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Htf is Andy Anderson the biggest skater on earth? Everyone who doesn’t skate knows that dude and Tony hawk and Rodney. That shit is trippy.
I got no issues with the guy but correct me if I’m wrong he can’t switch flip at all
He’s got a couple, but not many from what I’ve seen.
Not the prettiest kickflip either, but fuck me he can do them anywhere he wants, like Gravette.
I’m hating a little bit.
Nah, his stuff is gross.
Right? I don’t get the && love. Like I’m sure he’s a nice guy but I just don’t get what’s interesting about him? He looks like he would be on revive. And every 40 year old that starts skating again always buys his weird shape board. I’m 36 so I ain’t hating on old dudes getting back into it but why is loving && and getting his custom shape the midlife crisis start skating move?
Well said. I dunno.
My guess is we live in this odd time, where ‘viral’ content is flown in front of our faces, and that dudes stuff is very quirky/gimmicky. His skating looks like it was made by Reddit. There is also an element that seems dorky and …it’s not as intimidating as seeing some youth do shit that every old person knows they have no chance of doing (I know most can’t do the Andy stuff either, but to me, his stuff seems easier than watching say ‘skater pat’ nonchalantly switch flip a set of stairs that I’d get winded wobbling up).
When I see his board at the park, I know we in a no ollie zone
Ok, as someone over 40 who likes Andy and yes, bought the board (not a fan of the graphics, and modified the shape), I will let you in on why he’s popular.
Because I started skating around 85, Grade 4, I think. It was booming and was cool. I was not. I was perhaps the most unpopular kid at the school.
I thought skating would make me cool.
But as I got into it, read the magazines, I realized that it was a sport for outsiders. You could do it by yourself (which was perfect, as I had no friends until Jr High school). It wouldn’t make me cool, but it allowed me to do a sport with no rules.Make my own fun, and my own tricks. This is pre-popsicle, beford skating became heavily uniform. All of a sudden, it had lots of rules. Cool tricks (that took a million tries to accomplish, rather than the poetry of a boneless over a curb, which was much more accessible and democratic). Cool clothes, and what became a very rigid mindset that I still see in people who grew up in that era.
If I’m going to generalize, the thrust of the 80’s was about fun (and how creative you could be in its pursuit). The 90’s was about adherence to a form, mastery of tricks. Kind of a polar shift in focus. Which is why I never got on board with much of it.
Andy for us, reminds us of that more innocent, free time. Before rules and cool guy shit. Gonz is the only one that transitioned and didn’t lose his sense of discovery. Which is why he’s rightly regarded as Skate royalty.
Andy is a nerd, an outcast (because to skate in the 80’s you WERE an outcast, and sometimes beat up for it). We relate to that. Especially an outcast in a sport that used to love outcasts. Now we love people who are increadibly talented, but adhere to ‘cool’ tricks and norms (Ishod, Yuto, most any cookie cutter Street League fare).
Andy consciously knows that is what would get him noticed (he can obviously hang with the best of them in Street and Transition, and could master the tricks) IF HE WANTED.
But he forgoes all that in pursuit of his own personal fun, and his bizarrely creative approach to it.
He is a spirit animal to us aging skaters whose ideals were forged in the 80’s. And that’s why we love him, despite his horrendous bs airs and helmet. Or maybe because he proudly does it, and doesn’t give a shit about optics.
Well reasoned cucktard
I think you and I are of very similar vintage, and got boards around the same time. I was too young, and not around enough other people to grasp some of the societal vibes when I was younger, skating was just cool: bones brigade, gleaming the cube, poweredge/thrasher, etc. It was until the early-mid 90s when I got back into it and that was for sure borne of wanting to be different than my peers, enjoying being an other, not wanting to be a ‘jock’, looking for something outside of ‘straight society’. Yes there was a time of inclusivity, and then we as skaters obviously got carried away with tribalism, rules. It went too far.
I love how collective skateboard culture rejects ‘progress’ at times, embraces it at others (meaning trick progression). If this rejection didn’t happen, and everyone went full Nyjah, it would have croaked long ago, like rollerblading or whatever.
It’s been correctly joked about/bitterly griped that skateboarding is just there to sell pants, it definitely sells a vibe. I can totally see how AA appeals, sells a vibe to the ‘misfits’, or something. To me, the deployment of the ‘weird, wacky, creative’ tricks is so constant with dude that the impact is lost, looks like a fucking juggling unicycler.
Now that skating is bigger than ever there is amazing instances of the rejection of ‘straight society’ within skating, and I feel very indebted to those that are keeping it weird, different, true to themselves. It’s rad that we are, collectively, living in a comparatively less toxic time, within skating, more differences are being embraced. Obviously a long long long long long ways to go. And it’s all real easy for me to blather about, I’m borne into a body that would be ‘in style’ within skating, at anytime in it’s history (although now I’m quite old, I am/identify as a cis/man/white/hetero, I’m not going to be prejudged too harshly at most sessions).
Criticism is a tricky one, I feel like that pressure to look for the cool things within skating, helped me. Again, those pressures were modeled by people that looked like me, so the way I felt the ‘pressure’ was with relatively harmless shit, like what pants were/are cool, and trying to get a better kickflip. I wasn’t threatened at the core of my being, so that was nice.
I feel like I’m from a time when it was almost as much about what you weren’t, as what you were, or something, and I love the inclusion that I perceive from the youths (to their peers), now. It will be interesting to watch how these inclusive vibes extend to the culture around skating. I’m not suggesting we are post criticism, but comparatively to ‘my time’, it feels like that. Which makes me feel a little sad/glad/old.
Anyways, it’s not deep, I od on ott shit in this. It’s too rambling and not thought out. It’s funny that a company that seems about as corporate as it gets, within skating, Powell, now sells an expensive board, to people that feel rejected by mainstream skating, and have found their hero/avatar in this person that looks like they really really revel in being the odd duck. ‘Look at me!! I’m on a dbl bike, twirling flames! Look at me, pogo sticking and hula hooping at the same time!’. Or something.
I don’t agree that AA would master modern skating if really he wanted too, his style is not nice, by modern skating standards, and that to me, is why he goes full circus. When Koston would dork, it was with the context that he could undork. AA?, nah
Topic: questions that don't deserve their own thread (Read 211080 times)