part 1.
i disagree with the premise that skateboarding has a shape nor that its "political." i'm pretty sure in another thread i said that the act of skateboarding is radically apolitical. For the same reasons skateboarding is apoltical, it has no shape. it has no hierarchy, no rules, no dogma, no goals, no objective, no purpose, it doesn't further anything, there are no interests beyond the act itself, there is nothing practical about it. its just a fun thing to do (and watch). i'm genuinely curious to know what you think the shape of skateboarding is and whats political about it. is the act of kayaking political? is playing with dominoes political? building ships in a bottle? Fly fishing is dominated by white men-- do women of color need to carve out their own niche in the fly fishing community-- or can they just go fly fishing?
I'm surprised that you view skateboarding as this space where politics and all the aspects that shape our lives vanish. I agree that the act of flipping a board around has no essential value or meaning, but that doesn't mean we haven't given it an intense meaning or imbued it with political significance.
Skateboarding is often overtly political in its "fuck you" attitude to the suburbs, the white-collar work, to the dominant use of space in the city, to adult authority, to religion (the Thrasher pentagram is pretty political), school, traditional sports, and so on. However as rebellious as skateboarding culture has been, we haven't always been super open to everyone.
In terms of hierarchies, do you firmly believe that there are no hierarchies w/in skateboarding or our local scenes? Outside the obvious of who has a voice writing for a magazine or who gets sponsored, do the locals at any park honestly treat everyone equally? Do the employees at "core" shops treat everyone equally? Shit, nearly every time I enter a core shop, I'm reminded of how gnarly the skate hierarchy really is.
In terms of rules, this whole thread is about people who break the informal rules of skateboarding by kooking out on Instagram.
The idea that our subculture and our spaces lack politics kind of reminds me of when Americans tell me Americans don't really have a culture. As Americans we have a really interesting culture, it is just that it is difficult to see it when it is just "normal" to us. Skateboarding has pretty gnarly politics, but it is just normal to many of us and it is harder to see some of the politics when they don't affect us personally. An extreme comparison might be the people who want to keep politics out of football but don't mind that the sport often encourages players and fans to engage in jingoist practices, the players reference Jesus every other second, and they have military nights and do military fly overs at some of the games. Those are super strong political behaviors, but they are just "normal" for many and therefore unseen.
But since this is a thread about lame IG posts, let me end with my favorite skater who makes rapping look really hard:
Topic: lame instagram posts by pros (Read 2824358 times)