Primitive Progressivism - Racism, the industry, Jason Jesse - Free Skate Mag

[professional]

This one is a must read. Free and their associates have been coming with such quality skate journalism these days, I'm so happy to see that it's still alive.

Writing by Kyle Beachy

http://www.freeskatemag.com/2018/06/05/primitive-progressivism-by-kyle-beachy/

[GershonSweaty]

This is incredibly well written and most importantly considered.

It’s wild that it took 3 magazines to get this the exposure it deserved.

[artskool]

Great piece, and relevant no matter how you feel about Jason Jesse. Skateboarding is changing fast, and the new kids don't give a shit about the past, sometimes for the best.

[Frank]

this is the same article that king mag posted and pulled by request of jason jessee, since he offered them an in depth interview. nice to see it's back up again tho.

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

Great piece, and relevant no matter how you feel about Jason Jesse. Skateboarding is changing fast, and the new kids don't give a shit about the past, sometimes for the best.

Most old guys aren't even old enough to remember Jason Jessee. I've been skating over 25 years, and during that entire time Jason Jessee has been washed up. Every kid who turns pro this year will be younger than Jason Jessee's absence from skateboarding. There's like a small group of 40+ dudes, most of whom don't even skate anymore, who give a shit about that dude's skating.

[essal]

excellent written

It’s to say to Craig Stecyk: you don’t speak for me and you’re done speaking for skateboarding. It’s to say to Jason Jessee: I hope you find the help and support to remain healthy and grow toward a new understanding of racism in America—and also, fuck you. And to the narcissists, the powermongers, the skaters who beat their girlfriends, who abuse and drug and rape: fuck y’all. And to the few remaining California old guard who continue to own and oversee a workplace that enforces silence and disempowers the people working in the industry? Fuck you the worst. This isn’t about playing the PC police. It is direct democracy.

[Frank]

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Great piece, and relevant no matter how you feel about Jason Jesse. Skateboarding is changing fast, and the new kids don't give a shit about the past, sometimes for the best.

[close]

Most old guys aren't even old enough to remember Jason Jessee. I've been skating over 25 years, and during that entire time Jason Jessee has been washed up. Every kid who turns pro this year will be younger than Jason Jessee's absence from skateboarding. There's like a small group of 40+ dudes, most of whom don't even skate anymore, who give a shit about that dude's skating.

i fully agree, i've been skating since 97 and only got to know about him by way of old big brother mags. until i watched pray for me these were the things i knew:

-jason jessee was a vert pro once for santa cruz
-he has two graphics that have gained cult status
-he is working on cars and motorcycles
-he really likes guns
-he trains chickens to fight
-he is most likely insane but harmless so it's ok to make fun of him

after pray for me i was already thinking "damn, the guy is way sketchier than i would have thought..." add to that that todays social media gives everyone the chance to put themselves on blast basically, and that's why there is such a delayed backlash.

skateboarding is ruled by the young people, i can only see old farts or people clinging to a conservative and outdated view of skating backing jessee, like all those wannabe punk bowl barneys that are really just as conservative as their dads. i'd reckon most skaters up to 16 years that watched the cons video for example were wondering who the dude is and why he is in the ender part.

the time for guys like jason jessee is up anyway. skateboarding has a problem with too many has beens and dumpster personas that like to have a lot of influence still and shove their faces in front of cameras to represent some mythic trueness or something. the truth is most of these cult figures from the 80s were of terrible character and skateboarding as a subculture has only to gain if we can de-idolize them at least in some parts of the subculture.

jay adams-terrible human being, killed a person for being gay, downright scum
tony alva-coked out wannabe rockstar that fucked over his friends multiple times
gator-another insane murderer
jason jessee-paranoid racist gun nut backwoods dweller
grosso-seems actually cool but still acts like the dumbest kid in school(skrewdriver shirt to trigger the snowflakes)
phelps-i wanna punch my screen whenever that monkey appears on it, especially since he was spilling the beans on van wastells suicide and then ends it with the evaluation that he was "no gonz"
gonz-like his skating but never got his "art", seems like the dude likes to fucks with people, probably not a nazi, but i wouldn't be surprised if the gonz is a contrarian out of principle or that he's crossing lines for the sake of coming of as "artsy" or "controversial". as another dude in the gonz nazi thread said, he's a huge dork.
neil blender-reading billy kahns insta posts i was disappointed to see blender mentioned in there as a co-bully along jason jessee, but at this point, nothing surprises me anymore.

all these guys(except phelps) are treated like legends. phelps is more like the official skateboard pope. and the thing is most skateboarders are sheep and won't question the authority these people have over the history of skateboarding. of course all they will talk about is how rad and gnarly they were and still are, true og or whatever, 110% skateboarder to the max. and all these worthless confessions or oaths to skateboarding made by grown men in an attempt to cancel out their human indecencies make them look like fools.

