Dumb things you thought about skateboarding when you were a kid

[Dad Muska]

I thought you only needed to do grinds to get sponsored by a truck company. The first time I saw a non-grind truck ad I was confused.

[Pony_Slaystation]

Before I discovered skate videos and magazines I thought the guys in THPS were the only professional skateboarders in the world.

[happenstance]

We thought titan ti-lites were the best trucks because they were “the lightest”

Oh man, those trucks were hilariously brittle. Friend had them when we were maybe 11 or 12 years old. He broke a handful of kingpins in the first few months, despite being a small child. Finally tossed them after landing a heelflip upside down, and the kingpin broke and the truck just bounced off the board.

[Urtripping]

Buying into board gimmicks like Element helium decks and wanting one of those almost impact boards with the carbon fiber disks or whatever the fuck

[Spacenoid]

I just remember only having access to magazines and never seeing any videos for years...and I used to wonder if everything was staged. Skating was so difficult, and not ever having seen any "moving pictures" of skate tricks, I just wondered. The first time I saw a good video I was stunned and astounded. I'm guessing "Future Primitive" was the first video I ever saw.

I remember reading an issue of The Skateboard Mag on the school bus and then some nerd (who became my friend afterwards, but he's still a fucking nerd) said that all the photos were staged. Sometimes I say "invisible strings" under my breath when I see some gnar shit

[Deputy Wendell]

Expand Quote

I thought vert/transition skating was like objectively easy, just because it looked so easy for vert pros.

[close]

Wait, it isn't??

i love this perspective...i'm sure he means more than the three or four lip-tricks you have on the 4-foot quarter at your local sk8park bruh...

[vinithebr]

Expand Quote

Expand Quote

I thought vert/transition skating was like objectively easy, just because it looked so easy for vert pros.

[close]

Wait, it isn't??

[close]

i love this perspective...i'm sure he means more than the three or four lip-tricks you have on the 4-foot quarter at your local sk8park bruh...

Issa joke, I only have ollies bellow coping and I almost died trying to bs slash once.
It's just that imo it's not a child's mentality only, it's common to not understand / be ignorant to other subcategories of skateboarding.

Once a vert rat thought I was into freestyle cause he saw me doing flip tricks, for him it's the same thing.

[SKRT]

I had a Zero bold 8.25 deck back in like 97 or whenever and it was like a boat. I was used to riding a 7.5 or 7.75. I thought it looked cool as hell on the wall but I couldn’t skate the thing. I just sucked though. Jokes on me, I ride 8.5 - 8.75 decks now in 2023. Who woulda thought?

[PatrickSkateman]

I thought you couldn’t play sports as a skater because that would make you a jock.

I ended up breaking that rule and played on a school team for 3 sports.

[IpathCats]

I didn't understand prepping spots, i thought dudes were grinding raw concrete curbs and I just sucked (i did, but they still werent grinding raw curbs)

This also extended to seeing rodney primo/casper slide. I thought it was just regular ass ground, which further elevated his status in my child eyes.


I feel like we all were probably stuck on stair counting at one point or another, thats pretty dumb.

Didnt really understand locking into grinds for a while. I thought dudes were just doing straight 50/50s in the center of their trucks down circle handrails, and that just blew my mind. seemed impossible.

[manysnakes]

I didn't understand prepping spots, i thought dudes were grinding raw concrete curbs and I just sucked (i did, but they still werent grinding raw curbs)

I would read about "waxing" in the magazines, but I had no idea what they were talking about (this was like 1993). At some point, I think I came across a tour article about someone grabbing a candle from a grocery store to get a ledge waxed and it clicked. I grabbed a white emergency candle my mom kept in the junk drawer, headed to the school up the street and started rubbing.

[Mean salto]

I didn't understand prepping spots, i thought dudes were grinding raw concrete curbs and I just sucked (i did, but they still werent grinding raw curbs)

This also extended to seeing rodney primo/casper slide. I thought it was just regular ass ground, which further elevated his status in my child eyes.


