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Skateboarding => USELESS WOODEN TOY BANTER => Topic started by: igrindtwinkies on April 21, 2024, 05:47:32 PM
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Just doing a general survey here. Do any of them still skate regularly or at all? Prison? Drugs?
Small group of like 5 for me. One of them still skates a little, but is all into Qanon type shit. I think two of them are tweakers and one's currently in prison. The dude who taught me to ollie is always in and out of prison too, probably addiction related.
One of my old friends will take profile pictures with his skateboard, but hasn't actually skated in years. Always tries to talk to me like we were serious business back in the day. He makes a lot of comments like, "do kids even skate street anymore!?!??".
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They all post here and lie about it.
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Only one still skates, but he has been pro for the last 20ish years…..so he is a bit more invested in it as a career than the rest of our crew was. Everybody else went on to get jobs and be fairly productive members of the world as far as I know.
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Jail, quit skateboarding because they're pussies, drug's, dead. Some notable few made it somewhat successful albeit consolidated board brand, human, and I-Level, chapter 7 and myself on a Christian skate am team. The South Alabama TN and Georgia, although beacons now.... During mid to late 90's it was get in wherever you fit in.
These included the likes of which Ozzy Alvarez, Kris Markovich, Scott Bourne, Andy MacDonald etc.
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The main hype man robbed a bank, served time, robbed a bank when he got out, served time, then committed suicide after a stretch of being clean and doing well for himself.
RIP Greg, you had heart kid.
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I first started skating with my two cousins. One of them is about to have his 2nd child with his wife. I did skate with him lil over a month ago and it was fun hanging out. My other cousin is living at my grandmas house doing God knows what. I think he hasn't skated since we were 18.
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My best friend still skates all the time, much better than me
One is a stoner, has 3 kids but is a flatground guru
Dude and his brother still skate, his older brother taught me how to skate
Z got hooked on heroin, had a promising future but screwed it up royally
One kid who ate shit dropping in quit and became a complete frat boy
J went to jail multiple times
My other best friend had to quit because he has 3 kids and a factory job he can't afford to get hurt
H was in and out of drugs, pretty sure he stopped skating
The one girl skater we had stopped after being in a toxic marriage with a kid, love her to death though
First friend I ever skated with moved away and stopped
We've had two people in our scene die due to drugs, RIP Ryan and Muska
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The one who was the "best" skated for 1031 then ended up becoming a rocket scientist and working for NASA. I had some flow stuff then worked in "the industry" for a bit before I became a software developer. One is living in an RV and a sales rep for a major skateboard company. I guess most ended up pretty "normal". The other one's did the usual - either got a factory job and/or into drugs. Considering I'm from a small town in Mississippi, it's pretty crazy to think how a lot of us went on to do some of the things we did.
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Two are dead. The rest don’t skate anymore.
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I'm the only one that still skates of the kids I started with.
My main early skate companion is an intense alcoholic who also smokes (this is not a joke or an exaggeration) 100 cones every morning before work. He had two kids with a girl pretty early on - both of the kids are significantly disabled and he was embarrassed of them - so she left him and now he's just a very sad, pathetic man. He was the rich kid growing up, who had all the skate gear the rest the rest of us dreamed of and was a total brat. He's a concreter I believe. I don't really have anything to do with him.
The other main dude had became a chef and is like a semi-pro fisherman kinda thing. He tried skating again in covid lockdowns, not with me, but i saw it somewhere on the net. I think he just loves fishing.
I have returned to living where I grew up - so I see people around the area who used to skate. They're usually a bit fat and have a bunch of kids.
There was this one young girl (she would've been like 5 years younger than me I'm guessing) who used to skate with us who I still see around, but she doesn't want to connect. She's a pretty dedicated "eshay" (if you're not australian you may like to google that subculture) and i'm presuming some very fucked up, traumatic events occurred in her life because she is a shell of the person she used to be.
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I'm the only one that still skates of the kids I started with.
My main early skate companion is an intense alcoholic who also smokes (this is not a joke or an exaggeration) 100 cones every morning before work. He had two kids with a girl pretty early on - both of the kids are significantly disabled and he was embarrassed of them - so she left him and now he's just a very sad, pathetic man. He was the rich kid growing up, who had all the skate gear the rest the rest of us dreamed of and was a total brat. He's a concreter I believe. I don't really have anything to do with him.
The other main dude had became a chef and is like a semi-pro fisherman kinda thing. He tried skating again in covid lockdowns, not with me, but i saw it somewhere on the net. I think he just loves fishing.
I have returned to living where I grew up - so I see people around the area who used to skate. They're usually a bit fat and have a bunch of kids.
There was this one young girl (she would've been like 5 years younger than me I'm guessing) who used to skate with us who I still see around, but she doesn't want to connect. She's a pretty dedicated "eshay" (if you're not australian you may like to google that culture) and i'm presuming some very fucked up, traumatic events occurred in her life because she is a shell of the person she used to be.
I tried to educate myself on what an Eshay is and I’m even more confused now.
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from elementary years, only one still skates, and i don't see him at the park often. a few people i know from middle/ high school still skate, but some have gotten serious jobs or moved or even passed away. i don't skate half as much as i used to, but i still try to go to the skatepark fairly often to get some runs and hang out with the younger guys
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when i look back, most kids i started with quit pretty quickly. growing up in the era of playstation/xbox made it easy for kids to quit only the real die hards stuck with it
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They probably got jobs and pretended they're too mature to skate, I mean fuck that. Some got wasted and disappeared. Luckily I made new friends who have similar life situation (job, family etc) and we try to skate together whenever we get a chance.
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Very interesting thread
0 people from my original core crew still skate. One was in and out of prison, another was a pseudo gangbanger and the third went to rehab in another state and never looked back. The 2nd and 3rd degree still do sometimes but need to be forced to, or they prefer to surf instead.
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Most of them have a garage full of beautiful wall hangers, a head full of memories, and love to talk about skateboarding. Very nice people.
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from the OG crew:
1. became a beatboxer, got into cars and doesn’t skate anymore
2. became a programmer, barely skates
3. studies architecture, occasionally skates
4. got into hip hop and streetwear, i have no idea what’s up with this dude
5. moved to the uk, makes music, still skates often
1 and 4 pretty much quit around 2014, 2 and 3 have been on/off since around 2015, 3 skated the most throughout that time but he liked to party too (still does but he’s good, nothing crazy just some beers and spliffs within reasonable limits)
no drug casualties and no jail sentences in my squad
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A lot have passed away. A few in prison. The few that are still skating are thriving on and off the board
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Jaime had a chance, she really did (Whoa oh). Instead she dropped out and had a couple kids (Whoa oh).
Mark still lives alone, he’s got no job (whoa oh). Plays guitar and smokes a lot of pot.
Then there’s my buddy Pete. I had a girlfriend who worked at the renaissance fair. She got him a job and at 18 decided to leave his family to go around the country doing blacksmith shit with the fair. Few years later I heard he lived on the beach in Hawaii carving and selling didgeridoos. Don’t think he skates anymore.
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I shit you not. Everyone from my crew stopped skating, got PhDs and work at various universities now.
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Early 30s here, all stopped skating except for the 1 quiet, meticulous kid who always wore a bucket. Doesn't wear it anymore but he rips now. Hes the only one i see at the park these days.
