"The death of skateboarding" - a question for the old guys

[Bobby Peru]

Since I started skateboarding in 2000, people have prophesied its death, when we'll revert to pressure flipping, crack smoking, underdog superheroes who get beat up for wearing big pants. But in that eleven years, I haven't seen skateboarding's media attention slow down. We have a few video game franchises, TV contests, drink sponsors (even drink team switches), and more skateparks than ever, with more on the way. My question for you old guys is, was there ever a period where skateboarding was "alive" for this long? I know the 80s had some bizarre shit

which led to a Gator-sized collapse, but was that era as long? And did it have as much pervasive mainstream attention?

[vegan*shawn]

This time is different now because of the skateparks, it is seen as more "normal" because there is a place where parents can drop off their kids to skate. Also a lot of the 80's skaters kids are old enough to skate and their parents are encouraging them to skate. Big companies have cashed in because skateboarding has influenced popular culture though fashion. I like skateboarding, it is fun.

[BarcelonaCEO]

Is this history channel now? Time to shred the streets grandpas!

[marginal way]

This time is different now because of the skateparks, it is seen as more "normal" because there is a place where parents can drop off their kids to skate. Also a lot of the 80's skaters kids are old enough to skate and their parents are encouraging them to skate. Big companies have cashed in because skateboarding has influenced popular culture though fashion. I like skateboarding, it is fun.

yep. pretty much.

[pinche gringo]

I think skateboarding will remain close to the level it is at now.  Media attention may slow slightly if the economy continues to be so poor but I wouldn't imagine the popularity of skateboarding dropping off completely as it did in previous generations.  It has seemed to be fairly steady since the late 90's.

[brent]

in before some dickhead quotes jason jessee

[j....soy.....]

Skateboarding is too bigto die....it's sometimes too big to even change...

[mongomaestro]

skateboarding as an act will never die...


the business may go through slumps...


but the "community" as of now, is on some jock schit straight up...   

[friendly dave]

Skateboarding is more than just skateboarding. The kooks might drop out. But that feeling you get, that can't ever be erased.

[bandini]

Where I live the # of people skating has gone way down, even as media coverage of skating and skate contests is way up.

It would be weird as hell if skating became like other sports where most of the people who watch it don't actually do it.

[Chavo]

Since I started skateboarding in 2000, people have prophesied its death, when we'll revert to pressure flipping, crack smoking, underdog superheroes who get beat up for wearing big pants. But in that eleven years, I haven't seen skateboarding's media attention slow down. We have a few video game franchises, TV contests, drink sponsors (even drink team switches), and more skateparks than ever, with more on the way. My question for you old guys is, was there ever a period where skateboarding was "alive" for this long? I know the 80s had some bizarre shit which led to a Gator-sized collapse, but was that era as long? And did it have as much pervasive mainstream attention?

1. It was popular in short spurts during the '60s and '70s.
2. Judging by the thickness of Thrasher over the years, I'd say '86-'90.
3. The '80s had Back to the Future, Thrashin', Gleaming the Cube, but very little T.V. coverage aside from a few music videos and commercials. I did once see an am contest on cable in '89. It was strange.

It will never die completely like it has before. Back when Nike dumped its rollerblade division and concentrated on skateboarding, they realized only a small percentage of the population is willing or able to fruitboot but they can sell skate shoes to the whole world, whether they skate or not. Today also seems like a more robust version of the '70s (though it may never be as big) with the skateparks and contests, but without the coaches and ice skating type mandatory runs (though we're getting there).

[Deekay]

Where I live the # of people skating has gone way down, even as media coverage of skating and skate contests is way up.

It would be weird as hell if skating became like other sports where most of the people who watch it don't actually do it.

I think that train passed when thousands of 13 year old girls started watching the dew tour so that they could catch a glimpse of ryan sheckler taking his shirt off. we're fucked.

skateboarding is cool now and it sucks so fucking hard. on the way home from the park saturday I saw a 21 year old guy carrying a skateboard (by the truck of course) as an accessory at the mall and it made me genuinly sad.

[Bobby Peru]

Skateboarding is more than just skateboarding. The kooks might drop out. But that feeling you get, that can't ever be erased.

This is ultimately what it comes down to for everybody, but shit like skateparks, corporate sponsors, and whatnot makes some pretty lasting effects.

Deekay, while that dude was probably lame, I think that's a pretty narrow-minded view. One thing I thought about in making this thread was that there were a ton of kids in my middle school (in the middle of nowhere, mind you) that started skating around the same time I did, and now there might be one or two besides myself who still skate. But about four or five years ago I was skating this spot and some football/big truck/national guard kids that used to skate showed up. Maybe five of them started talking to me and asked if they could use my board. One of them could even still kickflip. You might say those guys are kooks, but when they're old, those guys will be the cops, business owners, voters, etc who might actually take it easy on skateboarders.