[IHOP]

glad someone else picked it up and kept it up.  When i saw that king shit removed it I immediately thought the article was more about skateboarding culture and those keeping it from progressing, not just jason jesse.

[BobbyPshew]

Nice work, good to see it published.

Hopefully Jason will continue to grow, and learn his way to becoming completely irrelevant and hopefully, completely invisible.

[conqueso]

Interesting read. So Steve Berra is also a part of this skateboard illumanti?

[Sammich]

This was a great article, I'm glad it didn't regurgitate the apology and more so focused on the industry. Also, kind of weird Dill hasn't said anything given his outspoken anti-Trump, anti-racism views.

[BigBoi]

^ I think Dills just a liberal and not really a poosey liberal so he likely won't comment on this......

Article was mehh.............

[DCLOVE]

This one is a must read. Free and their associates have been coming with such quality skate journalism these days, I'm so happy to see that it's still alive.

Writing by Kyle Beachy

http://www.freeskatemag.com/2018/06/05/primitive-progressivism-by-kyle-beachy/

Skate journalism is so bad it’s not hard to be good if you give real thought to something. This still is an industry of high school dropouts after all.

[Sandboxcop]

"But can we agree, readers, that words are not farts?"--Made me chuckle

[botefdunn]

I agree in principle with some of his points, but this is an opinion piece with references to some old stecyck articles mixed-in.
To bemoan "the lack of hard-hitting journalism" in skateboarding is pretty pretentious when you're riding the coattails of the most scandalous story on slap.

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

^ I think Dills just a liberal and not really a poosey liberal so he likely won't comment on this......

Article was mehh.............

God you are stupid. Cowardly liberals DON'T speak out in times when saying the right thing can be costly. If Dill had any balls he'd say the right thing, but he doesn't. He's a trendy New York hipster. To a person like him, its ok to hate Trump, because a lot of other people do, and its ok to still support nazi Jessee, because a lot of other people do. He's a hipster populist more than a liberal.

[BigBoi]

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^ I think Dills just a liberal and not really a poosey liberal so he likely won't comment on this......

Article was mehh.............

[close]

God you are stupid. Cowardly liberals DON'T speak out in times when saying the right thing can be costly. If Dill had any balls he'd say the right thing, but he doesn't. He's a trendy New York hipster. To a person like him, its ok to hate Trump, because a lot of other people do, and its ok to still support nazi Jessee, because a lot of other people do. He's a hipster populist more than a liberal.

Cowardly and "Poosey" are two different meanings in my book

He's liberal in the sense that he will denounce Trump, but he's not overly liberal to worry about Slap smear campaigns...

Basically he's just the right amount of Liberal like me............you on the other hand are kind of a poosey

[Alan]

Why is pointing out that this person has a long history of making racist remarks, using Nazi symbols, and associating with white supremacists a "smear campaign"?

[EmilioBestevez]

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Great piece, and relevant no matter how you feel about Jason Jesse. Skateboarding is changing fast, and the new kids don't give a shit about the past, sometimes for the best.

[close]

Most old guys aren't even old enough to remember Jason Jessee. I've been skating over 25 years, and during that entire time Jason Jessee has been washed up. Every kid who turns pro this year will be younger than Jason Jessee's absence from skateboarding. There's like a small group of 40+ dudes, most of whom don't even skate anymore, who give a shit about that dude's skating.

My thoughts exactly.  20+ years of skateboarding and a heavy interest in everything to do with it and I haven't really thought about Jason Jesse at all.  I think the only reason he's even back in any spotlight is because Cons wanted to have a "legend" on the team to compete with Vans.....and with that attention, came someone who looked at him and said "Hey, what's up with the swastikas?" 

[TMKF]

I've been skating for over 25 years and Jason Jesse means absolutely nothing to me so I couldn't care less about the guy. In all honesty I think the only reason he became whatever he did is because he has a cool name that rolls off the tongue and was easily marketable as a "bad boy". I'm not sure who out there is buying any product because of his name anyway, maybe I'm missing something. That said this article to me read like complete garbage, even if I agree with some of the sentiments. It came off as not only immature and unintelligent but also unreasonable and exaggerated. Sadly by the writer's definition I should now be labeled a "nazi" for this opinion, which to does nothing but water down the term at the end of the day. A "nazi" or a racist is not someone who simply disagrees with an opinion or a sentiment but someone who inherently hates another human being for no reason other than who they are, which is disgusting and abhorrent.

