I've been to many riding-related Internet discussion groups over the years, and I've come to the conclusion that BMX riders are idiots.
It really doesn't take a trained sociologist to come to this conclusion. Look at any website discussion board and you'll see the same kinds of things:
- rampant homophobic remarks
- racist remarks
- trash talking (bordering on libel)
- flat-out bullshit
- general ignorance and attitude problems
This kind of thing has caused the shutdown of several BMX-related discussion boards, not to mention eWire's — I pulled it down long ago when it quickly turned into an out-of-control trash-talking forum.
A lot of it can be attributed to youth. I'm 30 and well above the average age of the typical message posting rider (outside of the old school BMX Yahoo club). But there are still plenty of ignorant people posting who are old enough to either (a) have semi-intelligent views of life, or (b) have something better to do. Obviously not.
Sure, I'll wager that the majority of riders are good people — that's definitely true in my real-life meetings with other riders. But if anyone outside the BMX world read these message boards and assumed this was representative of all of us, it's no wonder there's little respect of us.
