Skiology Matt in Litigation

Skiology, LLC v. Bramble

Trademark case filed on January 27, 2023 in the Vermont District Court

dockets.justia.com

 

[RH29]

A bunch of people had commented on his latest fundraising post asking if it was paying his legal fees. I notice those comments are now gone. What a small man.

 

[cdskier]

A bunch of people had commented on his latest fundraising post asking if it was paying his legal fees. I notice those comments are now gone. What a small man.

Damn...I missed those comments. I was tempted to make one of them myself, but figured he would just delete them...

 

[thetrailboss]

A bunch of people had commented on his latest fundraising post asking if it was paying his legal fees. I notice those comments are now gone. What a small man.

Watch him countersue....

 

[thetrailboss]

The latest

 

[cdskier]

View attachment 56927The latest

I feel like the donation threshold for who gets "free" access the rest of the season has gone up every time he posts one of these.


Also oddly still no mention of how much of the donations go towards his legal defense fund

 

[drjeff]

View attachment 56927The latest

If he can get enough suckers to pay up, my guess is he renames it as it goes behind the paywall and never admits he was in the wrong about the name

If he doesn't get enough suckers to pay up, he still will never admit he's wrong and come up with some excuse, such as he's shutting down to go storm chase every sleet storm, and it goes away due to a potential judgement against him

 

[ThatGuy]

Who wants that…disgusting powder
We chase sleet

 

[snoseek]

I wish someone would do what he does thats not him. His page has good info if you dont feel like gathering all the data itself. Its one stop shopping for Northeast Powder Chasing. The trick is dont read the comments.

 

[thetrailboss]

I feel like the donation threshold for who gets "free" access the rest of the season has gone up every time he posts one of these.


Also oddly still no mention of how much of the donations go towards his legal defense fund

I also find it interesting that he is threatening to put his stuff behind a paywall. That hurts his case because then he is clearly making money off of someone else's trademark.

 

[thetrailboss]

View attachment 56929
Who wants that…disgusting powder
We chase sleet

WTAF?!

I think that Matt means that he likes graupel.

 

[Kingslug20]

WTF?.?
Madness

 

[FBGM]

Someone give me spark notes on who this guy is, what he does and why he’s a tool

 

[DrPeteG]

Someone give me spark notes on who this guy is, what he does and why he’s a tool

Earlier in this thread there is a link to an earlier article from VT Ski+ ride that gives some early info and he has only gotten worse over time

 

[cdskier]

Someone give me spark notes on who this guy is, what he does and why he’s a tool

He's a person that started a group on Facebook (called Skiology) that makes weather "forecasts" for storms for ski areas in the northeast. He has no formal training or professional experience in the field yet always brags about how he knows more than the pros (he often takes shots at NWS forecasts as a great example) and always brags about how "accurate" his forecasts are (which is funny as I've seen numerous times where he's wrong or he'll drastically change his forecast over time and then use the forecast he made from 5 minutes before a storm as the basis for saying his forecasts were "accurate"). He'll also post news about skiing in the northeast (and often claims to have "inside" info yet never names his sources). If you ever challenge him or call him out about any mistakes, he'll typically delete your comments and/or ban you from his group. He'll rarely admit that he's wrong. He somehow thinks he knows everything about the operations at every ski resort in the northeast.

 

[SnowRock]

Someone give me spark notes on who this guy is, what he does and why he’s a tool

Somehow I missed the thread last year.

He’s an amateur weather nut that does a decent enough job putting together pieces to make a forecast (though many could do that just using NWS), but his obsessive postings are too much to take for me.

Despite the fact that he just started snowboarding in his late middle age, he thinks he knows everything about the industry. Literally everything.

And he’s never wrong, even when he’s clearly wrong. Earlier this season he had a post lambasting Stowe for not sharing the quad was down where Braten showed him he was 100% wrong.

