Rumors of Demise, Redux

Texts on texts on texts.

To begin, some insulation: Willy Staley did the heavy lifting on this issue of DNA falling apart days ago, and having reread what he wrote on Monday, I feel like I'd be lifting ideas from the guy if I didn't include this blockquote from the link above:

One of the most incredible things about the skateboarding industry is how well it has insulated itself from all traditional forms of media. It took me at least 15 minutes to convince myself — combing through forums, Instagram posts, tweets and the like — it was true: Alien Workshop (and Habitat) went out of business. For non-skaters, it’s difficult to draw a comparison; there aren’t professional sports franchises known for their graphic design sensibilities, 16mm montages and commitment to East Coast grittiness.

Please read the rest of Staley's post as he goes into a possible post-mortem of the deals, beginning with Dyrdek "freeing" DNA from Burton (remember being hyped on that? I was.), to the probable demise. I say probable, because is it still in question? Here's Kalis on Thursday, captioning a clip on Instagram acting like it is:

There is something going up on Hellaclips today that is mindblowing. Literally mindblowing. Can't wait for y'all to see it. Whether or not AWS is going out of business or is here to stay.... This @manolostapes edit is fucking bananas!!!!

Then again, according to Sam McGuire, who I was talking with in the text grab at the top of the post, the whole thing went down a week ago, May 16. There's also this, from former Skateboarder staffer Christian Senrud, on Sunday:

@mmunzenrider further details have surfaced with early draft of official press release pic.twitter.com/9XWGqiCgp9

— Kip Wanger (@senderud) May 20, 2014

With all this taking place over the weekend, the strangest thing, to me at least, is that I was so completely unaware of the happenings that I didn't text McGuire until Tuesday, when I finally caught wind of it, via Twitter; it was a link to Staley's post that got me going on my own queries.

Back to the quote from Staley: "One of the most incredible things about the skateboarding industry is how well it has insulated itself from all traditional forms of media." Yeah, right? More than cursory checks of the remaining mags shows little to no mention of one of the major skateboard companies of the past three decades going out of business. No dedicated post on The Skateboard Mag, nothing on Transworld and only a tangental mention of it on Thrasher, in the form of copy for their almost podcast, which features Jake Johnson. The next best things, as far as "skateboard news" goes, The Berrics and Skate Daily, also had nothing.

It raises doubts about something that I was fairly sure about, if only because I know the media entities listed above wouldn't burn the bridge unless it were already going to go. Going through the sites linked above was simply getting pinged with ads, and why anyone reliant on such money would want to draw the curtain back is beyond me.

Then again, a consensus modern hero, close to the situation and now out of work but not facing real longterm unemployment just said, "Haha. Yes"

And (then again), we might be, probably, mostly mourning an idea, which never goes away, so long as we never forget, man.

@mmunzenrider Good question. I feel like people miss the 'idea' of AWS more than they miss the product.

— David Fink (@dsfink) May 20, 2014

Addendum: I don't think ESPN has posted anything on the matter, either.

Update, from when before the post, posts: Here's the clip Kalis was talking about above.