[slogant-shirt]

since the late 90's x games/ legitimize skateboarding as a "sport" movement, skate boarding has been pushed into the public's eye which has helped the industry massively. i see skateboarding as performance art and to look at it as a sport, although we/I don't like to admit it, it is on the same level as figure skating. but hell, there are even art contests these days so even art is been turned into sport.

what could be deemed as the "death of skating" as an art, is when skateboarding is forever removed from the stage of "street theater" and pushed purely into little sanctioned areas controlled by third parties. skateboarding developed into away that that people, of no real significance to society, could feel a connection with they're natural architectural environment and make a mark as a reminder that you/ they concurred something. think about how exited you get over virgin spots, your like boom im gonna pop this cherry and own it, im gonna fuck this thing in way that any by passer will be like "woah, what the fuck did i just see, that was beautiful" and every time there gonna walk past it they're gonna think of you. the spot is now tainted.

as long as we are skating pools and streets, and anything that was never designed to be skated(even if it had to modified by a skateboarder) then skating as an art will not die.

[1978]

im just glad to have been skating when movies like The search for animal chin and Wheels/streets of fire were out.

[Sleazy]

it's turned into snowboarding but is accessible to everyone because it's cheep. just like snowboarding isn't going any where i think as long as there are good free parks that skating won't fall off. if anything, things like street league are going to make it more popular as you'll see more and more jock kids moving over.

that's said it's good to be at an age where for the most part it doesn't matter to me.

[Beeda Weeda]

skateboarding is what you make of it.

[LemonParty]

This is ultimately what it comes down to for everybody, but shit like skateparks, corporate sponsors, and whatnot makes some pretty lasting effects.

 this hating on skateparks or people who skate skateparks makes no sense to me. The days where you go to a perfect street spot and skate there all day are over. Most street spots where you have access to a good ledge or good set of stairs are places where you will get kicked out of right quick. But to actually skate street and progress? Thats fucking near impossible with the amount of security everywhere, and how buthurt people get about skateboarding on their property. More and more skateparks are being built as  street skating becomes more and more restricted, and its not a coincidence. Sure in the 80's and 90s, even early 2000's you had the emb spots and the love parks where you could street skate all day 7 days a week without security haggling you, and every skater who reached the professional level did so skating purely street. But that is impossible now. What is possible though, is going to skateparks everyday, getting ur shit down, then going to a street spot and landing it within the 5 or so tries you have before getting kicked out, and thats what you see alot of.

 But even if what i just said above wasnt the case, why do I HAVE to skate street to be a "real" skateboarder? I personally rarely skate street, but i go to the skatepark at least 6 days a week. If I want to skate a ledge, why would i ever choose a chunky concrete unwaxable piece of crap over a perfect coping ledge? I'm not trying to get sponsored, i dont like filming, i just like skateboarding, so why should i have to go through the struggles of someone whose trying to make it into the big times? I understand the hating on park footage in video, because I would feel really cheezed paying for a video that someone just sat a skatepark for a few days and filmed, but the hate against people who just go to the skatepark to skate makes no sense to me.

 Skateboarding is skateboarding, whether it is done at a skatepark, on a vert ramp, in a garage, or on the streets. Saying skateboarding is dead because people are skating less street is nonsensical, because if people could skate the amazing street spots you old guys had growing up we would, but we cant. So we skateparks.

[finknoos]

Nicely written lemonparty, i agree with every word, especially the getting kicked out thing.

I havnt skated a spot in my hometown for more than half an hour without bieng kicked out, and im one of those guys that take all fucking day to get a trick lol

[bandini]

You make some good points LemonParty, & I agree: hating on people for skating what they choose to skate - be it parks or whatever - is stupid.

I go out every weekend and skate all over sacramento. Yeah, I don't post up at one spot all day like in the Love/Embarcadero era, but there's a ton of spots out there & on weekends I rarely get hassled. If I do I just move on. My frustration is that it's gotten damn near impossible to get ANY of the kids out of the park - they think that skateboarding=skateparks, and while I get that they're having fun in a way that makes sense to them, it's also pretty hard for me not to see it as a general regression of some kind when the whole skateboarding scene here takes place almost entirely in a small fenced area.