Jason Jesse certainly doesn't define skateboarding, and frankly neither does Kyle Beachy nor any single person.

[TwisT]

I like that someone called out the "Pyramid" but free skate is a euro mag. They probably aren't linked closely to "The industry" like other publications who passed or pulled the article. It probably won't get the reach it deserves. Beachy did a great job articulating this subject.

This whole event has me a little more cynical of the skate industry. I knew they swept shit under the rug, but actually seeing it happen in real time was crazy. Skateboarding will survive, but the "The Industry" is eventually gonna die out. Can't fucking wait. Sure I'll lose some of my favorite brands in the process but in 15 years I'll just buy the reissues. If nobody is making shit I like I can always just make my own.

[happenstance]

I like that someone called out the "Pyramid" but free skate is a euro mag. They probably aren't linked closely to "The industry" like other publications who passed or pulled the article.

I have a Free Skate Mag sitting on my desk at work, flipped a few pages and Cons has the 3rd 2 page spread in the magazine. I am sure if I flipped further I would find a Nike ad as well.

Now, one could say that there is no risk here because Cons already denounced them, but who knows the allegiances of the person that manages the ad buys. And who knows if Free deciding to publish damming articles about skaters puts them at risk with other advertisers. They went out on a limb and did something not many skate outlets do - publish real journalism. Tip o' the hat to them.

[Sleazy]

I've been skating for over 25 years and Jason Jesse means absolutely nothing to me so I couldn't care less about the guy. In all honesty I think the only reason he became whatever he did is because he has a cool name that rolls off the tongue and was easily marketable as a "bad boy". I'm not sure who out there is buying any product because of his name anyway, maybe I'm missing something. That said this article to me read like complete garbage, even if I agree with some of the sentiments. It came off as not only immature and unintelligent but also unreasonable and exaggerated. Sadly by the writer's definition I should now be labeled a "nazi" for this opinion, which to does nothing but water down the term at the end of the day. A "nazi" or a racist is not someone who simply disagrees with an opinion or a sentiment but someone who inherently hates another human being for no reason other than who they are, which is disgusting and abhorrent.

Jason Jesse certainly doesn't define skateboarding, and frankly neither does Kyle Beachy nor any single person.

pretty much what i was thinking too

he made this huge point about craig stecyk like his writing is some bible that is foundational to skate culture when i'm pretty sure most skater wouldn't know what he's referencing.

[Atiba Applebum]

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This one is a must read. Free and their associates have been coming with such quality skate journalism these days, I'm so happy to see that it's still alive.

Writing by Kyle Beachy

http://www.freeskatemag.com/2018/06/05/primitive-progressivism-by-kyle-beachy/

[close]

Skate journalism is so bad it’s not hard to be good if you give real thought to something. This still is an industry of high school dropouts after all.

I for one think Burnett’s your articles that are all about the contextless and esoteric inside jokes made in a tour vans by a group of pot-tards deserving of a pulitzer

[HyenaChaser]

This article demonstrated to me how skateboarding has exited under a "freedom of expression" status quo that was anything but free. Ironically, now that there are real cultural shifts taking place we're starting to see the hypocrisy, and outspoken individuals are being hushed by people who (presumably) benefitted or at least found comfort in the pre-existing "freedom."

[BigBoi]

Why is pointing out that this person has a long history of making racist remarks, using Nazi symbols, and associating with white supremacists a "smear campaign"?

 

Because he's not a Nazi.............He just an idiot...........

[IHOP]

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Why is pointing out that this person has a long history of making racist remarks, using Nazi symbols, and associating with white supremacists a "smear campaign"?

[close]

 

Because he's a Nazi.............Im just an idiot...........

fixed

[BigBoi]

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Why is pointing out that this person has a long history of making racist remarks, using Nazi symbols, and associating with white supremacists a "smear campaign"?

[close]

 

Because he's a Nazi.............Im just an idiot...........

[close]

fixed

well thought out........very unique............great job

[streetsoup]

Don't really mind at all that this article was stolen from one source and published by another. This article is important and needs to be on any platform that is willing to showcase it.

[High Hair]

If you think this outrage shit is a little long in the tooth and you haven't seen this yet, you're blowing it.