[shark]

Is it though? How much does anyone take notice of what Sponsored heroes wear? I'm not about to buy a pair of 5.10 Moccasyms because Ned climbed 8B in them. Nor am I going to buy a pair of bright orange Marmot trousers because Mawson wears them. Sometimes I'll see a few people using gear that I think looks good/appropriate for what I want and if they are using them for the type of things Im keen for then I might take notice but apart from that it doesn't work on me.

If Ned and all the other UK wads suddenly started wearing Madrocks I bet you'd considered checking out a pair. We are all slaves to advertising.

I'm definitely influenced by the wads. That Simon Lee using 5.10 Blancos on everything for example.

The fuckers won't even sponsor UKB let alone me

[slackline]

That'll win them over. 

[Mumra]

Pooch doesn't look as attractive as SBC. Period.

[webbo]

Pooch doesn't look as attractive as SBC. Period.

SBC? Some bald chap? Dense?

[shark]

That'll win them over. 

Hi Stef 

[a dense loner]

>Maybe, and I say maybe, if Pooch hadn't turned into a burly man she would appear more often on covers. But no one dares to say that.

Presumably they don't dare to say it because it's bad-mannered, misogynistic and an unthinkable thing to say even in private, never mind on a public forum.

Who the fuck cares what you like women to look like?

Unthinkable? Are you serious, this is priceless?

[Oldmanmatt]

Pooch doesn't look as attractive as SBC. Period.

Honestly disagree.

But then, wife No. 1 was into Judo.
No. 2, a bonafide Romanian gymnast.
And current fiancée was a serious Kick Boxer when we met... 


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[JulieM]

Presumably they don't dare to say it because it's bad-mannered, misogynistic and an unthinkable thing to say even in private, never mind on a public forum.

Who the fuck cares what you like women to look like?

 

I'm not allowed to dish out karma points but this post, and Will's, are great to see. The idea that someone can be at the top level in their sport, a highly trained athlete, and yet still be criticised because she doesn't fit into someone's ideal of beauty is fucking ridiculous and yet something that female sportspeople have to put up with.

[a dense loner]

I think people should read what nibs actually put and not what they think he put. The fact that he doesn't find someone attractive is up to him and was a minor point. Musings on whether she's too musclor to go on front covers anymore etc are also exactly that. Why has she been doing all this stuff, loads more than any other female climber and she's far far stronger than her nearest rival yet still no mainstay media interest? Must be some reason?

Obviously if she was on the news she'd be sat on the left. But probably hung to the right.

[Mumra]

Good looks sell products. Why is this so hard to fathom. That doesn't take anything away from the Pooch (maybe $).

[benno]

... and yet Ondra is paid to tour the world. The thing that gets on people's tits (or muscular lack thereof) is the MASSIVE disparity in the kind of casual criticism that people feel it's polite/appropriate to dish out, depending solely on gender.

[erm, sam]

I started on Nibs because the comments he made about Puccio reminded me of comments he has previously made and I thought it was an interesting contradiction in his world view.

I do have a point relevent to this thread though. Who are these other female climbers "getting all the media attention"? Off the top of my head the only female climbers who are getting consistantly perhaps more coverage in the climbing media are/is Sasha digiulian. Recently Nina Williams was on the cover of Rock and Ice, I think. Both are adidas athletes and benefit from a well oiled PR machine that puts the stories and photo shoots about that the media pick up on because its is easy.

SBC is often cited as a key example of the not so good climber getting all the attention, but apart from her Twitter/Instagram/Socialmedia the only time she features in the mainstream media is in shit adverts for shit climbing shops, and in this months Rock and Ice in a Go Pro Mtn Games advert. True, she is often depicted in non hardcore climbing shots, but was not Puccio in a Sports Illustated shoot a year or two ago?
Did the World Cup girls not do a cheesecake calendar shoot because they were "bored of always being in climbing shots and wanted to present another side of themselves". I think Mina said this or something along those lines in an interview about the calendar back in the day.

I think the particular Puccio issue is as much down to her not having sponsors who are PRing the shit out of anything she does as much as anything else. Any why not the sponsors? I would argue that her historical massive grumpyness when not climbing well make her less attractive to a sponsor rather than any physical issue. She may be percieved as not a safe pair of hands for the correct presentation of the brand. Perhaps. I just thought of this so I'm not wedded to the idea.

