What's the worst thing to happen to the freestyle community?

[L_I_S]

In your opinion, what is the worst thing to happen to the freestyle community?

I say Macca and the way he divided the community, weakening it in the process.

[redsforlife]

Definitely not Macca. I mean, you don't have to like any person really, but I don't see him making L2F or producing his youtube channel as something harmful.

I think the worst thing that happened to the freestyle community is the obsession over competitions and which styles are better than other styles. I like competitions, but freestyle used to be more light hearted  and fun. Now, it's about who is the best. Also, this has lead many people to believe you must master a particular style to be considered good. Creativity is dying.

[L_I_S]

Definitely not Macca. I mean, you don't have to like any person really, but I don't see him making L2F or producing his youtube channel as something harmful.

I'm neutral towards him as a person. Do you disagree that making an alternate forum didn't weaken the community? All freestylers used to talk together, now it's only the one's that live near by that talk because they've already established a good friendship.

I've only watched a few of his videos so I don't know much about them, but as far as I can tell they bring the people who just want to learn freestyle to show a few tricks to their friends and call themselves a freestyler when really they only hold the bare minimum and are unworthy of the title.

I'm not sure how many people will understand this comparison but the 'freestylers' his video brings are the equivalent to the 'girl gamer' or 'casual gamer' of the gaming community. If you don't understand that, think of the Youtube generic top comments like 'I'm in the weird part of YT again!', 'quote from video' or '0:00 one more time!'. These are the people that are flocking into our community. The noobs that quit after 6 months.
His videos cater to non-freestylers, not beginner freestylers. This is a big difference and the reason why his videos weaken the community.

Tutorials from Leha, were very in depth and cater to freestylers from beginner to advanced. A freestyler must have lots of will, time and dedication and a lengthy in depth tutorial will quickly show who is serious and loves freestyle and what it's about and who just wants to do it to show off, get a few quick and easy oohs and aahs with an atw from their friends.

[Knnthh]

Online competitions that are completely dissapearing. The improvement the last 1-2 years of beginners/intermediates is far from what it was back in the days with those comps.

[Adi]

Macca created a new forum because he thought this one wasn't up to par.

The issue is his forum is pretty much a clone of BF.  He's added nothing new to be honest.

The freestyle community is small and should be kept in tact as much as possible.  I'm still a strong believer in uniting all the communities, even the foreign sites into sub categories.  I know it won't happen but having a central location for freestyle would be best.  Facebook is that now, but it's not made to open and detailed freestyle conversation.

[redsforlife]

I'm neutral towards him as a person. Do you disagree that making an alternate forum didn't weaken the community? All freestylers used to talk together, now it's only the one's that live near by that talk because they've already established a good friendship.

I've only watched a few of his videos so I don't know much about them, but as far as I can tell they bring the people who just want to learn freestyle to show a few tricks to their friends and call themselves a freestyler when really they only hold the bare minimum and are unworthy of the title.

I'm not sure how many people will understand this comparison but the 'freestylers' his video brings are the equivalent to the 'girl gamer' or 'casual gamer' of the gaming community. If you don't understand that, think of the Youtube generic top comments like 'I'm in the weird part of YT again!', 'quote from video' or '0:00 one more time!'. These are the people that are flocking into our community. The noobs that quit after 6 months.
His videos cater to non-freestylers, not beginner freestylers. This is a big difference and the reason why his videos weaken the community.

Tutorials from Leha, were very in depth and cater to freestylers from beginner to advanced. A freestyler must have lots of will, time and dedication and a lengthy in depth tutorial will quickly show who is serious and loves freestyle and what it's about and who just wants to do it to show off, get a few quick and easy oohs and aahs with an atw from their friends.

Last time I heard, L2F Forum wasn't doing  so hot either. Really, I doubt there would be that much more activity on here if it was never invented. It didn't help, but it also isn't what killed it. Facebook kind of took over as the main place to talk about freestyle online.

I actually see absolutely nothing wrong with his tutorials attracting casuals. How else are you gonna turn casuals into hardcores? You have to start somewhere. I was definitely a casual when my entire freestyle fan ways were watching NIKE Joga Bonito ads. I didn't even know what freestyle was back then. Now, I am definitely hugely involved in the community. I personally am and always will be of the opinion we shouldn't look down on noobs. Yes, they can be annoying, but if we look down on them, we might push them away  from the community. If we embrace them, they might become the next generation of hardcores.

[redsforlife]

Online competitions that are completely dissapearing. The improvement the last 1-2 years of beginners/intermediates is far from what it was back in the days with those comps.

I think the influx of live competitions and of course the forum being less busy are the main culprits here. Online competitions for fun were great. They definitely inspired people to go out and practice. With all the huge live competitions, less people are willing to have interest in a video competition. Hell, I remember in the prime days of BF, Skora and other top freestylers entered random online competitions.

[Adi]

I still think there is room for a dedicated freestyle site for comps.  I wanted to make BF one of those sites.  You don't need the top freestylers participating (would be nice)... it would be more for the beginners and mid-level freestylers.

[redsforlife]

I still think there is room for a dedicated freestyle site for comps.  I wanted to make BF one of those sites.  You don't need the top freestylers participating (would be nice)... it would be more for the beginners and mid-level freestylers.

Of course you don't need the top freestylers competing. It's just they sometimes draw people in. What we need is something that will bring traffic back to the site. Last year's BF Competition did that a little bit.

[Knnthh]

I think the influx of live competitions and of course the forum being less busy are the main culprits here. Online competitions for fun were great. They definitely inspired people to go out and practice. With all the huge live competitions, less people are willing to have interest in a video competition. Hell, I remember in the prime days of BF, Skora and other top freestylers entered random online competitions.

Agreed, it's sad though, since online competitions were the main reason people from the time online comps were big, improved so fast. Imo you can see a big difference between the improvement of guys in for example 2008 and nowadays. Freestylers (especially beginners) became very lazy, because they don't have any goal to strive for, live comps are too 'big' anyways for them to aim at. This is also a reason why most people quit after 1-2 years of freestyle nowadays

I think 'year-competitions' with for example 24 guys (who are motivated to do this and will actually make the videos) would be the best way to improve in freestyle, if you have two battles a month with two different guys. At the end of the year a ranking could be made.
Similar to the RLL, but with allround (to attract more people) and going for a year instead of a few months. I doubt this could work out though since the laziness is high 

[Adi]

We can try to start a new BF comp.  We can also do a video comp each month where we start a poll to see who made the best video.

[Adi]

Is it possible that the community outgrew forums?  Maybe it got too big that it didn't need to rely on a forum, instead it went mainstream (social media, live events, and tons of other outlets).