I feel like we all were probably stuck on stair counting at one point or another, thats pretty dumb.

Didnt really understand locking into grinds for a while. I thought dudes were just doing straight 50/50s in the center of their trucks down circle handrails, and that just blew my mind. seemed impossible.

Said this before but me and friends actually did used to do grinds like that. I thought the technique was you just sandwich the board between the rail and your feet. We'd 5050 a flatbar and it would be wiggling side to side like a snake board the whole time.


For a long while I would do feebles and hurricanes locked against the wrong wheel. I thought you were meant to kinda go for a 5050 but let the front hang over until the board touched. I was actually better at those tricks before I learned them properly

[TheBoognish]

I thought throwing your board around, yelling at it, smashing it and focusing it made you look cool. Y'know, the whole Kerry Getz thing. I was 13-14 at the time and I thought it made me look badass.

No, it made me look like a fucking idiot and it ended up costing my parents a lot of money because of my own stupidity and ego. My parents were super supportive of my skating and I took advantage of that way too much.

Only time I focus a board now is because I either snapped the tail or the nose. If I don't like the board I'm riding, it goes to a kid at the park or a friend in need.

[backside_frontside]

That Owen Wilson really did a front salad, back salad, front blunt

[my bad cuh]

I thought throwing your board around, yelling at it, smashing it and focusing it made you look cool. Y'know, the whole Kerry Getz thing. I was 13-14 at the time and I thought it made me look badass.

No, it made me look like a fucking idiot and it ended up costing my parents a lot of money because of my own stupidity and ego. My parents were super supportive of my skating and I took advantage of that way too much.

Only time I focus a board now is because I either snapped the tail or the nose. If I don't like the board I'm riding, it goes to a kid at the park or a friend in need.

i will never ever shoot my main setup into walls/ledges again
i was like 11 and cried for 15 minutes
(i will abuse the fuck of my rain board)

[Blueabyssofthisss]

That Owen Wilson really did a front salad, back salad, front blunt

[switchfakie]

before i started skating, whenever i saw a person carrying their broken board (with trucks attached) back to their car, i thought they were stupid for not throwing away the whole thing because they could just get a new complete at walmart for $20

[Sizzle]

I didn't understand prepping spots, i thought dudes were grinding raw concrete curbs and I just sucked (i did, but they still werent grinding raw curbs)

I used to DIE trying to skate curbs because I thought I just wasn’t going fast enough. I was scared of skating non-angle iron ledges for a long time because of this.

Also I didn’t know people tightened up their trucks to skate gaps/stairs. I used to go full speed skating 5-6 stairs with my ultra-loose cool kid trucks, wheelbite ollieing them and just die. I knew what hippers were so I thought it was just part of the game, used to be proud of getting enormous bruises from my stupidity. To this day I’m resentful of “just go faster” and “looser trucks the better” guys because they subjected impressionable preteen sizzle to a lot of unnecessary blood loss lol

[IpathCats]

Expand Quote

I didn't understand prepping spots, i thought dudes were grinding raw concrete curbs and I just sucked (i did, but they still werent grinding raw curbs)

[close]

I used to DIE trying to skate curbs because I thought I just wasn’t going fast enough. I was scared of skating non-angle iron ledges for a long time because of this.

Also I didn’t know people tightened up their trucks to skate gaps/stairs. I used to go full speed skating 5-6 stairs with my ultra-loose cool kid trucks, wheelbite ollieing them and just die. I knew what hippers were so I thought it was just part of the game, used to be proud of getting enormous bruises from my stupidity. To this day I’m resentful of “just go faster” and “looser trucks the better” guys because they subjected impressionable preteen sizzle to a lot of unnecessary blood loss lol

lmfao just slamming your pre teen body into the pavement

[Lou Strux]

…I grabbed a white emergency candle my mom kept in the junk drawer, headed to the school up the street and started rubbing.

You, my friend, are a creepy pervert. But I gotta ask, why take a candle with you? 