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I lost contact with my first skate crew after they moved to Kyoto and other prefectures for college. We were together from 1999 to 2006. I don’t know about them anymore. No social media at the time and once you changed your phone, your mail address changed too. Then I started skating with a new crew but we started a band and started playing at shows so we couldn’t get injured and eventually stopped skating around 2008 or 2009. They don’t skate anymore and I only talk with one of them just to say hey what’s up happy new year. I skated during 2016 alone. Then started skating again in 2021 or 2022 with my son. Never had a crew anymore.
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Very interesting thread, brings me back to my youth. Insane how many of you report that at least one got 'distracted' by drugs. Same happened to the best guy from our crew. He cleaned his mess up afaik but doesnt skate anymore. My brother pretty much stopped when I got better than him no joke. Others lost interest as most of us moved away. My oldest friend is a lawyer and skates from time to time when we see each other. I am sure we would skate a lot if we lived in the same city again.
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in Aus... most of my friends still skate and make little local brisbane vids
everyone has kids and work responsibility but they make time to get out and about.
my best friend got pretty jaded with the whole skateboarding thing (he got into photography and was getting published frequently in aus mags in the early 00's ... but he got shafted by a large corporation (converse AUS i think from memory) and just got over dealing with it all the mess)
he still works in the industry though
in japan... everyone i started skating with when i first moved over still skates.. and they are all very very good (way way better than me)
we don't get to skate as frequently as before but though
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Almost all of them had started Flaming put by the end of middle school and started partying. A couple still skating a little in high school but its impossible to get them to skate in 2024. Ones a pretty legit tattoo artist so he's gotta save his hands. The other came out to a skatepark one time about 5 years ago but has 3 kids and is an electrician for disney so his always worried about injuries. I never see the middle school gang but I know 2 did a few years andnow they have kids and work all the time
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I guess the usual: Some dropped after finishing high school, other after university, other after starting a family. Pretty lame if you ask me, you can do everything and still find time to skate. For me that's the difference between somebody who skates and a skateboarder.
I still have some OG homies from my 20 something pole crew who still skate, actually 2.
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Love reading this thread, like fakie nollie said, such an interesting topic.
Such a coincidence, yesterday I was randomly reading this old thread from 2007:
https://www.slapmagazine.com/index.php?topic=20067.msg468684#msg468684
I remember someone saying on here if you keep skating then get used to getting new friends every 5 or so years. I'm sure that applies to not just me here.
I know for sure nobody in my original crew still skates. We all started together but they only lasted a year or two. Number 4 skated probably the longest, which isn't saying much, I think around 5 years.
1. Quit skating as soon as we started going to the park and getting hassled by deranged people who would pass by. Funny looking back because we would always skate spots with no issues (we both kickflipped our first set at our old school). When he quit at age 13 he told everyone he 'retired'. We all made fun of him for that. He played football and became a tiler or some shit.
2. Became a bull rider and travelled around the US. Was fearless and would try anything and progressed very quickly, was fun trying to keep up with him. I remember him trying to switch ollie sets before even trying to roll switch. He had the only Hook Ups board I've ever seen in the wild. Also had some crazy roofies weed leaf griptape on an MJ Enjoi board. He tried skating a few years later and lost the fearlessness after he fucked his shoulder up from bull riding.
3. Became a sheep shearer. That one kid who didn't know his stance, one of the reasons I wanted to learn nollie and switch flips. Every skate with him was wild, always getting into some mischief. He hit the weed and alcohol hard by about 13/14 and that was that.
4. Started playing tennis and was studying engineering last I heard. Randomly came to my house one summer after I hadn't seen him for 6 or 7 years. We went skating and had a blast. I remember texting him years later and he was replied "I haven't skated since I've seen you". Haven't heard from him since.
5. Quit to play football. Worked in a bank then became a teacher like his parents (I also teach so no judgement). He had two younger brothers who got better everytime I saw them. I thought for sure we were all going to keep skating together. They had some land with a massive concrete slab where his dad built a steep quarter and some flatbars. All three brothers quit at the same time only a year or two in. I watched my first full length video at their house.
I haven't seen or talked to any of these people in over 10 years.
This has got me thinking of several other people from different crews/times. Life is a trip.
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first phase: 1997-1998, hometurf:
we formed a local crew with about 7 guys. 2 got into raving/drugs, 1 became a nazi, had to put one in a mental hospital and 3 (including me) still skate. one is even my best friend to this day. we teach our kids to skate too.
second phase:1999-2004, the inner city kids:
5-6 out of the 15+ crew still skates, some even work in the industry. can't really say about the guys who quit, cause they're long gone. pissdrunx era was bad for your health, but most of us made it somehow. we even made a skate video.
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My crew was all older than me so by the time they all finished high school everyone went their separate ways.
One moved to Southern California and works in the film industry.
One became a camera operator for the news.
I believe they both still skate occasionally, found them both on IG a couple years ago.
And the other one got into drugs, haven’t heard about him in years, hope he’s good.
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I skated with a kid from the neigborhood in the late 80's/early 90s. He quit in 1992 iirc and took up bodybuilding.
Never heard from him again until he sent me a LinkedIn invitation. This was way before all the bullshit people post there now every day, I think even before you could follow someone.
He started commenting on every new job title, job anniversary and birthday even though we never spoke outside LinkedIn again.
Felt akward and I started to dislike LinkedIn, stopped using it.
If it weren't for him perhaps now I was posting on LinkedIn how observing my cat made me a better manager or some bullshit like that.
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My board came from the big kids in 1983.
My brother and I just did it.
My best friend Ian wants to skate but it's hard to get back on. I'm gonna hit him up rn.
Did y'all know he's in almost every Nirvana book? He was watching a skate video from Seattle or whatever in 1990 at like age 6.
His Aunt and uncle mom and dad are famous in the music industry. More so than my family even. Tho were all family today...
They heard Love Buzz on the skate video asked Ian Who is that band?
They looked it up and his aunt and uncle booked them on Lansdowne Street. It was the Nevermind Record release party.
Isn't that fuckin wild. Nirvana took over the planet because of a skate tape and a 8yr old kids DJ auntie (Julie Kramer)I don't remember the uncle name)))
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Successful computer guy, doctor, cocaine, fat, opioids and fat, and one still skates and makes a nice living as a contractor.
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A policeman, a butcher, an IT guy that plays in goth bands. Lots of punks and hardcore guys still involved in the scene but not skating so much.
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I have no idea, I stopped trying once I realized our relationship was only based on convenience. We didn’t have much in common. There wasn’t a lot of skaters in my area growing up.
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Still skate with my friend Chris who got me into skating in the 80s.
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From the first group of people I started out with in 1988, two were hospitalized due to drug induced psychosis. One killer himself. One still skates, but is stuck in 7.75 land. The other just stopped.
From the group I skated with during end of school time period. One picked it up again with his son. I skate with him regularly now - though he has completely lost touch with everything.
The others don’t really skate anymore. Maybe once a year, if at all
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They either be dead or in jail…. Naw they all have wife’s and kids now
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the two i properly started with, one of them developed a back issue and had to drop boardsports and became a farmer like his parents, haven't talked to him in 20 years. The other is the most gifted jazz guitarist I have ever seen but smokes too much weed to do anything with it.
The three I skated with throughout most/all of my youth, two of them still skate, one I built a miniramp with in his barn last year. The third dropped it when he broke his right thumb so bad on bs 5050 slipout that his upper thumb joint is permanently stiff.
