What happens when you gather a handful of athletes that take themselves too seriously, throw in a gaggle of media personnel that would never dare deflate the egos of those they so proudly call friends, and one bizarre Swedish diva event host? JOSS, of course. Add a once-in-a-century volcanic eruption that strands all those chuckleheads in Europe, and you’ve got a volatile combination.
Just by writing this I run the real risk of giving you the impression that any of this matters. It doesn’t. However, the situation with Team America releasing their edit too early, Jon writing a strongly worded letter, and then Tom and Simon’s agents writing a pretty silly response for them has really helped me understand what is so annoying about our sport’s primadonnas.
Initially I had thought it was just their jockish nature. But that always came up a bit hollow. I have plenty of friends that suffer from the affliction of jockism, and while they might be too eager to talk about stats, standings, and deadlifts, they tend to be pretty good guys. The difference is in the sport. Not only does Simon Dumont make a living at a discipline that is more like gymnastics than football, but he does it entirely alone; that’s where the trouble lies. Now there are plenty of sports where you compete alone, but they tend to have some sort of partner system. Take boxing for example, you don’t have a team in that ring, but during training you’ve got sparring partners and coaches to drill with. There’s a socialization process.
Simon and Tom didn’t win, so they took their ball (the edit) and went home (Youtube). In the letter they explain that the criteria for judging the edits were changed without their knowledge. I guess that’s a legitimate gripe, but boys- this ain’t the Olympics. It’s fucking JOSS! The guy named the event after himself. If he wants to make a rule that says, “Simon Dumont will have one point deducted for every inch that he is shorter than me,” he damn well can. That’s the whole reason egomaniacs like Jon name events after themselves.
For a final sports simile: JOSS is like the MLB All-Star game. If Roy Halladay decided to walk off the field with two outs in the inning because the umpire’s strike zone was too small, we’d all agree that he was being douchey. Well Tom and Simon, you’re being douchey. This is an invitation event, you can just say no next year. I hear the Orage Masters is more fun anyway.
Its like highschool all over again!
“Just by writing this I run the real risk of giving you the impression that any of this matters.”
you had me at this. So funny. This site is getting real.
Very nice Jon.
But did you see what Jacob did in his edit!
orage masters makes every other comp look like a football game.
No!!! Moar drama!!!!!!!
It’s “primadonna”, captain drama.
go fuck yourself
tom and simon dont have agents, they have the same agent. haha
Well done sir!
great post. ill for sure be checking out the site a lot more often
Wow brobomb stop the hate BROS its fucking skiing
How anyone could bitch after being aloud to hit those features is beyond me. I’m sure being the centers of attention in Sweden must be rough… Wa Wa waWn
^ That’s the point of this article, “its fucking skiing”.
We have a ski culture that went from a bunch of ex-freestyle comp kids who just wanted to ski in “snowboard parks” and big mountain skiers who wanted to bring tricks to the backcountry to now JOSS! It’s the most over the top display of the skiing industry or let’s say winter sports industry ever. This whole mess with the Team America edit seems to finally be proof that everyone is taking themselves too seriously.
Honestly, couldn’t JOSS just be a real park shoot? I bet you more creativity, progression and fun would come from it being a park shoot rather then a comp. This is probably the most unifying event of the year and what do we need to do, ohhhhhhh lets make it a competition. (yes I know it derived from JOI, but it could still be a park shoot.)
I MISS PARKASAURUS.