Just playin’, snakes; I love you.

My dumb misconception was that there were just curbs/ledges that would grind & others that would not, and that’s just how things were.
It never occurred to me that bigger kids had prepped/waxed those spots & I just thought that the waxy residue was plastic (rails were still a common thing) & aluminum build up, as the result of the curbs/ledges being skated a lot, because THOSE ones were “the good kind” of concrete.
I was a dumbass in the 80s & I’m still a dumbass today, but at least I own a rub brick, lacquer & candles now.

[IpathCats]

Expand Quote

…I grabbed a white emergency candle my mom kept in the junk drawer, headed to the school up the street and started rubbing.

[close]

You, my friend, are a creepy pervert. But I gotta ask, why take a candle with you? 

Just playin’, snakes; I love you.

My dumb misconception was that there were just curbs/ledges that would grind & others that would not, and that’s just how things were.
It never occurred to me that bigger kids had prepped/waxed those spots & I just thought that the waxy residue was plastic (rails were still a common thing) & aluminum build up, as the result of the curbs/ledges being skated a lot, because THOSE ones were “the good kind” of concrete.
I was a dumbass in the 80s & I’m still a dumbass today, but at least I own a rub brick, lacquer & candles now.

yea thats a good way to put how i felt back then too.

[TelethonJohn]

I had a lemon yellow pair of Fuct jeans that I thought were cool.

[Lou Strux]

I had a lemon yellow pair of Fuct jeans that I thought were cool.

Depending on when you’re talkin’ about, your lemon yellow FUCT jeans actually were really cool.
92-93 and prior, you was hot shnitz, baby.
Hold high your regal head.
Elsewise, you prolly looked like a goof.

[TelethonJohn]

Expand Quote

I had a lemon yellow pair of Fuct jeans that I thought were cool.

[close]

Depending on when you’re talkin’ about, your lemon yellow FUCT jeans actually were really cool.
92-93 and prior, you was hot shnitz, baby.
Hold high your regal head.
Elsewise, you prolly looked like a goof.

Appreciate you giving me an out, and I can only be grateful that no photographic documentation (to my knowledge) exists. This would have been 1992. They cracked the $50 mark at Surf Berkeley, which was an outrageous amount to pay for a pair of pants that make you look like you dumpster dived behind the clown shop.

[DERBY]

i’m really embarrassed to admit this but when i was a kid i thought those diamond supply/dgk swagapinos were cool. that was the skate scene of my area early 2010s

[Frank]

before i saw a skateboard first hand, i thought griptape must be velcro or something because i didn't understand how ollies worked. i also thought old school 80s decks were normal and didn't know about popsicles until i went to an actual skateshop for the first time. i was a bit disappointed, because the shapes seemed more boring to me. i blame it on those nickelodeon shred clips that must have been filmed late 80s/early 90s. i thought that was current skating at the time(1997). i also thought that skaters always have mullets and wear bright pink shorts. i was like 10 years or so behind.

[ok boomer]

Pretty sure that in 1986 I thought pro skaters were rich like actors and so forth

[c-dock]

Like many others...
 -Didn't understand how sponsorship worked. I thought if you were good then any company was fair game
 -Thought skating would be super easy because of THPS + videos in the games
 -Thought all pro skaters were rich
 -Thought I could catch up to the pro's that were only a couple years older than me. Sheckler, Nyjah, Bledsoe and Provost were my references. Yikes.

Probably only me:
 -My first year or so of skating I thought the only pro's were the ones in THPS4
 -First video was Yeah Right, which made me think Girl and eS were under same roof because Koston, P-Rod, Eldridge and McCrank all rode for both brands
 -Didn't realize the pro's in THPS/Skate got paid to be in the games. I thought they did it just cause they wanted to be in it that bad

[versacekid420]

I thought it was hard boy was I wrong

[Mean salto]

Rode late 90s/early 00s boards backwards because I thought the big kick was the tail like an 80s board