YoBeat’s New Year’s Resolutions

It’s 2011 and with this shaping up to be the best season ever and all, it’s time for some resolutions… so here’s five! Feel free to ignore them, or if you wanna be as cool as us (hack, gag) then you should follow this amazingly good example we’re setting and attempt to emulate them.

1. Stop the Ski Hate

If you’ve been reading this site (or really any snowboard publication) for any amount of time, you’ll know how difficult this is going to be. Not only was hating on skiing ingrained in us by skiers themselves from the day we first strapped on that snowboard back in the 90s, but it’s so much fun. Just check the incredibly hilarious comments on any of these past ski hate flame bait pieces we’ve posted. It’s like they do the work for you! But it’s a new year, a new decade, and perhaps even time to bury the hatchet once and for all, so we’re going to try our hardest this year to avoid the traffic trap that is ski hate. I mean, look at the dudes in this “Ankle Deep” video, which we (mainly) didn’t post because of skiing. They’re just having fun bro, isn’t that what it’s all about? But, that said…

…based on the above video, we still do not believe skiers should be allowed to hit rails.

2. Don’t duck ropes

Jan Eberharter and his friends are total rebels (see :39). Don’t be like them.

Being a rule-disobeying badass when you snowboard is part of the reason snowboarding is so fun, for me at least. One of the main reasons I got into it to long ago is because as a defiant teen with skier parents, it was cool and rebellious (no seriously, it used to be!), but this year, things have gotten serious. It might just be more apparent because Boardistan insists on reporting on every snowboard death, but snowboarding is especially dangerous this season. This is putting ski areas on especially high alert, and it seems they will clip your pass for even the most minor infraction. Since I personally have already lost one pass this year, I’m gonna do my best to stay safe and follow the rules for all of 2011 and encourage the rest of the jerks who work for me to do the same. 2012… well, the world is gonna end so no reason to be a pussy then.

3. Wear a Helmet

A recent repost of a completely innocent piece written in 1999 somehow turned into a 60-comment helmet debate. And while we never expect to convince a-man that wearing a helmet is actually warm, comfortable and functional, at this point, I personally have already lost too many brain cells not to. (It’s also a good zone for Yobeat branding!)

4. Drink More

Actually, I think we (especially Party Time Nate) drink enough. It’s just funny to make this resolution every year.

5. Be nicer to Nick Lipton

Nick Lipton: the intern years

Sometimes I try to remember what life was like before I met Nick Lipton in the Mt. Hood Meadows terrain park and asked if he could intern for me. I can’t, mostly because of all those brain cells lost after years of not wearing a helmet, but anyway, the little guy, as annoying as he is, was the number one motivator behind YoBeat being a “real thing” now. He went and got himself a real job at Chicago’s most powerful (junior) ad exec last fall, and admittedly I have been giving him a lot of shit about the half-assed job he’s been doing for Yobeat lately. I still contend he is doing a half-assed job, but this year, I’m going to try out this empathy thing and believe that maybe, just maybe, he actually is as busy as he says (unlike when he complained constantly during college.) However, this will be the hardest one of all.