Ok not sure if this can go here but I wasn't sure if it goes in any other category.
I've noticed, as I'm sure everyone else has, that the sport is a graying one, full of people who were inspired by the daring and unknown of early diving a couple decades ago. There's nothing wrong with having an older base in a sport - that's where experience and wisdom is passed on to newer generations. But I don't see that many young people like myself getting certified, and I feel like every time I read dive magazines and I look at advertising I see diving portrayed as a fun, easy, accessible hobby and not as a source of transcendent adrenalin or adventure that it was in the '60s. Are we losing the next generation of divers to an increasingly, I find, cushy and bland imagery of scuba diving as something fun you do when your family goes on vacation.
I realize that this might be great for some people, to have an easy and comfortable experience. But for me, and for pretty much anyone like me under 30 who have adrenalin, time, and a sense of exploration, this isn't enough. I compare this to looking at dive magazines I get compared to some other "extreme" (I normally object to this term) sport magazines like Whitewater Kayaking or Climbing. In these sports there is an older pioneering base from the 60s and 70s, but the sport hasn't stayed stuck with that generation. New generations of kayakers and climbers have constantly evolved the sports with new gear and techniques, but they also have evolved the image of the sports to stay young, flashy, sexy. I look at my recent diving magazines which have articles about travelling in comfort and where "exotic" dive destinations are classified not by the difficulty of access or chances of exploration but by the number of hours you have to fly from LAX or BWI airports. And yet when I look at other sport's magazines, ads, forums, stories, etc. the idea of adventure and risk and exploration are still huge tenants of the sport culture and the idea of bushwhacking days away from civilization to find the new crux walls or the un-run waterfalls. Scuba currently I see as always trying to become more like ski resorts in creating the image of wilderness and vistas while in reality providing a hot tub and a three course dinner at the bottom of the slopes.
The only component I see of this in Diving is in Tec and cave diving, which are relatively small subsets of diving as a whole and which I think are under-represented enormously when we try to get younger generations to try scuba, and at the same time I feel frowned upon in recreational scuba circles as "too intense" and not an appropriate goal for people (especially younger people) getting interested in Scuba. At the same time, has Scuba diving itself lost forever its sexiness? Is there no new ground to cover, no new horizons to cross and explore? Is the entire world one entire five star luxury dive resort, or are there still places where groups of young divers can go and live like dirtbags for a few weeks creating and pushing new limits to the sport with the knowledge of danger still present?
I'm asking this as a 20 year old who still wants to believe in a world where diving is sexy and more like planning out multi-day climbing expeditions. I'm the co-president and founder of my college's dive club and this rather long (sorry!) post was inspired the need to get people interested in diving again, because they no longer see it as a sport pushing boundaries. What do you all think? Am I just a young whipper-snapper (and in which case I would remind you that you too were or are one currently) who has no head for safety or am I observing something that is very real in the sport today?
I've noticed, as I'm sure everyone else has, that the sport is a graying one, full of people who were inspired by the daring and unknown of early diving a couple decades ago. There's nothing wrong with having an older base in a sport - that's where experience and wisdom is passed on to newer generations. But I don't see that many young people like myself getting certified, and I feel like every time I read dive magazines and I look at advertising I see diving portrayed as a fun, easy, accessible hobby and not as a source of transcendent adrenalin or adventure that it was in the '60s. Are we losing the next generation of divers to an increasingly, I find, cushy and bland imagery of scuba diving as something fun you do when your family goes on vacation.
I realize that this might be great for some people, to have an easy and comfortable experience. But for me, and for pretty much anyone like me under 30 who have adrenalin, time, and a sense of exploration, this isn't enough. I compare this to looking at dive magazines I get compared to some other "extreme" (I normally object to this term) sport magazines like Whitewater Kayaking or Climbing. In these sports there is an older pioneering base from the 60s and 70s, but the sport hasn't stayed stuck with that generation. New generations of kayakers and climbers have constantly evolved the sports with new gear and techniques, but they also have evolved the image of the sports to stay young, flashy, sexy. I look at my recent diving magazines which have articles about travelling in comfort and where "exotic" dive destinations are classified not by the difficulty of access or chances of exploration but by the number of hours you have to fly from LAX or BWI airports. And yet when I look at other sport's magazines, ads, forums, stories, etc. the idea of adventure and risk and exploration are still huge tenants of the sport culture and the idea of bushwhacking days away from civilization to find the new crux walls or the un-run waterfalls. Scuba currently I see as always trying to become more like ski resorts in creating the image of wilderness and vistas while in reality providing a hot tub and a three course dinner at the bottom of the slopes.
The only component I see of this in Diving is in Tec and cave diving, which are relatively small subsets of diving as a whole and which I think are under-represented enormously when we try to get younger generations to try scuba, and at the same time I feel frowned upon in recreational scuba circles as "too intense" and not an appropriate goal for people (especially younger people) getting interested in Scuba. At the same time, has Scuba diving itself lost forever its sexiness? Is there no new ground to cover, no new horizons to cross and explore? Is the entire world one entire five star luxury dive resort, or are there still places where groups of young divers can go and live like dirtbags for a few weeks creating and pushing new limits to the sport with the knowledge of danger still present?
I'm asking this as a 20 year old who still wants to believe in a world where diving is sexy and more like planning out multi-day climbing expeditions. I'm the co-president and founder of my college's dive club and this rather long (sorry!) post was inspired the need to get people interested in diving again, because they no longer see it as a sport pushing boundaries. What do you all think? Am I just a young whipper-snapper (and in which case I would remind you that you too were or are one currently) who has no head for safety or am I observing something that is very real in the sport today?