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first crew 88 ish, everyone quit
best guy ended up having some pretty gnarly drug problems which was crazy to hear because he was the rich kid who's dad was the local judge in the small town i lived in at the time. also heard he did pretty well with the popular girls from our high school after i moved away which honestly made me stoked at the time because none of those girls would look at any of us in high school.
my best friend who was a terrible skater still loves to talk about it and i consider him a skater because i would have quit if i got hurt as much as he did too, lol but he's still got the love. lots of drugs, prison for a bit and now lives in a small town in louisiana, works as a butcher, happily married to a man and we keep in touch pretty regularly
two other guys... last i heard had both gotten pretty good then quit and gotten into adjacent activities like snowboarding, motor bikes, etc but were hard working blue color type guys and i'd guess are just working now with a bunch of kids.
more recent crew around 2000 after i had quit for 8 or so years in early 90s
3 live in where i live now. 2 i see at my local park all the time which is great. they still skate. one has stopped skating and taken up wake surfing and i keep up with him mostly on social. still single, seems to have some not so health habits but has a good job and works hard so good on him.
current crew seems like a bunch of lifers and not so much a crew as just a bunch of people i see when i make it out to the skatepark.
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Man I think about the people I used to skate with a lot. I’m pretty much the only one who stuck with it.
One died drinking and driving. He got pretty good before he died. Really nice guy but had a fucked up home life. I remember going to the funeral and his mom got him a new complete to go in his coffin. Sad shit.
Another got heavy into drugs and rapping. Last I heard he was living on the eastern shore and trying to go straight.
I’m still in contact with my other two friends I used to skate with. One is a mover in Seattle. He said he sometimes cruises around skateparks but regrets skating growing up. Wished he stuck with basketball. The other dude is a brewer in Texas and had hip surgery because he had cancer when he was a kid. He was great at flip tricks back in the day but now because of his hips he’s kind of done with skating.
There’s a few other guys that came in and out of our crew and most of them ended up just fine.
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I really just skated with one other friend in middle and high school, just the two of us hanging out and skating for days on end sometimes. He got certified as a diesel mechanic and now runs chartered fishing trips out of Florida and the Bahamas. I don't think he skates anymore but is still into mountain biking, which is something we used to do together as well. We talk maybe once or twice a year and it's always nice to catch up.
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They are either doing drugs, drinking or rock climbing.
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They quit a few months later. Nowadays, most of them are working regular jobs 9-5 and going to the gym.
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I skated with a kid from the neigborhood in the late 80's/early 90s. He quit in 1992 iirc and took up bodybuilding.
Every crew went had guys who went through a gym / bodybuilding phase. 1 of the guys I grew up skating with picked it up again during COVID while still benching and lifting, seeing a 5'6" guy amazing jacked was scary. He toned down the lifting after he started skating more, said the added weight caused him to slam harder. He barely skates now since becoming a dad and he's loving it so power to him.
They are either doing drugs, drinking or rock climbing.
My brother stopped skating to focus more on rock climbing, I was the opposite.
I have no idea, I stopped trying once I realized our relationship was only based on convenience. We didn’t have much in common. There wasn’t a lot of skaters in my area growing up.
Friendship of convenience is the best way to put it - the friendships are intense but rarely extend beyond the activity. I occasionally skate with a bunch of younger guys at the park and a while back they were really bummed when their crew had a falling out a few years back. Some guys just aren't as committed to skateboarding or they prioritize different things. Just the reality of growing up.
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I started with 3 guys. 2 of them got into dancing, one landed a job as a coreographer and the other started competing in breakdance stuff around the country, so both dropped skateboarding as they couldn't risk getting injured from it. Haven't heard of them since they moved out to focus on their stuff.
The other dude got heavy into cocaine, managed to get sober a we got back into skating for a while, but broke his wrist and dropped it again. Last year he moved out from our city with a girl he met and haven't heard from him too. He also took a guitar of mine with him lol.
Nowadays I mostly skate alone. I talk to some dudes at the parks I go to, but most of them are are very young, so I don't feel comfortable hanging out with them outside the parks.
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Not really kids but we started skateboarding as adults so I don't have much of a story to tell about that. We're all housemates here. The guy in the center has been skating for a little over 2 years and got my housemate on the right and me on the left into skateboarding. The housemate on the right has been skateboarding for about 2 months and I've been skateboarding for about 3 months now.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53671261146_c3aaa1f4ae_b.jpg)
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Got into cars and quit
Got into drugs and quit
Got into the military and quit
Got into married with kids and quit
Or they just quit
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the original kids from the neighborhood all pretty much quit after that one epic session in the basement where pop shuvits were learned on basement carpeting. they all started a band together and would go on to have many iterations, first it was nu metal, then metal, then thrash, then stoner rock. only one of them ever somewhat regularly skated after forming the band, though he was perpetually stuck in cky2k mode with a zero board.
dunno what happened to the poster @colinjustdidthenoseslide but that handle is awesome and reminds me of these years.
ive skated with 3 crews since but all fell apart for various reasons (mostly injuries and growing out of it). ive since skated with random people I meet out while skating but nothing consistent.
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one became a juggalo and moved to michigan with his high school sweetheart. for ICP fans i think that's like valhalla
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3 are gone, 1 from drugs the other 2 had relationship issues that caused them to take themselves out. Others have started families and very rarely skate. Only one of them still skates often and we hit up skateparks sometimes.
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Not really kids but we started skateboarding as adults so I don't have much of a story to tell about that. We're all housemates here. The guy in the center has been skating for a little over 2 years and got my housemate on the right and me on the left into skateboarding. The housemate on the right has been skateboarding for about 2 months and I've been skateboarding for about 3 months now.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53671261146_c3aaa1f4ae_b.jpg)
really like this pic of your crew, enjoy the time skating together, these are the salad days.
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Got into cars and quit
Got into drugs and quit
Got into the military and quit
Got into married with kids and quit
Or they just quit
These pretty much. I've moved away from my home state, but even when I lived there for some time after school I rarely skated with the formative posse as they were usually wrapped up in one of the above. I've always been a solo skater at heart and mainly skate on my own these days.
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Expand Quote
Not really kids but we started skateboarding as adults so I don't have much of a story to tell about that. We're all housemates here. The guy in the center has been skating for a little over 2 years and got my housemate on the right and me on the left into skateboarding. The housemate on the right has been skateboarding for about 2 months and I've been skateboarding for about 3 months now.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53671261146_c3aaa1f4ae_b.jpg)
really like this pic of your crew, enjoy the time skating together, these are the salad days.
Yes, this is an awesome picture! Keep on rolling and have fun.
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I started skating around 2009-2010 and had a few friends in my "crew" come and go those first few years. I'm pretty lucky that my two closest friends from them still skate and live fairly close to me, so we still skate together all the time. Out of my other friends from that time, one quit to get into other hobbies, which included drugs, and last I heard is clean now living with his parents in a faraway state. One got really into cars. Another one still skates from what I've heard but isn't the kind of dude I would want to hang out with now. At least two dudes are homeless and doing various drugs.
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I'm curious, did the friends who grew up and became successful (working for NASA, getting PHD's, becoming lawyers, etc..), live in a particular area, or grow up around the same time?
It seems like burnouts and imprisonment/deaths likely happened in America. I'm basing this off of nothing other than my predetermined bias about being an American myself.
For myself, going back to the elementary school days, I had a group of maybe like 4 kids, with the constant wildcards coming and going.
1. Became a jock in high school but still tried to skate. Got really into painkillers and started burning out. Got a really nice job as a union ironworker, thanks to his dad, but lost the job due to his drug addiction. Think he went to rehab and got clean. Hit me up a few years ago wanting to get into surfing, and I learned how to surf in my mid-20's with this guy. Now a total surfer, works for Amazon, and doesn't skate at all.
