So, Northstar just put out this promo video titled “What Do You Think?” in which they interview a number of snow sliders who were riding over the weekend. For the most part, the comments from the skiers and riders in the video are anecdotes about what terrain is open and where they’ve been riding.
There are however a couple of instances where Northstar felt the need to “censor” the statements made by the interviewees. At first glance one might interpret the bleeps as substitutions for utterances which may be construed as language inappropriate for a family oriented ski resort. Yet upon closer inspection of the video it becomes clear that the censored words do not represent actual foul language at all, they are in fact the names of other resorts in the Tahoe area! OMG! Any ideas for which resorts are being referenced (and bleeped) in the video?
Northstar apparently felt that the references were too sensitive to be stated overtly, but still decided to include them in the video with the EPIC RD measure of discretion exercised. Interesting… and kind of funny.
Truth be told, Northstar probably does have more terrain open right now than any other resort in Tahoe and everybody in this video seems pretty stoked to be able to get out and make some turns. So thanks for making all that snow Northstar.
On a slightly more serious note; we did actually witnessed one dispiriting example of what some might call censorship by Vail Resorts and Northstar. Earlier this year an email was submitted to Unofficial Networks by an “anonymous reader.” The email was written by a Northstar employee and detailed criticisms of a Northstar press release from Summer 2011 in which the resort was claiming a 10% expansion of skiable terrain as part of the $30 million in capital improvements to the resort. (read the article here)
Unofficial Networks, who got approval from the anonymous reader to publish his email, removed the names of those who had contributed to the email correspondence and published the criticism as a letter to the editor by “Anonymous Reader.” Unfortunately, “Anonymous Reader” was not so anonymous to the resort’s management and was fired, allegedly as a result of his indiscretions. (A few people have suggested that pressure was applied by Vail Resorts to terminate the employee but we cannot verify that information). Long story short, dude writes an email critical of his employer, Northstar at Tahoe, which is published anonymously on a ski and snowboard blog, Unofficial Networks, and dude is subsequently fired from his job. Not too cool…
Unofficial has since attempted to interview other Northstar employees for stories and has occasionally been turned down for fear of reprisal.
So hey Northstar, How ’bout you try not bleeping your videos!