[Will Hunt]

I think the gender discussion is a bit off topic anyway. To summarise the shit that pisses me off is this:

Sponsored climbers at the top tend not to say anything other than meaningless platitudes about #psyche or #training or that stupid bicep emoji. It's boring as fuck.

This attitude has trickled down to the masses and is rife among those who aren't sponsored and aren't ever going to be sponsored. This is less boring than it is really uncool because people are taking themselves so seriously. This isn't aimed at any one person in particular (I noticed a lot of people getting quite personal further up the thread which was unpleasant to read).


I like following Grimer on Facebook and Twitter. He's an official BMC man, yet he still calls his followers cunts and bastards. More of that please.

[petejh]

I'm not convinced there's much misogynistic ('hatred of women' - really?! Come off it.) about Nib's offering up of his views on what sort of looks he prefers in women (and men).
Sexist? Slightly crass perhaps, but that's one of the better features of ukb remember, I'd rather hear interesting opinion than meaningless platitude upon tepid banality.

Apply the reverse to what Nibs said and it doesn't strike me as misandristic:

'Maybe, and I say maybe, if Pooch Man X hadn't turned into a burly man skinny woman she he would appear more often on covers. But no one dares to say that.'

Likewise this:

For what I'm concerned, let's say that I like when men look like men and women look like women. As much as I don't like adult male climbers who starve themselves to 50 kilos, I don't like women with huge muscles, single digit body fat percentage and pecs where breast should be.

The reverse is in there already ('male climbers starving themselves ...etc'). But I didn't hear anyone complain about Nibs professing to not like men who look like women. Surely there must be some men offended, or some women offended for them?

So yes, I worship at the altar of power, but I personally don't like when men look like women, and maybe magazines don't either.

That to me's the interesting question. If there's a bias in climbing media towards physical attractiveness over sporting ability. Seems a no-brainer to me, a bit like sponsorship oil goes to the squeeky wheels. And does it apply more to one sex or the other or both equally - i.e. is it a sexist bias or an equal bias?

(in response to 'looks sell'... and yet Ondra is paid to tour the world. The thing that gets on people's tits (or muscular lack thereof) is the MASSIVE disparity in the kind of casual criticism that people feel it's polite/appropriate to dish out, depending solely on gender.

Really? Again I'm unconvinced by this and suspect there's some over-sensitivity going on. Ondra gets called an ugly bastard on here on most days ending with 'y'. He's regularly labelled Polly from 'Hi-De-Hi' ffs!


Pooch has her work cut out: a sponsorship marketing system / outwith commonly accepted norms of physical attractiveness / possibly being the 'wrong' sex - fuck I'm glad I'm shit, uninterested in external reward/recognition, and male!

[r2d2]

Good looks sell products. Why is this so hard to fathom. That doesn't take anything away from the Pooch (maybe $).

That post says nothing about nothing.

[abarro81]

I think the gender discussion is a bit off topic anyway. To summarise the shit that pisses me off is this:

Sponsored climbers at the top tend not to say anything other than meaningless platitudes about #psyche or #training or that stupid bicep emoji. It's boring as fuck.

This attitude has trickled down to the masses and is rife among those who aren't sponsored and aren't ever going to be sponsored. This is less boring than it is really uncool because people are taking themselves so seriously. This isn't aimed at any one person in particular (I noticed a lot of people getting quite personal further up the thread which was unpleasant to read).


I like following Grimer on Facebook and Twitter. He's an official BMC man, yet he still calls his followers cunts and bastards. More of that please.

+1. Not sure why people ended up talking about the mags, the original article is about this kind of crap. Black and white photos of fingerboarding along with telling me just how hard you try in your training sessions are my current least favourite. 

[Oldmanmatt]

I think the gender discussion is a bit off topic anyway. To summarise the shit that pisses me off is this:

Sponsored climbers at the top tend not to say anything other than meaningless platitudes about #psyche or #training or that stupid bicep emoji. It's boring as fuck.

This attitude has trickled down to the masses and is rife among those who aren't sponsored and aren't ever going to be sponsored. This is less boring than it is really uncool because people are taking themselves so seriously. This isn't aimed at any one person in particular (I noticed a lot of people getting quite personal further up the thread which was unpleasant to read).