2. Was adopted by his uncle as a toddler, never knew his real parents. Always had a chip on his soldier (he was what we would call a midget back in those days), but his uncle would always give him like $100 to go skating for the day. He quit after learning how to do fs nosegrinds, and became a jigalow. We haven't talked in about 20 years.
3. Quit skating shortly after starting high school. Was always a really smart kid, we were academic rivals all throughout school. He joined the Airforce after graduating and has been in since. Just had his first kid. Haven't talked to him in years, but social media kept me in the loop.
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In high school we had 17 people in a 4 grade span who skated consistently. Answered to the best of my knowledge.
3 computer software 1 married no kids
3 music industry 1 married with kid I believe
1 film industry not married
1 property developer married with kid
1 banking married with kids
3 snowboard industry 1 with new baby not sure who married
1 history teacher not married
1 material designer not married
1 unknown
1 died in a small plane crash
1 industrial sales, me married w two children
7 kids out of 17 guys. Not exactly repopulating the earth.
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It was really just me and my childhood best friend who started together. We drifited apart a bit (standard kid stuff at school he was more "cool" and I was more of a nerd). He quit skating in 8th grade a moved away and we lost touch. Last time I heard from him was right after high school, he reached out and tried to get me in on some sort of sketchy entrepreneurial scheme. I doubt he has skated in the last 18ish years. Last I heard he has a bunch of kids but that's all I know.
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He quit skating, started dealing, had a kid and continued dealing, lost custody of kid, was involved in a road rage incident where he shot (but didn't kill) the other driver, prison
We landed our first kickflips within five minutes of each other in my garage :(
I remember we made a pact where if one of us got sponsored before the other, we had to put in a good word about the other to get them on the team.
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Most quit sometime in high school, but I have a few friends from that time who never fully gave it up. One works in the medical industry (desk job) and still rips transition when I see him.
One friend (who had the best hardflips I've ever seen in person) quit and became a state trooper.
One friend joined the army after not doing much post high school graduation. He tried picking skating up again back in 2021, but I haven't seen or heard from him since then.
Another, who never really was super invested in skating, quit for high school football and now works for the athletic department for the Memphis Grizzlies.
And, lastly, one "friend" who quit when we got into 9th grade. Sent me a long ass text basically admitting he was jealous that I learned tricks faster than him. I still remember one line of the text that said "YOU CREAM YOURSELF OVER TRE FLIPS"...I had just learned them. You're goddamned right I'm going to be overly hyped on em.
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idk i got famous and left everyone behind
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One quit because he rolled his ankle too many times so started fishing nonstop
One took up selling hard drugs and is now an insurance salesman
One still collects boards but is too obsessed with Hondas
One quit because he's too huge, had a kid early, developed a crazy cocaine problem that ended up developing into narcolepsy
One's a cop in NYC but still rolls around hitting random spots
One sprays weeds in the Hamptons and has a gf addicted to vivanse so she's probably up his ass nonstop
One's killing it too hard at carpentry so he's busy with that and being rich
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i never really had a crew. everyone including me skated on and off. but we lived in a very small town so all uf us have skated with eachother at some point. but i dont think ever all at the same time.
one i havnt spoken to in 15 years. he plays drums in a hardcore band. i saw them 2 years ago. ran into his mom on the way to the gig who still remembered me somehow. she said he still got his board but he might skate like once a year. he moved to the city and is probably doing better than the rest of us.
another i skated with for a long time, but kinda on and off when we wern't writing graffiti. up untill maybe 6/7 years ago. he got a kid and spend all his time with his girl so i lost contact with him.
my brother works in the same field as him (painter) and sometimes works with him. so all my updates come from him. but he lost his girl. lost costudy of the child. got into alcohol and drugs even more than before. lost is house a fiew times. and aparently lost his teeth.
my brother did show me a clip of him skating a mini last summer. he still got it. hit him up to skate and he was down. but it never happened.
last one quit after breaking his ankle real bad. moved to another country. moved back a fiew years later. got a kid. broke up with his girl. we started skating a lot again around that time (this matches up with when i lost contact with the guy above). he got back with her again. got another kid. allways low on money. girl is burned out. he works multiple jobs and isn't allowed to leave much cause his girl makes him watch the kids whenever he's free. i see him maybe two or three times a year now.
really bummed these days he got a new group of friends through work who are leading him onto all these right wing talking points. especially since covid. but i cant bring myself to drop him out of my life yet. i try to reason with him.
thats the main guys for me.
I'm curious, did the friends who grew up and became successful (working for NASA, getting PHD's, becoming lawyers, etc..), live in a particular area, or grow up around the same time?
It seems like burnouts and imprisonment/deaths likely happened in America. I'm basing this off of nothing other than my predetermined bias about being an American myself.
i don't think thats only America. i'm European and my skate friends ended up better than most the people i grew up around. addiction, death, prison, prostitution, abuse. a lot of interesting stories, but not very fun ones.
i do definitly think enviorment is a key factor. i grew up in a small town. all social housing, surrounded by factories.
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I only know about one, he quit skating early, joined the military, got married and has a kid
He used to be cool
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had two different crews. highschool and then the local park. i went to high school in a different town from my local park, which also has a park but ive always preferred my local since it was my first park ive ever been to.
it was the four of us skating after school. one stopped skating after moving to a different town with no parks, he mainly cruised on a longboard. the other one stopped skating when he did, which i always felt a little off with him since he was not really that great of an influence. lastly, my best friend at the time stopped after our freshman (grade 9) year. i taught him how to do some basic tricks, which he learned very quickly, and it seemed like he was going to get into skating as much as i did. he did a proper ollie in the first hour of me teaching him! going into our sophomore year (grade 10), we skated once and then he ghosted me. i think that it was my fault since i never hit him up to come to my local park since his parents never drove him anywhere. were sort of in touch now, mutual followers on IG, but that was honestly one of my favorite moments skating.
at my local park there was also four of us, and some that would join our crew for short periods of time, but they fell out of skating quick or moved away. one of them got into cars, got married and had 3 kids, then joined the military. another became homeless for a little then started getting on good terms with his mother. he eventually started living with her again and just works non stop. we both feel like we would have been a lot better at skating if he never fell off it after getting dumped by his ex girl. things happen though, not always for the best. he looks at skating as a waste of time, which is a shame because he was really good. the last one had a very big skating personality when i met him, but i feel like he would lie a lot about his injuries during skating and wouldn't want to try new things. kinda like he was scarred to fall or something. he was my best friend for a long time, but we only related in skating so when we tried doing new things together it wouldn't hit the same as skating. he also joined the military.
sorry for a wall of text, but this post was too fun to read to not make a response myself!
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They all quit in high school and became townies.
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USA/New England, was 18 in 2003.
6 people from the skating while growing up died from suicide and drugs, 2 were under 25, 1 under 30, the others 35 and under.
The other 2 who are alive don’t skate and just work their working class jobs, live in the same place as always.
Im pretty fortunate to be alive because i also had some close calls. Even more fortunate to love skating and to still be pushing. Meeting new people to skate with is dope as fuck too
Roll in Peace, y’all. Don’t ferget to tell ya homies u love them
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most of them are on a regiment of rogaine, preparation H and viagra...
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one of them became a wrestler which is pretty cool, another one died....that sucked. most seem to be teetering between weekend warrior and *i used to skate*
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I started in LeRoy Illinois (population 2000)in the early 80s. No one skated.
