“Hug your homies and inform them you’re keen on them.”It’s a simple suggestion. You might have seen it within the type of inexperienced, rectangular stickers on ski helmets or elsewhere, significantly if your own home mountain is Alta Ski Space, Utah. The phrase and sticker was popularized by Dan Parisi, 29, who moved to Salt Lake Metropolis about 5 years in the past, fell in love with the snowboarding, and stayed put. He was impressed to honor a member of the Alta group who died by suicide in December 2023. The stickers served as what Parisi referred to as “a refined reminder to examine in in your associates” and “maintain your family members tight.”The stickers proved standard. Parisi handed them out that winter, and when he ran dry, individuals started asking the place they may get extra. Then, because the season wound down, one in every of his associates urged throughout a chairlift trip that he take the stickers’ idea additional and begin creating attire. Parisi, who’s confronted his personal challenges with psychological well being, took the thought critically—and began shaping it into what would change into Hug Your Homies.Wish to sustain with the very best tales and photographs in snowboarding? Subscribe to the brand new Powder To The Individuals e-newsletter for weekly updates.
Photograph: Courtesy Dan Parisi
Hug Your Homies is now greater than only a sticker—it’s a fledgling model with a various lineup of attire that donates a portion of its proceeds to 2 organizations Parisi views extremely, one native and one nationwide: Alta Neighborhood Enrichment (ACE) and the American Basis for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).Hug Your Homies arrives at a time when skiers—and the mountain group at massive—appear extra open to conversations about psychological well being than ever. Skier and advocate John Padilla has now created three movies below the Mountain in My Thoughts banner, every espousing a mixture of gnarly shredding and frank conversations about suicide, melancholy, and anxiousness. Skilled skier Drew Petersen’s brief documentary, Ups and Downs, which adopted his battle with PTSD, bipolar dysfunction, and a traumatic mind damage, launched on-line to large acclaim in 2022.
Photograph: Courtesy Dan Parisi
Hug Your Homies, then, matches right into a wider ski tradition shift, however it has its personal quirky taste. One of many model’s shirts reads “Kiss your homies together with your eyes open” and, on Parisi’s web site, is accompanied by a quick description that features the sentence, “You give one another a fast lil smooch as a result of they’re your dawg.” To an older viewers, that line may appear weird. However for a youthful era raised on the intersection of irony and sincerity, it’s each humorous and heartfelt. Parisi, by way of his much less over-the-top stickers, aimed to create one thing that felt pure, mining a vein that already existed within the ski group: mutual adoration of the individuals we spend time within the mountains with. He stated he selected the catchphrase “hug your homies” as a result of it’s “one thing you could hear a skier saying.”“I really feel prefer it’s such a robust message that may be utilized to so many issues, which is what I like,” Parisi added.Parisi needs Hug Your Homies to do greater than create conversations about psychological well being and make merch. At some point, he hopes that the model may have its personal gathering house and group hub, however actions like group hikes and mini ramp classes, which give an alternative choice to the partying standard in mountain cities, are extra tangible.
He’s already gotten began. In early June, Parisi hosted a small rail jam on the base of Alta Ski Space with the assistance of his associates, establishing a sequence of PVC tubes so individuals might hang around and work on their methods. And, this summer time, he has quite a few pop-ups deliberate at Park Foolish, an open-air market in Park Metropolis, Utah.
Past that, Parisi continues to be determining the main points of what would possibly come subsequent, and admits, with amusing, that “I am not the very best occasion planner.” Within the meantime, although, his objectives, like his stickers, aren’t too sophisticated.“I attempt to simply be a pleasant face in the neighborhood,” he stated. “I attempt to brighten individuals’s days as a lot as I can.”
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