I got a few free boxes of DGK shit during the "I <3 Haters" phase they were going through, and I mean they printed that shit on everything. I have hats, wrist bands, t-shirts, and decks that I received from it, and I only skated the decks because I could sticker them up.
I'm not gonna ride anything from any other truck company that isn't Indy/ Venture/ Thunder. I used to get free trucks a long time ago from a particular company (not gonna name them bc they were great to me, but no one on the team rode the actual trucks), and I'd just give that shit to my friends. It was a wack truck company that had some pretty awesome riders on their team, and the team guys I met always had Indy's for the most part.
I'm not gonna wear anything from DC, regardless of how nostalgic I get over a pair of Lynx/ Kalis 1/ Williams 1 shoes. This is coming from someone who wears Es retro models that aren't 100% true to form (weird sole/ missing airbags/ etc) which kills me bc it's my only gripe with what they're doing right now, and DC did a great job reissuing their shit 1:1. It has nothing to do with the quality of their products and everything to do with their branding image, I don't need someone looking at me wearing Lynx and associate me with Ridiculousness, energy drinks, or fat 12 year old kids who scream the n-word at strangers while playing Call of Duty. Same goes for Etnies, Es is fine in my book bc they're exclusively marketed towards skateboarding.
No Lakai footwear. I don't care how cool those Cambridge shoes look, I'm not wearing something I know is gonna suck in quality on my feet. It's a cool Adidas ripoff, but I could just buy the Adidas version without having to worry about QC issues. I mean I won't buy Adidas shoes bc I don't like the way they fit my feet, but I'm sure you understand what I'm getting at. It sucks too, it's the only thing keeping me from supporting a core brand that isn't all that offensive.
No shaped decks, no weird sizes. I'll take any deck between 7.8-8.12 and ride it just fine knowing I can sand off/ sticker up lame graphics. There's some brands that I've come around to actually liking, like I'd ride some Pizza shit without covering up the graphic since I liked Raheim Robinson's Etherium part & Chase Webb is nowhere to be found.
I won't ride any bearings besides Bones Swiss. I don't care how good they are, if they're any other brand there's no way I'll feel right rolling around. It can be the regular Swiss, the six ball, ceramics, idc really, they just need to be Swiss for me to rock with them. This is the only constant I've kept with my set up during the majority of my time skateboarding, and it's never let me down.
I'm not picky with griptape, as long as it's straight black and doesn't have some stupid logo cutout or graphic I'm perfectly fine with whatever I get. I could never ride Shake Junt grip or whatever, shit like that ruins footage. Same goes for wheels, they need to be all white and 99-101A but I can deal with pretty much whatever.
I think that's basically it for me, if I come up with anything else I'll keep you guys posted.