Honestly, the vibe I get is that the only skateboarding Mark Suciu wants to intellectualize is his own.
That's an interesting way to put it; then again I've also sensed a similar tendency in other people throughout the years who also think of their skating as sophisticated (which isn't always unjustified) and are so focused on how precisely they present it that they naturally become very critical of different people's approaches. OG Puleo could be one popular, renowned example, I guess that happens when one emotionally invests themselves in their skating enough that it becomes a serious outlet with more personal significance than either a casual hobby or standard day job (depending on their position). I never liked how being serious about skateboarding was always considered a kook thing (usually by people who are jaded they've made some wrong life choices), like that's supposed to take all the fun out of it; if anything it only means you like skating so much you're naturally driven to explore more than just its surface level, which actually means more fun, and it is possible to remain remotely self-aware all the while watching that your shit gets presented according to your own creative vision. Kookiness only comes into play when one loses that self-awareness and forgets that their vision is just one take on the skateboard as an object amongst millions of others, regardless of how sharp it may be.
Earlier in this thread I was saying Suciu is the Bob the Builder of skateboarding because here, to me he looks like he's pretty much trying to singlehandedly fix everything caricatures of old timers might think is wrong in skateboarding right now. Bringing back the idea of putting thought into your skateboarding and duly treating like it a craft (one could argue the Thrasher exposure makes Verso a vulgarization of that train of thought), bringing back longer videos with anticipation hype and rewatch value, taking bits and bobs from Magenta / Isle and reinterpreting them like he's almost trying to correct them. All by putting his body through some insane shit, that's pretty blue collar to me and contrasts with his intellectual persona in a fashion I think is funny.
Honestly if anything Mark looks a bit conflicted, the impression I get is his passion for skating screams a sincerity that's not really fit for the modern industry standards where in order to appeal to the masses, every pro has to be a fucking cardboard image of something and fit under a popular designation. Dude has been presented to the world as 'that one skater who reads books' since his teenage years when he was still living off nothing but Subway sandwiches, that just has to fuck with one's development to the point of having them think they maybe are the sarcophagus they were given eventually, or at least influence their cognitive process. Marketing can make anyone believe anything; I've gotten some shit on here before just for saying Suciu wasn't the first one to put thought into a skate project FFS (which doesn't take anything away from his effort either). Then again, on here I've also been told that MJ's ender in Fully Flared was respectable because 'it had a story behind it', like no shit, yeah since the media romanticized that struggle, that really had to be a first.
I'm also rather emotionally invested in skating, relatively critical and have been posting mostly sarcasm in this thread so far but the clip was a good watch (of course the skating itself was insane) and I think I can recognize and appreciate Mark's intent with it, or maybe I'm just projecting. Just singlehandedly building up that much hype for, and generating that much discussion around a skate clip nowadays is remarkable, and regardless of one's impression regarding said clip and how justified the designation might be, the way it is presented and promoted as a creative effort will always be more inspiring of a message to the kids in the long run than the average logo-filled shoe ad.
Topic: Mark Suciu 'Verso' (Read 246748 times)