Breaking news coming from the X Games this week as the event organizers finally realized that they are in fact, boomers, who don’t know anything about skiing. They will therefore be bequeathing X Games judging duties to the Newschoolers.com forums. On a phone call, the organizers told us that the reasons for the move were twofold: "This not only cuts costs, I mean those judges cost a lot, especially with the protection that we have to provide, so the Fagan’s don’t chase them down for not inviting them. But it also means that we don’t have to read thread after thread of members bitching about who got robbed.” A true victory indeed for Newschoolers.

Sure, the last time a fan vote was used Simon Dumont took home the gold thanks to a lame double front flip, but this time will be different - the slowest and lowest rotation will probably win. While it might confuse the TV viewers who would expect a triple 18 to outscore a cork 5 blunt, NS members like V_Flex_V will be satisfied, “finally us core riders that understand the true art and a e s t h e t i c s of skiing will get our voice, maybe next year they’ll let us choose the invite list too. My guy Cal Carlson deserves a spot, he’s a real one.”

While we won’t have full control of the field, this should be a massive improvement. However, X Games organizers did tell us that some of the old stipulations would remain in place, saying that we must give Henrik at least one medal, no matter how well he skis. The rule, introduced for 2021, was supposed to reduce complaints but backfired spectacularly. However, X Games agreed that in return, they will be giving us one wildcard entry - let’s just say we wouldn’t be surprised if one JC completes a Simple sweep of the top step in every event.

We at Newschoolers have promised to make things as fair as possible, by leaving it up to you, the core freeskiing community, to decide the winners with a public vote. That said, there is a technical glitch in our polling system that auto deletes the name Andri Ragettli every time we enter it. We think there might be a minimum ski length requirement and our technical team is looking into solutions ASAP.

Judging criteria are up for hot debate these days as we try to figure out how to weigh technical tricks that push reality with physics-defying small spins - that’s why we’ve decided to offer up our own criteria: DRIP. Deep, Righteous, Impeccable, Progressive. Breaking it down - did they take it deep to the gucci plateau, or barely clear the knuckle? Would the trick be righteous in the eyes of our savior, Tom Wallisch? Impeccable - loose? Lit? Loose, but lit? And finally, one for you all to argue about, was it progressive, be it another rotation, or one pretzeled back again. That said, we fully expect members to ignore these criteria and complain anyways.

So this time next year, the only ones you will have to blame for poor judging are yourselves. While you have the shield of the computer and strength in numbers to keep an angry Henrik Harlaut from bearing down on you, we will make all judging public so that the community can ridicule your decisions nonetheless. We look forward to the progression that Newschoolers can bring to the competition scene by putting the power in the core - you.