Of course as an obsessive, rather than admitting he was wrong he followed that up with another post asking about how terrible it was at Stowe on one of the days the quad was down (and suggesting the mountain didn’t do enough to warn people not to come). Then everyone says it was a great day with minimal lines for the double, walk on at the Gondi etc, he launched into some screed about how they got saved by the snow keeping people away or some nonsense. But he’s not done. Never done. Yet another post that was supposed to be an apology for being wrong, but really was about why when he was wrong, he was really right. That is a taste of how he works.

My take is… he was likely not a guy with the biggest social life. Found snow late in life. Got obsessed with weather and found that the page made him part of the cool kids club (amongst low info skiers). He now has made it his life.

 

[thetrailboss]

But still, that is only half the story. He has routinely doxxed his critics to their employers and attempted to get them fired. Ironically, most of the people he has doxxed and attempted to get fired are people who are actual insiders in the industry, ranging from resort employees to legit meteorologists and forecasters (at least one at Powderchasers).

Wait......what?!

 

[SnowRock]

But still, that is only half the story. He has routinely doxxed his critics to their employers and attempted to get them fired. Ironically, most of the people he has doxxed and attempted to get fired are people who are actual insiders in the industry, ranging from resort employees to legit meteorologists and forecasters (at least one at Powderchasers). In my personal opinion, he takes these absurd measures because I think he (1) is a classic narcissist and (2) is afraid that actual experts and insiders will uncover his scam. As far as I can tell, he simply copies nearly word for word most NWS forecasts and regurgitates free weather models from services like tropical tidbits, which he likely reproduces improperly for commercial purposes. It is modelology not meteorology. You can find him on Twitter begging for approval from actual meteorologists and actively copying their ideas into his posts. Based on my interactions with him his industry knowledge goes something like this “I heard from someone (some low info skier) who spoke to someone in snowmaking/grooming/patrol/etc” He has pretty much admitted that he is blackballed from the industry and has no actual ties besides hearsay from his cult followers.

On top of that, if you disagree with him he will begin messaging you incessantly, I’m talking 10-20 messages in a row. He will also try to get you to spy on other people who disagree with him or don’t like him.

Finally - I believe the crowdfunding efforts for a purported app or email alert system is a total fraud. Those products have purportedly been in development for 4+ years and are promised with ever single fundraise, but despite him raising approximately $100k over 4 years, there is not even a definitive proof of concept to speak of. Those products are not so time consuming, sophisticated or expensive that it should take 4 years and not even settle on a design, concept or at least a couple initial versions to work out the kinks. All of his fundraisers are based on standard grifter tactics like “time is running out” “skiology is going away” etc. and unsuspecting low info skiers / riders eat it up.

Whoa.. yeah can't say I have followed along that closely. I just read the post on here from last year and that old VT Ski&Ride article as well. Not all that surprised given the stuff I have seen/followed. That obsessive trait is something clear as day from all of his public postings... so messaging someone 10-20 times seems very on brand for him. With an actual lawsuit like this, he may be his own worst enemy if this shop is really committed here.

 

[deadheadskier]

People have forked over $100k to this clown?

Hahahaha

 

[Harvey]

If it was behind the paywall, I'd probably go for it, assuming the price was reasonable.

I agree with whomever said without the comments, it would be much better.

I've kind of accepted the forecast migration thing. All weather data/input needs interpretation. This is just a different kind.

 

[cdskier]

Finally - I believe the crowdfunding efforts for a purported app or email alert system is a total fraud. Those products have purportedly been in development for 4+ years and are promised with ever single fundraise, but despite him raising approximately $100k over 4 years, there is not even a definitive proof of concept to speak of. Those products are not so time consuming, sophisticated or expensive that it should take 4 years and not even settle on a design, concept or at least a couple initial versions to work out the kinks. All of his fundraisers are based on standard grifter tactics like “time is running out” “skiology is going away” etc. and unsuspecting low info skiers / riders eat it up.

Yea...setting up a website with a paywall or restricted access to content is extremely simple. There's numerous existing platforms out there already to do exactly that (and some even have corresponding mobile phone apps so your users don't need to even go to a website from their mobile devices). So multiple years for "development" is absurd and certainly suspect.