When the first "skate YouTubers" began to emerge over a decade ago, an unspoken dividing line was quickly drawn to separate church and state. You wake up in the morning, open your browser and two mutually exclusive worlds are at your fingertips: the high-adrenaline, no-holds-barred hell-ride of professional skateboarding filtered through the lens of Jake Phelps; and the mundane, straight-laced daily life of the cheerful neo-freestyler Chris Chann. Watch, on the one hand, a behind the scenes look at Arto Saari smashing his testicles on a double kinked handrail, or on the other, a trip to McDonalds where Chris Chann scarfs down a Big Mac before trying hundreds of bigspin dolphin flips in the parking lot. Over the years this sacred barrier has eroded, disrupting the space-time continuum of skate culture. "Professional" skate videos now feature influencers performing sub-amateur maneuvers over TikTok-style elevator music, and "unprofessional" day in the life videos of top-notch pros are fighting for limelight in an algorithm that disregards actual talent. Mediocrity rules in a culture that distrusts experts and rejects professionalism. When I scroll through TikTok, I see ordinary people just like myself attempting to engage in creative expression. These aren't Hollywood elites or Big-Pharma scientists. They're regular Joes just like me. And I can imagine myself making content of similar quality, or being friends with these people. We're all part of a community and we don't need the Establishment experts over at CNN, MSNBC, or Thrasher Magazine telling us what to think. When I see my favorite influencer, my Internet best friend, skate in a professional video, it feels like me. After all, the skating is not that much better than me and my friends at the local spot. To me, the most impressive displays of human skill and ingenuity are the ones that are most relatable. The ones that my friends and I could almost pull off. Besides, the most talented skaters have the support of the Establishment, so their accomplishments don't really count. Their talent is an industry conspiracy psyop, or part of a woke DEI campaign. My Internet best friend, though, deserves all of the success he gets. I really only respect the skaters who skate with my Internet best friend, because that means they're basically skating with me. And that's all I really want, is to be validated.
Topic: 2025 unpopular opinion thread (Read 225402 times)