At first glance Action Sports and outdoor pursuits have seemingly nothing in common. Let's take a closer look.
I bet sometimes, even (especially) in the heavy-ass seas of contemporary media, you feel lost. You find yourself wondering where to go for like, culture. Where (IRL/URL) to be seen and gotten and understood. Where to connect and learn and progress. And because mainstream culture is largely dominated, still, by hyper-categorization and labels you feel forced to string together a makeshift community through a custom ad hoc compilation of verticals, blogs, pods, websites, channels, content feeds, socials, aaaand the rare printed magazine. But none of them see all of you because you are new, you are the future, you are the vanguard. Markets, even in 2022, are generally slow and clumsy and tentative and, as far as endurance is concerned, dominated by a false, outdated and tired binary; Form vs. Function.
“Pick a camp”
“Choose a side.”
“You’re either one or the other.”
“You can’t have both.”
Except, you can. You can have both.
“A global marketplace. Defined by the seamless intersection of endurance and fashion. Form and Function no longer separate and opposing concepts, ideas and values. Physical particulars, metaphysical realities, the meaning of movement. Synthesized. Compelled into the now. Moving across the topography, the landscape, the surface of the Earth. Possibilities stretch out. Latent aerobic and anaerobic potential. Opportunities. Stand and sprint. Time and Energy. Distance. Tricks. Lines. Things to land, things to make. This is not a mountain, it's a mount. A catharsis. A club. A culture.”
Please consider this a flag. And please consider it planted.
We are DSTNC, we are an endurance culture arcade, this is a Big Bang. Form and function are united. To understand how we got here and where we’re going it’s critical to begin at the start.
“But what if your sport or activity was so spiritual and significant and holistically charged that it naturally impacted other aspects of your life”
In the early-to-mid 80’s skateboarding gave birth to lifestyle culture. Before skateboarding, sports were activities that happened in distinct designated times and places like a field or a court, and required special clothes and equipment in order to participate and/or compete. Once the game was over that was it, you put on normal clothes and went home and did whatever. But what if your sport or activity was so spiritual and significant and holistically charged that it naturally impacted other aspects of your life—seamlessing encompassing fashion, music, philosophy, ideas and understanding. What if more than sport it was a form of self expression, a way of existing, a way of both seeing and moving through the world. And what if it was all of those things and more, at once, all of the time. An amalgamation of everything. Integrated. Complete. Synthesized.
That was skateboarding. And that’s why skateboarding gave birth to lifestyle culture.
Shortly after, other Action Sports like surfing, BMX and snowboarding saw what skateboarding was doing and adopted it.
At the same time in a parallel universe called Outdoor, a few other soon to be relevant things happened on the cuspy edge of pursuit and sport;
Backpacking was forgotten, shelved, canceled, diminished, put out to pasture, kaput.
Cross country skiing remained a niche.
Triathlons became a thing. Xterra had a moment.
Rock climbing, kayaking and trail running went vertical in terms of media, marketing and specialty equipment.
Camelbaks, clipless pedals and gore-tex rose to power.
And, most significantly, modern mountain biking was invented and perfected.
At first glance Action Sports and Outdoor Pursuits have seemingly nothing in common. Action sports are cool and stylish and largely about self expression while Outdoor Sports are about endurance aka exercise, comfort with discomfort and granola. And nature. But if we look closer we see that both worlds are united by lines—visualizing opportunities in the landscape (built & natural), applying physical effort and style to those opportunities in the form of tricks or “moves”, stringing those trick-moves together in a row, and seamlessly “making” them all without mistake; without falling, stacking, dabbing or bonking.
Lines are where and how form and function are united. Lines unite Action Sports and Outdoor Pursuits. Action sports teach us lifestyle. Outdoor pursuits teach us Endurance. DSTNC is where this is happening. This is Endurance Culture.