 

[Jack Klompis]

yeah, they're good points, but he's reachin super hard to make that argument he's made in other threads, that dude didn't say anything about if you skate a park that your a kook, he said that having more skateparks has a lasting effect, giving a safe and controlled environment for tons of new comers to try it out, it encourages skateboarding and makes is super accessible, and in conjunction with things like corporate sponsors, skateboarding on tv, whatever whatever, those are playing a big part in skateboarding and its popularity today

[svilleantigo]

this hating on skateparks or people who skate skateparks makes no sense to me. The days where you go to a perfect street spot and skate there all day are over. Most street spots where you have access to a good ledge or good set of stairs are places where you will get kicked out of right quick. But to actually skate street and progress? Thats fucking near impossible with the amount of security everywhere, and how buthurt people get about skateboarding on their property. More and more skateparks are being built as  street skating becomes more and more restricted, and its not a coincidence. Sure in the 80's and 90s, even early 2000's you had the emb spots and the love parks where you could street skate all day 7 days a week without security haggling you, and every skater who reached the professional level did so skating purely street. But that is impossible now. What is possible though, is going to skateparks everyday, getting ur shit down, then going to a street spot and landing it within the 5 or so tries you have before getting kicked out, and thats what you see alot of.

 But even if what i just said above wasnt the case, why do I HAVE to skate street to be a "real" skateboarder? I personally rarely skate street, but i go to the skatepark at least 6 days a week. If I want to skate a ledge, why would i ever choose a chunky concrete unwaxable piece of crap over a perfect coping ledge? I'm not trying to get sponsored, i dont like filming, i just like skateboarding, so why should i have to go through the struggles of someone whose trying to make it into the big times? I understand the hating on park footage in video, because I would feel really cheezed paying for a video that someone just sat a skatepark for a few days and filmed, but the hate against people who just go to the skatepark to skate makes no sense to me.

 Skateboarding is skateboarding, whether it is done at a skatepark, on a vert ramp, in a garage, or on the streets. Saying skateboarding is dead because people are skating less street is nonsensical, because if people could skate the amazing street spots you old guys had growing up we would, but we cant. So we skateparks.

Parks are great. Private property is private property, and I'm not gonna argue that one should have the right to skate on it. But when you choose to skate a park all the time instead of skating in the streets, you're basically making a statement that it's OK to be kicked out of a public space, and pushing all skateboarders further into the parks in turn. There's a whole lot more interesting shit to skate in this world than just what parks are offering, and if non-skateboarders can't handle that.. fuck 'em. There's a distinct joy to be had from bombing a hill or cruising down a sidewalk that a park will never match, and this joy certainly shouldn't be restricted to just those on foot or in a car. DIYing/building stuff is super fun, too.

[Mad Max]

Skateboarding isn't dead and far from it right now.
Without repeating what's already been said, today's generation is the skatepark generation which believe it or not has turned skateboarding into a full on sport. This would also explain the incredible jock attitude a lot of skaters have today.
Personally I hate it, but I must take my hat off to the skaters who are pushing the envelope insofar as progression is concerned. It's almost as if I witness something groundbreaking every couple of months whereas back in the olden days it was more like every couple of years.
All I hope for is that skaters are in it for the right reason. Judging by that bizarre Puehse twins video somewhere else on here, I fear that some plank pushers are not true to the game so to speak.
I think The Illusion (of all peoiple) summed it up quite nicely: "Don't follow the kids. Keep your four wheels down and go skate."

P.s. The real rebels today are rollerbladers. At least where I live. Those fools are all but extinct. The ones you catch in the street are like wild dogs. We used to be like that...

[Mad Max]

PPS I realised that my previous answer completely overshot the initial question about the longevity and strength of the 80s.
I don't think that era was quite like today' generation because skateboarding was still fairly new and naive. Today the teens of the 80 are skate dads taking their kids to the local skatepark. Since the late 90s skateboarding has slowly but surely made it's way into the mainstream and with several generations of skaters backing it, it's now bigger and stronger than ever. The only thing that will shake things up is the economy - something we are all witnessing today.

[Chavo]

since the late 90's x games/ legitimize skateboarding as a "sport" movement, skate boarding has been pushed into the public's eye which has helped the industry massively. i see skateboarding as performance art and to look at it as a sport, although we/I don't like to admit it, it is on the same level as figure skating. but hell, there are even art contests these days so even art is been turned into sport.

what could be deemed as the "death of skating" as an art, is when skateboarding is forever removed from the stage of "street theater" and pushed purely into little sanctioned areas controlled by third parties. skateboarding developed into away that that people, of no real significance to society, could feel a connection with they're natural architectural environment and make a mark as a reminder that you/ they concurred something. think about how exited you get over virgin spots, your like boom im gonna pop this cherry and own it, im gonna fuck this thing in way that any by passer will be like "woah, what the fuck did i just see, that was beautiful" and every time there gonna walk past it they're gonna think of you. the spot is now tainted.

as long as we are skating pools and streets, and anything that was never designed to be skated(even if it had to modified by a skateboarder) then skating as an art will not die.

