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The irritating Instagram avalanches of the pros

Stay safe, stay lucky

by Sven Rauber 02/19/2019
Avalanches are a guarantee for attention on the skiing Internet. Hardly anything gets as many likes and views as a spectacular helmet camera video of a descent where everything goes just right. If such videos are posted with honest reflections on the question "what went wrong?", they are often very instructive and valuable. However, if the line between self-reflection and self-promotion becomes blurred, you can be a little irritated. A commentary by Sven Rauber.

From time to time you stumble across videos of freeriders - in most cases professionals - with the caption/heading "stay safe out there" on social networks - Facebook, Instagram and whatever else is out there. Somehow irritating, as it is somehow logical that freeriders strive for a certain level of basic safety. However, it is precisely this moment of irritation that leads people to click on the video. As a rule, this results in even more irritation.

In the normal case, a guy with a GoPro on his head is riding into a slope that is in no way compatible with the caption "stay safe out there". Not too surprisingly, a snow slab goes off as a result, but the guy is somehow lucky and gets off lightly. I always ask myself, irritated, what this is all about

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Perhaps the guy has never thought about his actions before and is now so surprised by what has happened that he wants to make others aware of their potentially risky behavior. If this were the case, why are there guys who post at least one or two videos like this every season? Surely they should have learned from this long ago and, in their efforts to be safe - which they demand from the rest of the global network after each of these events - not repeat the same stupidities with such regularity.

On reflection, there are only two possible explanations for this behavior: Perhaps the regular posters of such videos are extreme altruists who regularly put themselves in danger to make other people aware of the risk of such behavior. After all, videos of actual events really do have a much more impressive effect than boring avalanche lectures - especially when the professionals always go out and nothing happens to them. No, no, that certainly doesn't seem trivializing!

However, we have met some of the candidates in person and these guys didn't show any sign of altruism, which brings us to the second and, in my opinion, most plausible explanation for the "stay safe out there" posts: Views on social media!

In many cases, it's not about drawing attention to potential sources of danger and errors, but simply about generating views with sensational shots. However, because "Fuck yeah, I rode another avalanche today" is not so socially acceptable as a caption and also makes it more difficult for "viewers" to press a like, you just write "Stay safe out there" without explaining what the dangers and mistakes were and how such cases could be avoided.

The appropriate image description would often be "Stay lucky out there", but that sounds kind of stupid too... With this in mind, it's probably best to remain skeptical when you stumble across another video like this and ask yourself whether there's anything to be learned from it. If yes, then learn, if no, then don't like it and unfollow the guy, otherwise his "altruism" will drive him to his death.

This article has been automatically translated by DeepL with subsequent editing. If you notice any spelling or grammatical errors or if the translation has lost its meaning, please write an e-mail to the editors.

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