Skateboarding has become pretty gay lately. It seems like everybody is trying to fit into a certain mold. We got...fake style...basically anyone who claims that their current "gangster" way of landing tricks is natural. Then we got...the tucknee kids...these kids do a lot of grabs cause they suck at fliptricks and they are usually tweaking their legs unnaturally when they land tricks. What else??? I dunno, but it's getting harder and harder these days to find someone who hasn't artificially manufactured their "style" over a period of 3 years. In reality, it takes most people (who have GOOD style) like ten years to fully develope it. Style is not just how you land a trick...it's how you DO the trick. It doesn't matter if somebody lands a little sketchy if they just blasted a kickflip up to their face over a bump tp bar. Actually, I tend to prefer styles with a little sketch in em. For instance, Alex Moul, Geoff Rowley, Dustin Dollin, and Ethan Fowler all have super sick style and you can tell they never once thought about it growing up. They just skated and naturally developed into style machines. Ya know who else has amazing style? Fabrizio Santos. Peter Ramondetta. Jerry Hsu. Etc. See what's happened though? All the skaters in their late 20's and early 30's are entering a period of super amazing fantasy style, but all the new kids are screwn it up. Kids think they gotta have amazing style by their 3rd year of skating so they "Practice their style." I've seen kids literally do like 100 kickflips because they wanted their arm steeze to be better. ARM STEEZE? Since when did skateboarders turn into such self-conscious pussies? Does it really matter what the kid on Youtube will say about the way you move your frieking arms? Personally, I think we need to get away from the overused songs, the artsy clips of kids feet running through leaves, lifestyle shots, and anything else that has nothing to do with skateboarding. I used to HATE gnarly videos like Black Label or Zero, but now that every other video seems to have artsy architecture clips and time laps footage of busy highways, I find gnarly vids refreshing. It's like "YES! This is why I started skateboarding...CAUSE IT LOOKS FRIEKING GNARLY!"
In other news, flatground impossibles in the middle of lines are gay. Brown cordoroys are gay. Excessive wearing of long-sleeve flannel shirts is gay. Backside smithgrinds with some sort of combo are gay. Slanted mannypads are gay. Any sort of manny to backlip is gay. Ummm...maybe that covers it. Anywho, all these things, if used properly and not excessively can be cool, but most of the time, they are not cool. Oh yeah, any sort of noseslide to tailslide combos are getting pretty old. I dunno man, kids need to quit copying what they saw in the last video and just get gnar. If you wanna be origional, skate really fast.