In that sense, skateboarding is already underground (I suppose there will always be "performers"). I could also see it die like it did in '79-'85 when the parks close. Although parks are mostly publicly owned, land is still a desirable commodity and cities won't hesitate to tear one down to make a parking lot if that's what the community wants or needs.

[vegan*shawn]

You make some good points LemonParty, & I agree: hating on people for skating what they choose to skate - be it parks or whatever - is stupid.

I go out every weekend and skate all over sacramento. Yeah, I don't post up at one spot all day like in the Love/Embarcadero era, but there's a ton of spots out there & on weekends I rarely get hassled. If I do I just move on. My frustration is that it's gotten damn near impossible to get ANY of the kids out of the park - they think that skateboarding=skateparks, and while I get that they're having fun in a way that makes sense to them, it's also pretty hard for me not to see it as a general regression of some kind when the whole skateboarding scene here takes place almost entirely in a small fenced area.

 

I skate downtown Sacramento a lot at night and depending on the spot rarely get kicked out, skateparks are fun for warming up, but I want to skate everything.

[Fenzadill]

Ugh this thread is a bummer.  If you try to expound on the true nature of skating, and you say anything more than "It's fun,", you're gonna sound like a grandiose, overindulgent doucher.  It can't be explained.  (See??  Even that extra sentence came off kind of gay)

[Bobby Peru]

yeah, they're good points, but he's reachin super hard to make that argument he's made in other threads, that dude didn't say anything about if you skate a park that your a kook, he said that having more skateparks has a lasting effect, giving a safe and controlled environment for tons of new comers to try it out, it encourages skateboarding and makes is super accessible, and in conjunction with things like corporate sponsors, skateboarding on tv, whatever whatever, those are playing a big part in skateboarding and its popularity today

Yeah I really don't know where the talking shit about skateparks thing came from.

And I think some of you guys are confused about what I mean about skateboarding dying. I mean it in the sense that it stops being cool, TV and corporations drop it, whoever is left of us takes up crack and big pants, etc. I think we all know that skateboarding and skater-owned companies will survive whatever happens. I was mostly wondering if something really is bound to happen, as a lot of people think. To put it more simply, do you think Nike will ever drop their skate team? Maybe within the next 5-10 years?

[MaryhillVibe]

The way I see it the major difference is that in the 80's when skateboarding blew up it was a new thing, like someone already mentioned here, and companies looking in didnt really know how to approach it. Sure they saw the potential revenue to be made form a youth subculture quickly gathering pace but at that point it was so alien that all they could do was throw money at it.

Nowadays there is an older generation of skateboarders who are left without the comfort of an easy retirement, and the skateboard industry itself can only support so many who "deserve it". Therefor you have individuals who are willing to help these companies aproach skateboarding in a more educated way.

I beleive this is the reason for the continued growth of skateboarding in the mainstream media and the reason that it is not heading for another "death", although we may see a massive schism between what it presented by larger companies with there fingers in the pie and the more "core" companies. But right now other than holding the opinion that sreet leauge is gay or that berra is a kook most dont seem to care.

Just do it VS. Dont do it, who is winning?

[Chavo]

The way I see it the major difference is that in the 80's when skateboarding blew up it was a new thing, like someone already mentioned here, and companies looking in didnt really know how to approach it. Sure they saw the potential revenue to be made form a youth subculture quickly gathering pace but at that point it was so alien that all they could do was throw money at it.

Nowadays there is an older generation of skateboarders who are left without the comfort of an easy retirement, and the skateboard industry itself can only support so many who "deserve it". Therefor you have individuals who are willing to help these companies aproach skateboarding in a more educated way.

I beleive this is the reason for the continued growth of skateboarding in the mainstream media and the reason that it is not heading for another "death", although we may see a massive schism between what it presented by larger companies with there fingers in the pie and the more "core" companies. But right now other than holding the opinion that sreet leauge is gay or that berra is a kook most dont seem to care.

Just do it VS. Dont do it, who is winning?

Skateboarding was a new thing in the mid-1960s and it was huge in the '70s (Fred Astaire famously broke his arm then). I'm sure the only reason corporations didn't pursue it was that there wasn't much money to be made. They certainly didn't want to sell hard goods (which was the industry until recently) with its low profit margins. Converse, who sponsored Hosoi and Mullen during the mid to late '80s, was one of the first I remember to try to break into skateboarding. Video games were next. Like you said, though, they were just throwing money at it. Their ad campaigns sucked. But the corporations only started to get serious when skate shoes became a big deal. As long as non-skaters buy skate shoes, skateboarding will be popular.