I'm fine with it, and it isn't elitist, it's a reality. Yeah, community, we get it. I agree, but do we want to be the community with people screaming about stepping over the line and clouds?
We need to be professional and be a community. You don't show up in your nasty shirt looking like a slob in court. I live in the real world. But think what you want, just like people lacking education about batteries and DC-DC converters, unregulated mods and everything else which leads to them hurting themselves, it's negative PR.
If cloud chasing contests were honorable and formal I wouldn't care. They're not, and you've never been to them if you think they are. Not the real shit that's ranked as status in this community.
Me telling people to avoid gathering in dark buildings and screaming about who stepped over the line because their cloud was biggest bro (and that's putting it politely) while chugging beer and bashing companies, products and people is not elitist, not when we're under a microscope, not when we're trying to survive. It's feeding them a box of ammo.
This stuff doesn't go on in dark corners, this stuff is filmed, attended by many people and put on every social media outlet there is. It's a problem right now, not in general. It makes us look like a bunch of idiots. Just like people putting unregulated mods in their pocket unlocked and it autofiring into thermal runaway and blowing a chunk of their thigh off. It's bad for us.
Quit the hippy shit and live in reality. We do need to stand together and let personal shit go, but doing stuff that makes us look like a bunch of savages doesn't help. Like I said, these things are filmed and spread throughout social media en mass.
We need to be a community, but we do not need to be the community that shows up to the debate in our "No Fat Chicks" T-Shirts, screaming about clouds and bashing each other. We need to be a professional and educated community. Not a savage community.
You mistake me caring about them. I don't have the capacity to feel emotions over what people do in their free time, I literally do not. That's neither here nor there. I'm fine with it existing, I'm saying put it on hold because we have more important shit to worry about than who has the biggest cloud, because those clouds might not exist soon. It doesn't help when the people worrying about who has the biggest cloud act like a bunch of savage idiots while doing so, usually on film.
It's frivolous to sit around and obsess over who produced the most vapor while the FDA, Big Tobacco and Big Pharma are looking for ANYTHING to use as weapons against us. You're taking vaping for granted when you thinking associating acting like a fool with vaping is helping us. That isn't elitist, it's being smart. Vaping needs our FULL TRANSPARENCY right now, and cloud competitions don't tend to be respectful gatherings. Go to 3 or 4, not small town B&M events, real ones. You'll be on the same page brother.
Censorship makes me cringe, I realize that halting cloud competitions is vape censorship, but it's something that can give us, hell it DOES give us a negative image. ANY negative image they get is ammo to use against us. If those videos got put on national news, 90% of non-vapers would see us AS THOSE PEOPLE. I hate the idea of it, but it's true. It's time to suit up, wear out best tie, give vaping our full transparency and be on our best behavior. If you want to have a cloud competition in your living room or in private, BY ALL MEANS. Just don't gather en mass and film you cussing each other out over who stepped over the line and who had the cloud that was one micrometer larger than the other.
Reality, live in it. Hell I produce monster clouds as a result of my vape. I'm not saying stop blowing clouds, I'm saying stop taking something for granted and put your cloud envy on hold and spend your energy on fighting the common problem. We are vaping, the image of vaping is us. RIGHT NOW, vaping does not need that image. When it blows over, hell, we can beat each other to death with our mods and suffocate our enemies with clouds, fine.
I have no problem with cloud chasers. I'm just saying, it's a time to be on our best behavior. If you had a company that was respected, and your company had a secret party every weekend where you all got together to play beer pong, make offensive comments about people and act like barbarians, that's fine. Do that, I have no problem with it. Just don't wake up and show up during the press release the next day wearing your beer stained clothes, don't post videos of it online where it can be associated with your company, don't talk about it around people who would think it to be filth.
That's what I'm saying. It only takes a few idiots to make us all look like idiots.