Shane ‘Nugget’ O’neill Pro for Skate Mental!

I thought this deserved its own thread.

I dont know if alot of people know this but Shane ‘Nugget’ O’neill turned Pro today.
For a local Melbournian this is a great accomplishment. Ive been watching him skate for 5+ years and he has grown so much throughout the years
‘The Berrics’ decided to help him out and release his part for him on the day he turned pro.

http://theberrics.com/dailyops.php

It costs $3 to download, but all the funds go straight to Shane.

Download it…...... ITS EPIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

From the Berrics…

AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE:

This weekend has been one of the most momentous weekends for the Berrics ever. So many of you have become a part of history and when what just happened with Shane O’neill’s video part becomes the standard way of releasing videos you can all say you helped mend a somewhat broken skateboard industry. The content we film and produce at the Berrics will always be free so for the few of you who emailed me telling me to suck your dicks because you were worried that we were going to start charging for Battle Commanders and Recruits and Battle at the Berrics etc or build a pay wall into the site, you can rest assure that that will never happen and you can put it back in your pants. For those of you who tried to get Shane’s part on Saturday, you actually made the Canteen have a meltdown that even our hosting company didn’t understand. We stayed up, in shifts, for 3 days straight to make sure each and every person who had any problem whatsoever was taken care of and if for some reason you weren’t, please email me. Things are flowing smoothly now so try again if you didn’t get it.

Now, the reasons we released Shane O’Neill’s part on The Berrics as a digital download are many. One, it’s worth it. It’s valuable enough to pay for and so we all thought it should be paid for. Two, in the past, skaters have given blood, sweat and tears for the video parts for other entities to package and sell and own the footage in perpetuity and in return give nothing back to the skater. They convinced them it was good “exposure” and because they held the keys to the communication lines of the world who were the skaters to argue. They gave up their footage for someone else to make money in hopes that this “exposure” would make them money in the form of board sales and/or shoe sales, but many of the young pros that give up their footage don’t even have a shoe deal nor do they sell many boards because the bottom line is, nobody sells many boards. The state of the professional board market today as compared to ten years ago is like the state of the clothing manufacturing in the United States, sad and almost non-existent. I hate to burst the bubble for those of you out there who believe, like I did before I was pro, that becoming a pro skateboarder would make you wealthy. It does not. In fact, the majority of the pros you see here on the Berrics or in the magazines or on ESPN or Fuel make less money than they would if they were sitting at home collecting unemployment or even a step below that, welfare. There are many reasons as to why this is the case, but we’ll save that for another day. Only a few guys make it to that upper echelon of paycheck and even then, some of the best pro skateboarders don’t make as much as a pro bowler. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out all the wrongs in that fact. This breaks my heart especially when I know what skaters put themselves through, especially when YOU know what you put yourself through, just to learn a trick. Pro skateboarders are what makes skateboarding exciting and I, personally, will not rest until they get what they deserve. Don’t let the X-Games and the Maloof cup and the mystique of television give you the wrong idea about the state of pay that many of the guys in these contests face. I assure you, it’s dismal. The people who get rich from skateboarding are not the skateboarders and that is why we released Shane’s part as a digital download for less than a drink at Starbucks. He deserves some kind of reward. I helped pay him myself by purchasing his part because I know it’s worth it.

Both Eric and I have been fortunate in our careers, but doing well for ourselves is not good enough and it’s why we’ve spent the last 3 years, night and day, spending our own money, receiving not a single dollar in return, and going through numerous ups and downs and “holy fucks how are we going to pay rent”, to build The Berrics because we believe in building a better and stronger world for the professional, the companies, and most importantly, you. We hope that you strive to be the next Shane O’Neill or Minor Media or Cory Kennedy or Chase Gabor or Yoon Sul so that you may utilize what we’ve built, out of our own pockets, and enter a better skateboard world than what we inherited when we first turned pro or when Ty Evans first started filming or when Yoon Sul first started shooting photos. We want everyone’s dreams to be fulfilled, whatever they may be. There is a lot of room in skateboarding for a lot of people. Don’t think otherwise.

So, I am perfectly fine standing here, chest to the world, taking bullets from those who don’t like what we’re doing only because I know that these people who speak the loudest, and spew the most hate, are not only the minority opinion, but the weakest and the most threatened for they cannot stop the locomotive of change that you have been a part of, have participated in, and built. These people despise you because you are the future. We wish you well because you are the future and because you can do what the past has not been able to, make things better. That’s the difference. The Berrics is yours and we hope all of you strive for that day where we release a digital download of the part you worked your ass off for. Whether you did the tricks or filmed them. I hope we get to hand you a check, like we’re going to be able to do with Shane, for all your effort and I hope you will remember that a day, not so long ago, you contributed to that dream of yours and that you changed the way things worked forever.

Continued…

For those of you haven’t gotten Shane’s part yet, I strongly encourage you to get it because he’s exactly like you, someone with hopes and dreams who has now arrived at a point where they could actually come true. He deserves it. He is an incredible human being and he allowed us to take his hard work and roll the dice and see if we crap out or not. He’s also promised to try and win BATB 3 for all of you who supported him. We put him in yesterday because someone fell out. Things are going to get exciting.

Thank you so, so much…
—sb