Why were skate styles in the 90s so bad?

[celery man]

I always figured it was just skateboarding in its infancy, but the tricks are actually still gnarly and yet the style is just so bad. I don't mean just the clothes but how people looked on boards.

Is it possible what I think of as 'good' style inherently had to evolve from this? Or do the small wheels lead to people going slower, and baggy pants cover up too much.

What do you guys think?

[GuessAgain?]

*cough* Mike Carroll *cough cough* Tom Penny

[Jean-Ralphio Zaperstein]

I never even saw the video you linked before
It took me 30s to notice it includes a markovich part (22:33) that simply destroys your statement

[ok boomer]

[Circaskater420]

2007-2014 was the worst time period in skateboarding hands down

[ziggy]

the transition from sidewalk surfing and jump ramps to modern technical skateboarding had a learning curve

[Croquet temper]

The 90's had some of the most stylish skateboarding. What we think of today as style is directly related to shitloads of 90's skating.

[Brguy]

Probably because a lot skaters where at the edge of their skill. But if you consider just being comfortable and flowing style most look good enough, tricks aren't high or tweaked but they're done with ease and comfort.

[georgethecat]

There are a lot of stylish skaters from that era- Carroll, Sheffey, Jovontae, Kareem, Hensley, Barbier, and on and on. But there was, to your point, also a ton of very slow, boarding-bouncing-off-the-ground, arms-flailing nonsense. I would say maybe we got it right in the end and celebrated street skating's Hosois instead of its Hawks, but a quick scan of social media leads me to know the board-bouncing-off-the-ground, arms-flailing nonsense is alive and well.

[butterballs for jerry]

they were the ones pushing it, so all the "careful hands" and bouncing boards are very acceptable

[Fhk]

I never even saw the video you linked before
It took me 30s to notice it includes a markovich part (22:33) that simply destroys your statement

Couldn't agree more with this. (although I'm old and watched this the day it hit shops)

[Watson]

Thread title should be "How To Make A Troll Thread That's Sure To Get Slap Pals Fired Up".

[Don]

Why were skate styles in the 00s so boring?

[EdLawndale]

I fucks with the 90s heavy

[Crislerheaven]

2007-2014 was the worst time period in skateboarding hands down

The 90's had some of the most stylish skateboarding. What we think of today as style is directly related to shitloads of 90's skating.

[corto]

Skateboarding was still living its golden years. People were still figuring out what could be done on a skateboard as opposed to honing how well each trick could be executed. Also, there were a lot more artist types and odd balls in pro skateboarding as opposed to the jock athlete type like in today's skateboarding.

There were tons of people with a really good style but not necessarily in a clean (sterile) way like nowadays.

[corto]

Why were skate styles in the 00s so boring?

Yeah the real question is why did skateboarding turn in the 2000's into a horrible shit show which lasted well over ten years. The good stuff was alway there but was just overshadowed by all the garbage.

[cky enthusiast]

OYOLA

[Freelancevagrant]

[biggerdave]

You mean “Why were some skate styles copied so robotically and others not”?

[georgethecat]

I fucks with the 90s heavy

Amen

[Molte]

I always figured it was just skateboarding in its infancy, but the tricks are actually still gnarly and yet the style is just so bad. I don't mean just the clothes but how people looked on boards.

Is it possible what I think of as 'good' style inherently had to evolve from this? Or do the small wheels lead to people going slower, and baggy pants cover up too much.

What do you guys think?

When I was in my early teens and started getting interested in females, I didn't think a fat moms ass was anything worth looking at, now I'm 33. Some things you just grow into.
My point is, I used to be disgusted by 90's skateboarding and moms asses, now I dig both.

[#switchgod]

Primordial ooozes are rarely pretty.

[Miserable Old Sack of Shit]

Obviously there were some people with good style in the 90's, but there was plenty of bad, too. I personally blame:

1. The clothes. trying to skate in size 50 waist, heavy ass denim jorts, bed sheet sized shirts and thick heavy ass shoes isn't conducive to good skateboarding, especially when it's hot out. Throw in a long chain wallet and prepare to eat shit.

2. The boards. Quality control was all over the place, you'd have boards delaminating quickly, shapes were still being experimented with so you'd wind up with something with not enough nose, way too big of a nose, or any number of things that made doing street tricks harder. Wheels smaller than 50mm? GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. A lot of times style comes from speed, and you're not going anywhere fast on those bearing covers. Half the time you'd land a trick and just stop rolling cause you ran out of speed or hit a pebble. You also couldn't pop very high, nor could you get enough speed to get you over any distance. Indys were heavier than they are now and the fucking axle would slip the moment you landed primo, and Venture made "ultralights" that even my skinny ass would snap.

3. Progression. I'd argue that skateboarding changed the most in its history between about 1989 and 1995. In that 6 year period we saw vert die and street take over. The industry died and an entire vocabulary of tricks was invented. Things moved so quickly that even the pros of the time couldn't keep up. Often times a  video part would be outdated in a year. It was hard to have decent style when you were trying so hard to learn the newest tricks.

4. Media. I can remember not understanding how to do a kick flip because nobody I knew had videos and I couldn't figure it out from the sequences in magazines. I legit thought you did it with your back foot. Most of us were just happy to be landing on the board, we didn't really know what good style even looked like. It was really hard to see skateboarding back then unless you were blessed to see lots of videos or lived somewhere (California) where you could actually see good skateboarding live.

[Star Whores Episode I: The Fellatio Menace]

In the words of Jake Phelps, "After vert died out, skating had to get really small again so it could grow again and build the street skating side."

And with any sport that's growing, there's more of an emphasis to be the first to do something than to do it the proper (most stylish) way. So guys were more concerned with how much they could flip their board or what grinds they could get into than they were with making sure it looked the best it could possibly look. When we hit the millennium and everyone kind of plateaued, the focus shifted back to how stylishly we could do a trick.

You kind of saw it happen with the resurgence of street skaters dipping their toes into bowl skating in the past 10 years. Everyone was kind of learning tricks again so style sort of took a back seat. Jeff Grosso even had a show on the Vans Youtube to bitch about how kids today don't know how to do a proper andrecht.

Also, skate videos back in the 90s weren't treated as seriously as they were in the millennium, so people were less inclined to re-film a trick if they landed it a little wonky.

[SatanicPanic]

There have been stylish skaters in every era. The real problem with the 90s was from about 93 in everyone taking it way too seriously. Some guys thought their manly switch crooks were gonna cure cancer

[nineLives]

No😂

[SodaJerk]

. When we hit the millennium and everyone kind of plateaued, the focus shifted back to how stylishly we could do a trick.
 

How do you explain Jaws then?

[NowhereInLife]

cultural vanguards and technical pioneers are typically more raw and wildly styled than the followers who do more of the refining, polishing, and iteration.  something when it's just being invented underground is never going to look as clean or considered as something reprocessed a million times over decades with big corporate backing.

[Mr.Jenkins]

Yes! Gino, Guy, Penny, Lavar, Kareem etc in the 90’s was soo unstylish. Glad the 2021 is here with Nyjah, Jagger Eaton, Jaws, Aurelien etc. Things are really sharping up