Thinking Clearly About Culture Part 2 of 3

SKATER CULTURE? I've heard more than one well-meaning and Godly man talk about 'skater culture'. We are told that there is skater culture and surf culture and rap culture and tuner culture [street cars] and that it is the will of God that we infiltrate these cultures. But how did we end up with skater culture? It's easy to see how we ended up with Indian, Chinese, British culture... but how'd the skaters do it? The answer is that the skaters didn't do it. It was done for them ... or technically, to them. There is no such thing as skater culture or surfer culture or tuner culture, etc. These are more properly referred to as subcultures and they were created and perpetuated by CLEVER MARKETING.

HOIST THE SALES: It has been said that the great American genius is not meeting needs but creating them; not service but sales. That is what subcultures are all about. In the case of 'skate culture', since the eighties, sales teams have targeted mostly white, lower to middle class, twelve to twenty-two year old males [their girlfriends would follow] with skater-related products.

But these products are packaged as lifestyles. Clever commercials encourage target audiences to find and build their personal identity around a distinguishing hobby or characteristic. Buying a skateboard led to wearing skater shoes, shorts, shirts, watches, then buying skater-marketed hair gel and color, wall posters for one's room, skate-related films are made, skate music labels sell music specifically tailored to skaters, carried by certain radio stations [which in turn sell advertising space to all the aforementioned skater products]. Skater jargon is woven throughout to further solidify the image that this is a lifestyle - "We even talk like skaters ... we are different ... so don't wear preppy socks; wear skater socks.  And whadaya know - we just happen to have them on sale this week!"

Moreover, last year's skater socks simply won't do either, because, after all, sales is behind this... and to keep sales up, the style of socks has to change from season to season. So subcultural styles are, by their nature, very impermanent.

The Market-Driven Church: How are churches obligated to accommodate skater culture? Do skaters require a skater pastor with spiky hair and a tattooed neck inside of a large glass building surrounded by a graffitied skate park? If we don't do these things are we neglecting the skaters' souls? I certainly don't think so.