh and I bought my megapass and put its mega sticker on my megavan. That way the long-time neighbors next to the AirBNB’s I’ll be loud in this winter will understand this is all just in good fun. You're welcome!
I saw other people do that. So I’ve become a follower, and I’m better for it. Being told what to do, what to buy, and how to think has not only been so nice and easy; it has ingratiated me to the powers that be by not thinking too hard about what’s going on and what it all means taken together. Who has time for that, anyways? All it took was a few short, poorly written personal attacks on Facebook to see the light. But here I am, basking in it!
So where does the Ski Bomb take us next, you ask? Oh, from here, the future is certainly bright; it has been prophesied that one day soon, the Bomb will bring us limitlessness. Robot judges stand poised to grant skiing competition a new, perfect dawn, while the skiing industrial complex ever barrels onward. Innovative equipment from the minds of philosopher-manufacturers even will soon render the meaningless toil of earning one’s turns obsolete. Thank goodness–I mean, thank the Ski Bomb!–for such a new day.
So I conclude with these terms; worry not where we are headed. Any thought too deep on the direction the skiing movement is heading is merely anti-progress, anti-innovation, and anti-skiing. Let us build this new thing up, devoted to the Ski Bomb. To quote one Donald Trump, speaking of his wonderful and meaningful White House Ballroom reconstruction he has so purposefully taken to, “I built many ballrooms in many buildings, and that’s my greatest strength, actually. I might as well do this.”
What more could we ever hope for than to engage in an undertaking because we might as well?
Let that music carry us far and wide.