Mid 80s moved back to California and had a little crew so, 1 dead(suicide in h.s.), 1 went to prison, 1 owns a business and still skates and still rips, 1 in the hills growing weed, 1 has been working for DLX for 20 years.
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started around 2000 with couple of friends from school and the neighbourhood. from the original six guys core crew i am the only one who is still at it
1. stopped skating after learning basic ollie, manual stuff to play football ("succer"). he now owns and operates a gas station. doing well, no kids
2. stopped after 10 years or so due to chronic back pains coming from office work. he now works as a programmer in the car industry. landed our first kickflips down 2, 3, 4, 5 and six stairs together over the years.
3. stopped after 3-4 years. no real reason. lost interest, got more into going out and meeting girls and stuff. went to university, he is now in credit risk management for a big banking institute and has a kid. he always had good varial heelflips, like the only one in our crew who could do them consistently
4. same, stopped after 3-4 years. no real reason. went to university, he is a now a big tech software developer guy and has a kid
5. stopped skating after 10 years due to constantly rolling his ankle and because of his ankle gettign swollen after some light skating all the time. works in logistics now. no kids, got quite into fitness and his girlfriend is a fitness-tattoo model kind of girl.
from my later crew of five guys, where we went on trips, filming missions and so on, four still skate, and we skate regularly.
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Ones a mean junk man and the others marsh full of leeches cos playing as man
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In high school we had 17 people in a 4 grade span who skated consistently. Answered to the best of my knowledge.
3 computer software 1 married no kids
3 music industry 1 married with kid I believe
1 film industry not married
1 property developer married with kid
1 banking married with kids
3 snowboard industry 1 with new baby not sure who married
1 history teacher not married
1 material designer not married
1 unknown
1 died in a small plane crash
1 industrial sales, me married w two children
7 kids out of 17 guys. Not exactly repopulating the earth.
Sounds like a solid, high functioning crew. Curious where this was? Was it a well know city. Some random town, etc
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I had to look them up on Facebook, only one is still skating (no clue if he stopped and restarted thou).
The rest all quit and got huge like non where even remotely cubby as kids/teens. One posts not stop pictures of his cat, weed and prescription pills (like a hand full everyday). One other dude looks happily married, his little bro has kids and is into golf. The last is working at some brewery.
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Me and my three other neighborhood friends all started the same summer and I think within two years I was the only one left. Two of them just sorta got bored of it and got into other things, and one of them fell in with some troublemaker kids and had a weird few years. From what I gather he still follows skateboarding through the lens of occasional viral Instagram reels.
That was a fun summer. We would have stick ollieing contests and primo tic tack races in the driveway, unburdened by the frivelous knowledge of wheelbase or rep. Those were the days.
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Most quit by age 20
One has a PhD in philosophy & spends a lot of time volunteering for the communist party of America
One became a C list model
One moved to the Asheville area and started a family / self sustaining hobby farm
One died in a motorcycle accident a month after graduating high school
One went to college & didn't want to learn how to skate / didn't want to get hurt in the town's giant concrete park
Most did the get older/too into partying routine.
Second wave, one of them teaches kids how to skate as a side hustle in the Reno area. He's always sending me photos of spots he sees out there. Seems like that area has a lot of untapped potential
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Small town in Europe (15,000 people), I had 2 different crews (since I refused to stop when most of my first crew did), below are some that I´m still pretty close to and even call them my best friends. All in all it must have been around 20 people. No burn outs in any way that I can think of in both crews (thank god). Still cool how a lot of my friendships started with skateboarding.
- social worker, unmarried
- architect, unmarried
- doctor, married 3 kids
- engineer for a food company, married 1 kid
- online sales manager, 2 kids
- working in a landscaping company, unmarried
- owning a landscaping company (a different one), unmarried
- sales guy at a shop similar to homedepot, unmarried
I myself became a teacher and have a kid :)
However there was a crew in the same town in the late 90s/early 00s we were cool with, but they more or less only pretended to skate and pretty much exclusively got into drugs/heroin. I don´t know too much about these guys but I think and hope most of them got out of this shit.
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B- high school homie put in the most hours with. I think is married now, moved to the middle of no where to avoid vices. He never had a problem with them, but was supper paranoid based on family history. I think he’s a nurse. Doesn’t skate
J - moved to California, has a sick ramp. Live in a small house with too many roommates. Never see any clips.
M - rather drink and party, not at toxic levels, but definitely rather be more social. will skate if you beg. Same board for like over 5 years. Would probably skate more if I was close by.
T - too many small injures, not enough insurance. Struggling to stay well enough to work. Still wants to skate. For a minute he became the resident old head as he still skated spots in our home town. Every once in a while I’d run into a kid in the city and they’d tell me “T use to show me your instagram” which was pretty cool.
A - got an approached to model in the middle of a session. Got into a the car with a stranger. Disappeared for a while. Popped back up as a full fledged model. Feel off the map again, now is a teacher.
S - S was a close homie, and roommate who had issues but was still cool. Going back through a whole host of mental shit. He text me once about how messed up it was that I told him he fucked up by electively leaving his X to try new things, even do she held is reckless, impulsive ass down through all of college. (Something I said passively as a joke) I told him he was fucking fried, and he said that I wasn’t a real friend for supporting him, Drama, drama, drama, we cut each other off. He wasn’t really skating much anymore anyway. I’m still friends with his X. She’s a lawyer with a family.
R - skates not as much as I do, but harder than I do. He’s married and has a kid. Saw him last weekend. Home restoration team lead.
Me - I skate almost daily. Built my life around making skating accessible (live near skate park/spots). Married. Regular 9-5, 2 degrees, kid on the way. ;) fades aways while walking down dirt road
I started skating by myself so these are really just close at the time, friends I made along the way to adult hold
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Expand Quote
In high school we had 17 people in a 4 grade span who skated consistently. Answered to the best of my knowledge.
3 computer software 1 married no kids
3 music industry 1 married with kid I believe
1 film industry not married
1 property developer married with kid
1 banking married with kids
3 snowboard industry 1 with new baby not sure who married
1 history teacher not married
1 material designer not married
1 unknown
1 died in a small plane crash
1 industrial sales, me married w two children
7 kids out of 17 guys. Not exactly repopulating the earth.
Sounds like a solid, high functioning crew. Curious where this was? Was it a well know city. Some random town, etc
Yes, I was lucky. We had 5-6 crews that had common spots. A 6 ft and 5 ft half pipe and a 40 ft long curb and a pool. I grew up in NJ suburbs. NJ in the 90s had a crew in every town. It was a glorious time.
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- 1 big engineer at a software company 3 kids and still married (great guy, still RIPS)
- 1 died of breast cancer 3 years ago (no wife, no kids)
- 1 became a skateshopowner and has his own clothing company (also still rips > has a kid named Arto!)
- 1 invented those coins to put in shopping carts? Or at least he commecialised it. He was alien workshop flow, had videoparts in local videos, and he was the player of the crew. Got filthy rich, fat and bald. He lives the good life, chills on a yacht and goes to Formula 1 things (wife, two kids)
- 1 became a really big guy in the AI industry
- 1 was really good, started smoking weed ALL day. He became a guy that writes parking tickets
- 1 became addicted to booze, went to the US to drum in a metalband, failed and owns a metalbar now (divorced, 2 kids)
- 1 married a local singer and stayed at home, divorced. No job. 1 kid
- 2 became an architect (both have a wife and 2 kids)
- 1 became a graphic designer for prada, nike, etc.