I like following Grimer on Facebook and Twitter. He's an official BMC man, yet he still calls his followers cunts and bastards. More of that please.

+1. Not sure why people ended up talking about the mags, the original article is about this kind of crap. Black and white photos of fingerboarding along with telling me just how hard you try in your training sessions are my current least favourite.

Then again, if your sponsors sell finger boards/are a training venue...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[petejh]

I think the gender discussion is a bit off topic anyway. To summarise the shit that pisses me off is this:

Sponsored climbers at the top tend not to say anything other than meaningless platitudes about #psyche or #training or that stupid bicep emoji. It's boring as fuck.

This attitude has trickled down to the masses and is rife among those who aren't sponsored and aren't ever going to be sponsored. This is less boring than it is really uncool because people are taking themselves so seriously. This isn't aimed at any one person in particular (I noticed a lot of people getting quite personal further up the thread which was unpleasant to read).


I like following Grimer on Facebook and Twitter. He's an official BMC man, yet he still calls his followers cunts and bastards. More of that please.

+1. Not sure why people ended up talking about the mags, the original article is about this kind of crap. Black and white photos of fingerboarding along with telling me just how hard you try in your training sessions are my current least favourite.

The grim reality of media without the filter of an editor. Thousands upon thousands of average climbers being self-indulgent, constantly accompanied by a string of links and hashtags for fingerboard/wall/chalk/flapjack.

Why would you want that piped into your daily life?

[Wood FT]

I think the gender discussion is a bit off topic anyway. To summarise the shit that pisses me off is this:

Sponsored climbers at the top tend not to say anything other than meaningless platitudes about #psyche or #training or that stupid bicep emoji. It's boring as fuck.

This attitude has trickled down to the masses and is rife among those who aren't sponsored and aren't ever going to be sponsored. This is less boring than it is really uncool because people are taking themselves so seriously. This isn't aimed at any one person in particular (I noticed a lot of people getting quite personal further up the thread which was unpleasant to read).


I like following Grimer on Facebook and Twitter. He's an official BMC man, yet he still calls his followers cunts and bastards. More of that please.

+1. Not sure why people ended up talking about the mags, the original article is about this kind of crap. Black and white photos of fingerboarding along with telling me just how hard you try in your training sessions are my current least favourite.

The grim reality of media without the filter of an editor. Thousands upon thousands of average climbers being self-indulgent, constantly accompanied by a string of links and hashtags for fingerboard/wall/chalk/flapjack.

Why would you want that piped into your daily life?

That's quite true actually, you do have to actually opt-in to this stream of bollocks by following/friending

[SA Chris]

Or just not having a Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Google + / Bebo account? I know it sounds crazy but it is possible.

[Wood FT]

Or just not having a Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Google + / Bebo account? I know it sounds crazy but it is possible.

That's what I meant by opt-in

[TobyD]

The grim reality of media without the filter of an editor. Thousands upon thousands of average climbers being self-indulgent, constantly accompanied by a string of links and hashtags for fingerboard/wall/chalk/flapjack.
Why would you want that piped into your daily life?

Indeed. I don't buy the daily mail, read mail online or ever eat KFC either, thousands do, but if they would like to consume figurative shit, that's their choice.

The exposure versus ability thing is not just a climbing phenomena. Sharipova was (until recently!) one of the highest earning tennis players in the world, despite being far from the highest achieving. You could pull put a thousand examples from any sector of the media. Tacky media of any sort is occasionally entertaining to a lot of people. I'm not sure this is a sign of the deterioration of modern climbing, perhaps a symptom of its popularity?

[SA Chris]

Or just not having a Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Google + / Bebo account? I know it sounds crazy but it is possible.

That's what I meant by opt-in

OK, I thought you just meant not "subscribing" to any of the ones you don't want to. Their social media "worth" does seem to be assessed by the amount of followers they have.

[Muenchener]

The grim reality ... flapjack.

Why would you want that piped into your daily life?

Just try the grim reality of living  for a while in a country where flapjack is unknown, then get back to me.

[Wood FT]

The grim reality of media without the filter of an editor. Thousands upon thousands of average climbers being self-indulgent, constantly accompanied by a string of links and hashtags for fingerboard/wall/chalk/flapjack.
Why would you want that piped into your daily life?

I'm not sure this is a sign of the deterioration of modern climbing, perhaps a symptom of its popularity Iphones etc?