Of course there is still a subcultural aspect to skateboarding.
There are people (most of us) who identify as skaters, we have our own argot, style, values, and ideology. We have our own history, heroes, and such that further the cultural side of skateboarding. The unique cultural side of skateboarding is undeniable.
And the counter-cultural, rebelious, deviant side is there as well, solidifying our little world as a subculture. Most of us internalized the ideology Thrasher, Anti-Hero etc. pushed which is overtly anti-suburban, anti-standard work life, anti-"law and order", (somewhat)anti-capitalist, and so on. And, many of us when we were younger also saw ourselves as "skaters," which the definition was usually "not like the jocks, frat boys, businessmen, etc." We viewed our selves as different/opposing the American ideals for how boys/men were supposed to act. And even now, we still rebel by not being "traditionalist" dickheads about gender, sexuality, etc. Unlike those "traditional" bro-brah assholes who have lame versions of masculinity that refuse to accept trans, gay, queer+ identities, we have been pretty good at embracing these non-traditional identities as part of our scene. Being stoked on whatever shouldhavegonetocollege posts on IG only furthers how we are subcultural and still pushing boundaries that upset the suburbs.
And there is exclusivity, I imagine most of us can remember our experience getting into the scene and for many of us it likely fucking sucked. I was socialized into skateboarding with encouragement but also with exclusion, being mocked (I pushed mongo for a few years), and threatened (dude at the park threatened to beat the shit out of me unless I skated the hubba properly (i.e. got on after the kink not before)). Skateboarding is welcoming but it is also a cool guy dickhead world that is protective and suspicious of outsiders.
And, this notion that it is only recently that skateboarding has been part of the mainstream is not true. There has always been overlap with the mainstream. Gleaming the Cube came out in the 80s, Marty McFly was zipping around on his hoverboard in 1985, Sk8 TV was on Nickelodian in the early 90s, Bart Simpson--one of Americas most famous cultural icons--had a board and such. We were always part of mainstream but stereotyped as the "bad boy," which only furthered our subcultural definition.
Finally, the sport/Olympic part has always been a part of skateboarding as well. ABC was showing contests in 1965, Tony Hawk's dad ?started? CASTL, which was supposed to be the little league of skateboarding, and so on. Just as freestyle, longboarding, luge, etc. sport-boarding has always been a sub-field within our little subculture. The question is has this become the dominate form of skateboarding? Does it have significant power? I will always fear that it will be the dominant or challenge the power our subcultural version of skateboarding has, but it hasn't significantly challenged us
yet. I mean look at the all the Olympic skaters. Jagger can't find a decent sponsor in skateboarding, the Portuguese dude is a complete embarrassment, and Yuto (and maybe DaShawn) is the only one who seems to be able to have status in the sport version of skateboarding and our subcultural version. And, even dudes like Gravette went from a park kid (pretty sure his early nickname was pads) to gnarly hesh Creature dude to really become a part of skateboarding. The Olympics with its support from governments around the world and further interest from parent's like Jaggers' parents may eventually challenge and then overwhelm our subcultural version, but for the moment I think we hold the majority of power in defining skateboarding.
Topic: Is Skateboarding Still a Subculture? GQ on Epicly Laterd (Read 6194 times)