- 1 became a recordlabel owner that put out noise records. Went broke > cleans houses for a living now. (Wife, 2 kids)
I'm a graphic designer for a really big company. And got a graphic design company of my own as well.
Pretty crazy to read this ... we kinda started the same and all went different routes.
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Reading through this last night brought about some nostalgic melancholic feelings, wishing y'all the best
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I grew up in a tiny town in Virginia, but luckily there was a core of 5 skaters - it expanded and contracted a bit here and there, but the 5 of us were the OG's. I was the oldest by a year or so, and had the internet - early slap days and alt.skate-boarding connected me with folks who mailed me mix tapes of skate videos, and I had my finger on skateboarding the most. Anyways I left at 18 or so and moved to slightly bigger city, 2 of the skate homies followed suit. Sadly the two who didn't spiraled into addiction, and ultimately committed suicide. I eventually moved to NYC and now Chicago - I'm still tight with one of the homies, and sadly have had to cut contact with the other as he's deep into alcoholism and mental health issues he refuses to acknowledge. 2000-2004 was the peak of our little skate scene, and 3 of us (myself included) definitely had the raw talent to be great, but we had no resources / shitty spots / no one better than us to motivate us.
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The dude that teached me how to skate and was my buddy the first 3-4 years had to quit cause he got some weird knee problems, he was in pain after every session. He's an divorced architect that had two kids with a french bisexual girl that eventually left him for a girl....
Then most of my OG dudes quit skating and have low income jobs. There's only one still skating hard of all them.
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Man, I could write a book on all the different groups I've been part of over the years—they all seem to end the same way. I'll just stick to the originals but change their names for privacy.
First, there's Mike, my next-door neighbor. We decided to become skateboarders together one day. He ended up taking the traditional path, working hard, starting a family, and doing the typical family things. No skating. Then there's my second skate friend, John. He was into skating too but got sidetracked by a girl, and they both ended up addicted to meth, which led to a lot of shady situations that nearly destroyed his life. Thankfully, in the last few years, he’s turned things around, found a great partner, earned his GED, and now works three jobs, seeming to really crush it.
Steve, John's former brother-in-law, was also one of my closest skate friends. We put in so much effort skating together, but he succumbed to the same fate. Influenced by his mother and sister, who have caused a lot of damage, he ended up losing control to drugs, cycling in and out of jail, and was recently arrested again for possessing a controlled substance in a school zone.
Our friend Rick ended up in prison for many years after nearly killing someone with a belt buckle. His life has been full of tragic events, and frankly, he's been a terrible father. Then there’s David, who became a recluse, likely due to meth addiction, lost all his teeth, and ended up marrying his cousin's ex-wife, raising his cousin’s kids. It’s a bizarre situation.
And then there’s Eric. His story mirrors the others with drugs and alcohol leading to multiple children being taken away by CPS.
All these devastating outcomes stemmed from their own actions, compounded by drug abuse, toxic relationships, and alcohol. It's clear there’s some deep psychological patterns here, likely tied back to their upbringing—many were abused as children, mimicking the destructive behaviors they saw at home.
I thought my childhood was messed up, but seeing this cycle continue is heartbreaking. It's tough watching people you grew up with making the local news for all the wrong reasons.
TLDR: None of them skate anymore. Their lives were derailed by drugs, alcohol, and toxic relationships.
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One hitch hiked to California from Virginia and still lives there but doesn't skate, another one became a farmer and another one became a scientist. I may be the only one left of my crew from high school that still skates. They still the homies because they all used to download skate videos off Lime wire and throw me copies (Baker 3, Good and Evil, Thats Life)
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They quit
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One of them works at a water treatment plant
One of them works for a landscaper
Another works for an environmental data company taking soil samples and shit
And his brother is a personal trainer
And although I'm the only one who still skates regularly they all still manage to get on the board frequently enough. Honestly we all turned out pretty decent compared to some of our peers. Seen a few skaters from my area go the Brian Wenning route
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when i look back, most kids i started with quit pretty quickly. growing up in the era of playstation/xbox made it easy for kids to quit only the real die hards stuck with it
I can vouch for this, being one of the kids who quit skating during the peak of the PSN/Xbox Live era. Thankfully one of my friends got me back into skating freshman year of HS and we still manage to skate together at least once a month, but some kids we went to school with definitely quit during that time and never got back into it
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Of my crew of 6 I guess we are a bit abnormal we all still skate but the guys who always hated skating parks are now the old guys showing the kids how to skate at the park and the me and Brian just skate what we can and when we can I’m the youngest at 31
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I'm curious, did the friends who grew up and became successful (working for NASA, getting PHD's, becoming lawyers, etc..), live in a particular area, or grow up around the same time?
It seems like burnouts and imprisonment/deaths likely happened in America. I'm basing this off of nothing other than my predetermined bias about being an American myself.
Obviously our case (three university professors out of three skaters in our crew) is a ridiculous coincidence, but the surroundings definitely played a part, suburbs of Hamburg, Germany, pretty much the middle of the middle class, all safe and quiet and generally not crazy rich but affluent enough never to really have to worry about money, plus higher education in Germany is free so we all could just go to university and study what we were interested in. We got it incredibly lucky. There were drugs etc around of course but it never really went much beyond weed and going to prison or dying young was pretty much unheard of.
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4 of us. 1 death (OD), 1 is a skate teacher and accountant, 1 had a recent DUI and no job last time we talked, and I still skate weekly but I'm underemployed af and jaded about skating these days. I haven't talked to those dudes since the funeral a couple years ago and I have no intention to. Good memories, but the glory days have long since past. We don't know each other anymore. Sorry I needed to vent
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I'm from the suburbs of Berlin, low income area. I started skating 2003. From the people I started with, only one skates occassionally every few weeks. I try to go skate at least once a week no matter the weather.
Way too many people in the last 20 years to list them here. A few fell to drugs and booze. One older guy I often skated with works at a Vans store and still follows skateboarding but his back is kinda fucked.
From the crew around my age, most of them turned out fine. There is one who completely stopped skating because his ex girlfriend skated too. But he was/is an idiot anyway and was always blaming others for his problems.
It's not easy nowadays to get the whole crew together because of jobs, families and general adult responsibilities. Since the last year, I try to film a video but that will take a lot of time and we are all 30+ now.
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None of the 9yo pre-skatepark crew still skate.
Kid 1 works in retail. Kid 2 now has a really good logistics job at a hospital. We sometimes go snowboarding together and he kinda keeps up to date on skating. Kid 3 is a meteorologist, that is all I know.
I started skating again when I was 15 and the local skatepark crew was pretty big. The kids I actually started with.
1. became a tattoo artist. He's the most ridiculously talented transition skater I know. Maybe steps on a board twice a year to do some barefoot backside airs.
2. Moved to a big city to get his second university degree. He still skates sometimes.
3. Became a (actually sucessful) musician, doesn't skate anymore. But he was never that into it anyway.
4. Is now an engineer and skates a lot.
5. Builds pumptracks, MTBK tracks, skateparks etc. He still skates sometimes but he has mostly switched to two wheels.
All in all, I think we turned out healthy enough. Everyone who's left over from back in the day has formed one big crew. Even some of the guys who taught me how to skate 15years ago still show up to the park sometimes.
