Opinion: Are Rail Jams Killing the Video Part?

“We are now seeing an all-time rise in rail jam culture,” she said in the video posted on April 24, 2025. “And I’ve spent my career filming video parts, and I guess I’m just curious if we think that maybe rail jam culture could be the death of the video part? More and more now, I hear of people scheduling their winters around these circuits.”

Perkins asked three questions of us:

Going forward, where are we investing? Do we still hone-in on documentation of snowboarding and its lifestyle and all the core values of that? Or is it shifting to this podium spotlight era?

For the fans: Do you still look forward to video parts? Or would you rather see these contests streamed online.

For the brands: Why do you prioritize one over the other?

Tap or click below to watch Perkins' full video.

These are all great questions. I need to make one thing clear, though. The video part is not dead. The video part is alive as it’s ever been, and it’s vital for decision-makers within the industry to remember that.

Now, Perkins didn’t say that the video part is currently dead, merely that it is a looming threat. Here’s why I think that brands are squandering the moment if they allow rail jam culture to fully take over, and in the words of Todd Richards, let the video part become “something we talk about like magazines.”

Heaven, the most recent project from rider Rene Rinnekangas, is perhaps the best example of that. The film, directed and edited by Anton Kiiski, blends backcountry and street spots. The footage was filmed over the course of three years, in between bouts with injuries and a heavy competition schedule.

It’s won awards from Slush, Torment, and if we did awards here at Snowboarder this season, it’d win one from us too. The video has amassed 1 million views on YouTube in just four months, and a the time of writing this, has exactly 420 comments. (Nice.)

Tap or click below to watch Heaven.

“It may require more creativity but if we look at Heaven as a proof concept, the video part ain’t going nowhere,” Selema Masekela said in the comments section.

Need some context? Let’s compare to skateboarding. Heaven garnered more views than Nike SB’s QuickStrike,  New Balance’s Intervals, and Dickies “Honeymoon”. 

In skiing, Beyond, the 2024 Head and Tyrolia team movie, has 247,000 views. iF3 Ski Movie of the Year Circle of Madness (which also features snowboarder Victor de le Rue) has 710,000 views.

There are video projects of equal quality and unequal viewership. Search Party is one of them, clocking in with around 134,000 views. Fruit Fly, published a month ago, has around 60,000 views. So does You Are Inside Your Heart, from Vans. Pickpocket from Sinister Films has around 25,000.

Those types of numbers are probably tough to explain in a budget meeting, I get it, but if you combine the YouTube views from 9191, Lame, Afterbang, and Hard, Hungry and Homeless – four of the most iconic videos in snowboard history - you still wouldn’t reach the number of views that Search Party has.

This is the part in which I acknowledge that these films sold countless DVDs and video tapes. That’s the problem though, they’re unable to be accounted for, and the only way we can meter their impact on culture as a whole is purely anecdotal.

The split between rail jams and video parts is something that, I will admit, had not crossed my mind before. Writing for a snowboarding publication with a rather small staff, I don’t get to specialize. Part of my job is to pay attention to it all. If you look across the landscape of the industry, most people in my position at other publications do the same, with a few exceptions.

The budgets, however, remain the budgets. Brands, whether they are behemoths like Red Bull or K2 or smaller like Dinosaurs Will Die and Dang Shades, only have so much budget to go around. Anecdotally, we hear that those budgets are no longer what they once were. Industry folks, correct me if I’m wrong, but it feels safe to assume that if $3,000 is going toward a rail jam, that’s $3,000 that can no longer go toward filmers, travel, or lodging for a street trip.

I completely see where Perkins is coming from. Her second clip in the Videograss project Search Party sees her lose control during the 50-50 of a concrete ledge and faceplant. She laces the attempt in the next clip, but please don’t forget that she, along with every other rider in the film, sacrificed life and limb all in the name of the clip, all in the name of progression.

Bails like this, battles like this, put just how difficult street riding is into perspective. Street contests, like Heavy Metal or X Games streetstyle do too, and they put the audience merely feet away from the action.

Both deserve the appropriate budget.

“I think Heavy Metal just exposes the way that we all snowboard in the streets to the general public, which is huge for everyone,” Austin Visintainer told Michelle Bruton for a story in Forbes. “To see us just having a good time, I think it exposes the best side of snowboarding.”

Plenty of people with far more credibility than I sounded off in the comment section of Perkins post. The list includes Richards, Masekela, videographer Ted Borland, Darrah Reid-McLean, Henna Ikola, and Eddie Wall. Nearly all of them, in so many words, said that both facets are important to culture of snowboarding.

So if there is a right answer to these questions, that is it. Both are important. Both are vital. Neither can afford to die. So let Perkins Instagram post be a sounding of the alarm, and a call to action to the decision makers.

Keep the video part alive. Keep the rail jam alive. Find a way to do this, and street snowboarding will keep growing and growing.