Present State and Future of Skateboarding

[Powerslide]

Hello from San Jose, CA - it's my first post. For someone who grew up skating in the "golden age" of our culture (90s, early 2000s) and didn't pay attention to skate mags, videos, or pros for more than a decade (while still skating but focused on college and career), and came back to the media/culture aspect of it, I find the present state greatly different from "the good ol days."

Some observations:

- Is Transworld still around anymore?. Some of those 90s issues had great stories, coverage, etc. Pleasure to read.
- WTF is up with Thrasher and everyone and their grandmothers wearing their gear?
- Mainstream acceptance of skateboarding as "cool" vs not.
- Traditional "mom n pop" type of small companies folding as the Nikes and Adidases succeed.
- Skateboarding joins the kook club in the Olympics.
- Instagram and YouTube skaters...
- More skaters looking and skating about the same.
- Shitload more skaters in general. Is it getting more and more competitive as more skaters can do the same things?
- Every trick has to be done perfectly and rolled away from perfectly, or it doesn't count or is not appreciated by the skater or the viewer. YouTube comments seem to show a lot of hate for "imperfect" tricks.
- Seems to have become a dick-measuring contest from the viewer perspective.
- No celebration allowed because it would ruin the audio of the shot... what?
- Skaters have been forced into parks. Don't see little groups of skate rats taking over the streets anymore.
- Rate of progression seems to be insane. Kids show up with nollie flips on lock outta their mother's womb. Accessibility of media plays a big part, no doubt.

List goes on. Maybe it was always this way and I'm just seeing it with a different lens now. But something feels different, a bit off, like it's headed in a shitty direction.

Doesn't change a thing for me, as it was always and will be about having fun on the board, but it's interesting to see how things have changed and keep changing. Cheers.

[Nosferatu]

fuck of

[Allen.]

This is a dope think piece. You've raised a lot of viewpoints and questions no one has brought up yet and traditional skate media wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

I particularly liked your point "Instagram and YouTube skaters..."

[guest1]

But something feels different, a bit off, like it's headed in a shitty direction.

You’re getting old.

[GMAN]

I am not riding my skateboard at the present moment - I most likely will in the future.

[ungzilla]

and yet somehow still scooter kids

[Vomit Lust]

Don’t worry. Nike and Adidas are gonna stop flowing every kid in the world once all the sponsors tangled in this GX1000 debacle get sued into oblivion. It’s gonna be core again real soon.

[Powerslide]

This is a dope think piece. You've raised a lot of viewpoints and questions no one has brought up yet and traditional skate media wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

I particularly liked your point "Instagram and YouTube skaters..."

Being effectively fed the firehose after being out of skateboarding media/culture awareness for about 13 years, it feels like there is some sense of taboo regarding some things, and a widespread acceptance of other things. For one, no skateboarder would have even thought about putting on a pair of Nikes or wear Nike clothing, and now all I see are Nikes everywhere. My non-skater friends in the 30-40 age group all wear Nike SB for casual wear now, whereas it used to be the Etnies, DC, and Osirises 20+ years ago.

The generation of "likes" and "views" and "subscribe or follow me" etc. is also something I don't fully understand, though I get the monetization aspect of YouTube videos. There is so much media now that maybe the value of a single trick or skateboarder is diminished, just as happened with the concept of images and videos with the smartphone era (no one really values or holds dear a single picture anymore).

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But something feels different, a bit off, like it's headed in a shitty direction.

[close]

You’re getting old.

My knees and wrists couldn't agree with you more.

Don’t worry. Nike and Adidas are gonna stop flowing every kid in the world once all the sponsors tangled in this GX1000 debacle get sued into oblivion. It’s gonna be core again real soon.

Would you mind informing me about this debacle?

[Bumpovertrash]

"Fuck out the way scooter man"

[ScudMantels]

It evolved, Thrasher caught Transworld sleeping and pulled up bigly in social media, hosting events and marketing and is now the face. Instagram allows everyone to skate for the wrong reasons but at the same time it allows for a level playing feild so no one gets shut out or not seen. Actually a good example of that would be jeffwonsong, if that dude was around and skating in the 90s he would be unheard of and not seen in any videos or mags. It gives everyone recognition they deserve

[Allen.]

bigly

Never heard this word before, but, apparently it's a perfectly cromulent word.

[cherry]

im all anti big boys daddy hurt me core too but pretty sure dudes have been riding/skating for nike/con/adidas on and off since the "start". When i started (98) nike and adidas were getting hated on and their shoes sucked, took me awhile to realize they have been lingering the whole time.

[Vomit Lust]

As another dude who didn’t partake of “skate media” for a lot long time I also found Nike’s dominance strange and even a little off putting. But skating isn’t all punk rock anymore. People are over the sellout thing. Which is fine. I’m old. I don’t know shit about what’s cool and my rules for skateboarding don’t apply because I’m happy when I land bullshit like ollies higher than my knees, boardslides on low skatepark rails, and nothing-in-nothing-out crooked grinds on ledges that are barely higher than a stair. Let these kids get paid. No reason they should get churned out with no money on top of having no career prospects when they can’t keep up in a few short years.

[SneakySecrets]

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bigly

[close]

Never heard this word before, but, apparently it's a perfectly cromulent word.

Never heard this word, but it seems quite bigly.

[ChrisLambe94]

Are you n astronaut ? Because your observations are out of this world.

[ziggy]

who the fuck says the late 90s-early 00s was the ‘golden age’ of skateboarding?

[Powerslide]

who the fuck says the late 90s-early 00s was the ‘golden age’ of skateboarding?

Not just late; all of the 90s. I was skating through most of em. Also, it's just an opinion...

[ChuckRamone]

undoubtedly people with names like jagger eaton who grew up with skate parents, training hard for the olympics is lame. it’s not all good the way some  hypebeasts talk about it just to be contrarian but it’s not all bad either like some old guys describe it.