Yap sesh incoming:
I think we are in a very similar position as the very early 2010s, or even better, in term's of the dh/fr scene being capable of expansion. We have the community's set up, we have events, we have really really good gear, we collectivley have so much knowledge built up, we know what happens when people blow spots or the community does burnt stuff and what happens when we don't include beginners to things (maybe Europe doesn't know😒.) We have a bit of a blank slate in terms of how we can build back and I think the disconnect between intrest and joining comes from both public perception being skewed and a lack of longboarding being a rising trend.
Right now, there are 3 main ways the public see's downhill skating, those are; people doing really sketchy stuff, people doing or talking about really high level stuff, and influencer boarding (giving the public another reason to watch/comment/repost beyond the actual skating.) The first two are not really cohesive with wanting to learn. Imagine if you only heard surfers talking about 50 foot waves, chances are much lower that you would want to learn how to surf, compared to seeing people also having fun on 2 foot days.
Getting a better "average" perception into the public eye would do us wonders, not everyone needs to go 50 mph to be happy, and getting that across would be great. Infuencer boarding does that.
Some other ways that we can get into a better light are; getting skaters on podcasts and setting aside the self hype about how hardcore the sport can be, and highlight the other ways the sport can be participated in. Throwing up a facebook ad for teaching people how to slide, let skate-shops and news know about local sanctioned events, shop local and ask your skate shops to stock the gear you want. Put a pretty pic up on pintrest or tumbler, make a longer youtube vid, talk to skaters about dh without making it sound more scary than it is. Infuencer board to the max and make some vids that are memes, or have some relateable caption on them. What are some other ideas y'all have?