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My first neighborhood skate crew ..... Sheesh I think I'm the only one that doesn't have a criminal record. I grew up in a slightly above middle class neighborhood. Very regular looking houses, like I remember when the first 2 story house was built in the neighborhood and couldn't believe it.
But anyway, here is the lineup.
Chris - Did time I'm not sure for what but he was definitely chain smoking cigs and starting to get into weed at 14.
Sometimes I drive through the old hood when I'm in the area just to look at everything. Saw him once in the garage
of his parents house and decided not to stop. His little sister also became a stripper with a record.
Mikey and Stevie - two brothers with kinda young parents. Pretty sure both did time, but I know for sure Mikey did. Saw him
at a gas station randomly like 7-8 years ago and reluctantly gave him my phone number. He proceeded to
hit me up for weed and pills for the 2 months. Had to block him.
Aaron - Another young derelict. Did time for drugs and robbery I believe, but came out of it completely normal, did his
community service at Salvation Army Thrift Store, and now he is the manager of the store. Total rehabilitation story.
I actually saw him today when I went thrifting, he wears a tie to work everyday and seems to be doing really well.
Looking back I'm kinda surprised how these criminals came out of this normal ass neighborhood with normal ass houses and normal ass decent parents. I'm the only one that didn't break bad, besides all the criminal trespassing I did for the purpose of street skating.
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Since I'm old, at least 3 of my local kids growing up died. 1 as far back as the late 80s, 2 over the decades since. Others quit when street got popular and got married and only one other guy skated with me until our 40s, till he broke a hip and it ended him.
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Sometimes I feel cringe to be the last left who still skates and other times pretty stoked i’m the last one of all my original friends who still skates. I try not to overthink why people in my life I knew who were die hard skate rats just all quit. Like all of them.. I really like that Jake Phelps quote, “If skateboarding ever gets too scary for you, then you were never meant to skate in the first place.” I think that applies to so much in life.
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We had a little skate team in high school and would spend all year making monthly montages and full length videos.
For the ones I know about:
- One died in a car accident.
- Another became a sex predator.
- Another moved to SF and became homeless.
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been skating with the same crew for 20+ years. Last year town hall opened a public skatepark and that's our HQ right now. Love them to pieces, even though we are reaching 40 as we speak.
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One of my friends brought a grenade to a gas station and only got around 30 bucks before getting caught and did a bid.
Another was caught up in the biggest heroin sale in the county. Idk who was doing what so he opened a barber shop and still scheming. I remember he used to collect Goosebumps books but couldn't read.
Another went away for a gun charge and which was more or less self defense (the way I've been told at least) and is also operating the barber shop. He's getting back into skating and is somehow not bad.
Another was in and out (new york and florida i think) and became a male stripper before returning to skating. He had a Riff Raff look going on doing switch varial heels down stuff. Rest in Peace.
The rest have normal townie lives but it's not interesting to mention. We still hang out to drink and grill when I go back home. One picked up the board again and is still really good. They all still think of skateboarding and have been watching more videos recently. It's funny seeing them come downtown with DVS Getz and 7.75 DGK boards from way back.
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This thread started out entertaining and got depressing in a hurry.
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A lot quit because injuries, my roommate and I grew up skating together and all our friends including myself who still skate diss him for getting kind of fat after quitting. He’ll hop on my board once in a while and mess around thought when we’re out
A lot of my friends in high school got into smoking weed and wanted to sit on the couch all day. I liked to smoke too but I always wanted to go out and skate.
Sometimes the park is empty and sometimes the park is full, I skate regardless
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been skating with the same crew for 20+ years. Last year town hall opened a public skatepark and that's our HQ right now. Love them to pieces, even though we are reaching 40 as we speak.
Jealous. Hold on to it man....I rarely get to see the old crew, a lot of us live in different cities now.
anyways interesting thread (some of the stories are fucked! and jail seems to be a recurring theme in the US, kinda scary)
as for me, gonna mix 2 successive groups here....let's say my 80's bros and then 90s bros.
- one became a pretty famous designer. Still skates every once in a while. Surfs more.
- two work in IT, with families and pour their energy into ultratrails/marathons. it seems to be as consuming as skating was.
- one wanted to get away from society and lives in super secluded/foresty area....builds wooden furniture, also still skates every once in a while
- one started a business to take tourists on boating trips around Marseille. Still skates a bit I think....
I think I'm the only one still riding regularly at the moment. everyone turned out pretty good (except one BMXer adjacent to our crew who killed himself a few years back, maybe from CTE). and everyone bar one guy had kids !
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first time in a long time reading 4 pages of comments here
nice one
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Everyone either got heavily into wrenching on cars (still skated), went pro, or work just took over.
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Well, one became a Barber and I think he still occasionally skates, and moved to the phoenix, AZ area. Another one became a successful Tattoo Artist in the Longview, WA area and doesn’t skate much anymore. The most successful in skateboarding became a touring punk rock artist, then became a Trans Skater we all know as Cher Stauberry, haven’t talked to her much since I left for the Navy in 2019. Another one stopped skateboarding and got a DUI then moved up to Portland, got sober, had a kid, and I think he’s either in AZ or back home in the east bay.
I’m still skateboarding, but I work in the Maritime industry, make electronic music, and I am married and have a baby.
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I'm from the suburbs of Berlin, low income area. I started skating 2003. From the people I started with, only one skates occassionally every few weeks. I try to go skate at least once a week no matter the weather.
Way too many people in the last 20 years to list them here. A few fell to drugs and booze. One older guy I often skated with works at a Vans store and still follows skateboarding but his back is kinda fucked.
From the crew around my age, most of them turned out fine. There is one who completely stopped skating because his ex girlfriend skated too. But he was/is an idiot anyway and was always blaming others for his problems.
It's not easy nowadays to get the whole crew together because of jobs, families and general adult responsibilities. Since the last year, I try to film a video but that will take a lot of time and we are all 30+ now.
This is why I don’t skate
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None of them really skate anymore. I'm the last man standing. However one of them is filthy rich now, and just built a mini in his massive garage.
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Grew up in PHX AZ. Two acquaintances are current pros.
Out of the ~12 of us that skated the same parks and didn't end up with the Happy Medium group, 1 got really into cycling and has a normal job, one is super into Crossfit and BJJ and still skates once a week or so on the same setup he rode in 2007 and rips, 2 are my age with normal jobs and we skate 2-3x/week, and the rest are either dead or in jail. Opiates hit the area incredibly hard and we were all fairly well off kids which meant we had money to buy pills with or ways to get things easily despite the cost.
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My best friend who I started skating with, the summer after we graduated high school, had an injury at a pool party that essentially paralyzed him from the chest down, with limited hand and arm movement. Had a few very rough years trying to get his life back in order. I've stayed close with him this whole time, and we still talk skating here and there. He's found new creative outlets (music, art, design) and we share common interests in those. Selfishly, I miss skating with him. The type of person who not only is fun to skate with, but actively motivates you to be better, whether that be friendly competition or just hyping you up. I'm really proud of him, he graduates college in a few weeks.
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They are around...
The only one that still skates is an arrogant and insecure fuck that can't kickflip after 20 years. Everyone else in our group, despite our flaws, can actually have an honest and personal conversation and grew up. This guy never dealt with his problems and will put on different personalities for the different people that he may come across in a way so obvious that I find him revolting. On top of that, a shitty fucking friend. We've all been shitty friends at certain points in our lives but this one took it the furthest and never stopped.
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We still get together at dinners every once in a while except for a friend that left the country and the only thing we know about him is thru Instagram stories
We had a big group of skaters but these are the ones that I keep contact with
1. works at a bank and is killing it on the stock market
2. works at an automotive factory
3. also works at an automotive factory and stopped skating because of a hernia on his back
4. used to work at a music magazine but turned to computer engineering
Only number 4 skates regularly but we haven't skated together in at least a year
Fortunately there weren't any drug/jail/death stories in our group nor our skate scene
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2 of the long time skate friends still skate.
aging and having real jobs and not living within 10 minutes of each other put a damper on skating
My best friend who was always down to skate and got me into skating unfortunately passed away right before the pandemic.
I definitely still hang with the crew still which i can appreciate.
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My next door neighbor broke his shoulder when we were 15 and quit so he could surf. Now lives in Poland and rides crazy ass downhill mountain bike stuff.
Another friend became a Wall Street asshole that hasn’t skated in countless years.
Couple guys became big time photo/ video production people and I see them skate once in a blue moon.
Couple guys overdosed years ago but they hadn’t been skating
They all trip out that I skate as much as I do still and in my head I think to myself I don’t skate enough anymore.
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Let's see:
1. One still skates, talk to him and see him every couple of years. Battled years of alcoholism, won't skate tranny after a hang-up on a pivot fakie in a pool resulted in a medivac for severe head trauma, got sober and now lives in his parents old house working masonry like his father did.
2. One had a kid at 16, fucked off for a while and now apparently has his shit together, doesn't skate.
3. One died of a drug overdose a couple years back.
4. One completely disappeared, always wondered what happened to him, his skating was so fucking rad even though he didn't skate much.
5. One I think battled addiction for quite a while, got clean, started a family and got back into skating in his 30s. I just saw some recent footage of him that got me really psyched.
6. If anyone knows what "Fred" Dunlop is doing, please let me know.
7. The last one is a current drug dealer and felon, always seemingly getting into some kind of serious trouble.
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Same old story, life gets in the way.
One guy married with kids, moved away, probably has skated for years.
Other guy married kid, skates sometimes when i come visit but too busy to consistently skate and i dont get to see him enough anymore.
Other guy, dont communicate with anymore.
Other guy a coward who never really skated but pretended to like it cause it was cool to fit in i guess.
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Started skating in like 08/09 was homeschooled 6th and 7th grade but had two kids down the street I learned with then they moved never heard from them again
Skated pretty much solo until end of sophmore year created a crew cause my schools other crew wouldn't let me join. Out of the 8 kids that was in the crew I am the only one who stuck with skating after high school. My best friend only really skated in the crew for like 6 months then quit and joined the Navy. Everyone else got caught in either trying to be a rapper or working regular 9-5s. Funny enough I still currently skate with the only two kids from the rival crew that kept at it
I ended up joining the Navy as well and ended up making friends with the only other 2 skaters in the unit and like 3 civilians. We have all since left the military and moved to different states but we play Skater XL with each other all the time and go on skate trips with each other at least once a year and make crew videos from the trips.
Side note its crazy hearing how many of yall homies got into cars and quit, as I got heavy into cars and still am yet I still skate at least twice a week. How else am I gonna get to the park and these spots
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Everyone grew up into a sad middle aged man, they’re either fat losers with desk jobs or cucks with kids and some controlling bitch running their lives.
I’m the only one still free, single, living in my car, go anywhere drink all day skate all day. Fuck those losers anyway they chose that life.
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Idk where Abe is. He the good good homie who got me back on tricks. He was having some physical issues that got him off the board and on BMX. Which he's pretty fuckin good at.
Last time we spoke I didn't understand how I could help my bro. It was painful.
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All I’m getting from this, is that I need to check in on my life long skate homies before it’s too late. RIP TO ALL THE HOMIES LOST 😞
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- Jimmy O - Got too lost in the sauce on Hunter S. Thompson books, tried emulating what he did and drank himself into a fatass that stopped skating
- Patches - Too much weed smoking and useless shit going to jail repeatedly, fucked off to Colorado and still a mess
- Nate - Quit and became an insane power lifter and is built like a god damn mountain
- Tommy - Got himself a classic car, remodeled it and mostly focuses on doing mechanic stuff now
- Chuckie - Another car story, still does cars and HVAC but does dirt biking now
- Chris - New York living got a hold of him, he was good as shit and just let the skating go by the way side which was real sad. Out of all of us he was probably the only one with a real shot of at least getting sponsored. I just hear he got hooked on gambling sadly
- Vince - got into farming, bought a property off the grid with no internet but build a mini ramp on it, does electrician work
- Me - still skating and traveling, moved across the country and no fucks given what happens at this point
- Everyone else I can think of - Just slowly quit and just partied and got into that bullshit frat life in college and became alcoholics and cocaine addicts
Where I'm from, we really didn't have much as far as skate spots or even a decent skatepark for several years. I tell some people where I'm from as far as skating goes and people say how the fuck were you able to manage to skate anything, there's barely shit out there. Traveling and skating was the only way to keep me away from being bored as shit all the time
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Meth, jail, MAGA, graphic designer, college professor, bodybuilder, MMA, Jesus, commercial actor... I think I'm the only one still actively skating.
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One of them became a rep for a snowboard brand. Pretty rad I remember the 32 bus pulling up to his house when we were kids.
Most of them have kids and don’t skate anymore.
One of them is a “vintage” reseller and probably makes more than me but that shit irks me save the nice stuff for people who actually can’t afford new clothes
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UPS driver, barista, insurance rep, gang/murdered, gang/jail, drug trafficking/jail, VP brokerage firm, Army lifer/UPS driver, retail, contractor/fraudster, Army Warrant Officer (retired), and petty thief/car washer. Only the stockbroker and chief warrant officer attended college and both moved to affluent neighborhoods during high school.
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Just doing a general survey here. Do any of them still skate regularly or at all? Prison? Drugs?
Small group of like 5 for me. One of them still skates a little, but is all into Qanon type shit. I think two of them are tweakers and one's currently in prison. The dude who taught me to ollie is always in and out of prison too, probably addiction related.
One of my old friends will take profile pictures with his skateboard, but hasn't actually skated in years. Always tries to talk to me like we were serious business back in the day. He makes a lot of comments like, "do kids even skate street anymore!?!??".
Surprisingly most of the guys I grew up skating with did pretty well. With the exception of one who committed suicide, the others are now an officer of the law, a railroad worker who was a photographer and had photos posted in transworld, a lab technician, and a musician.
After reading some of the other posts I realized how lucky I was with the guys I grew up skating with.
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Very interesting thread, brings me back to my youth. Insane how many of you report that at least one got 'distracted' by drugs. Same happened to the best guy from our crew. He cleaned his mess up afaik but doesnt skate anymore. My brother pretty much stopped when I got better than him no joke. Others lost interest as most of us moved away. My oldest friend is a lawyer and skates from time to time when we see each other. I am sure we would skate a lot if we lived in the same city again.
I feel like every mid sized city has this story about a handful of guys. Sometimes it's true that they could have "made it". My question, is does it happen at the same rate in places that never really got consistent industry attention until not so long ago?
Like in the midwest etc. It seems like in the early to mid 2000s there were a lot of good skaters who just didn't get any industry attention because of their location prior to social media (as far as I've been told).
I can see dedicating yourself to it for 15 years, becoming totally disillusioned Bec all you'll ever be is a home town hero, and getting into some bad coping mechanisms if you're addiction prone. Would be cool to see some sort of doc deep dive on the era that this was more of a thing(is there one out there?).