Why do we skateboard? Is it just an excuse to rock women's jeans and out cool each other? Since when is life more fashion than function? Since when does being a skateboarder mean spending more time lurking on message boards putting each other down than actually riding a skateboard? Is there really a “right way” to skate? Doesn’t assuming that reduce us to the level of the uniform wearing jocks we pride ourselves so much on differing from? Sure, the mainstreaming of skateboarding as a whole is going to have it’s collateral damage, talented skaters like Ryan Sheckler will sell there souls and give in to the consumer culture media parade, becoming mockeries of themselves (and skateboarding as a whole) and seemingly a majority of skaters will become limited edition shoe collecting hipsters who know more trivia than tricks, but that doesn’t excuse it. At the end of the day, aren’t the true skaters the ones who keep on riding no matter what? It seems to me that these days the fat kid on the Wal-Mart Andy Mac board with generic shoes and hand me down clothing throwing himself over and over again at a curb trying to ollie is far more a real skateboarder than the image - obsessed, hyper critical elitists who seem to stand aloof at every spot, making sure their corduroy is brown enough and their deck has all the right scratches on it. Does trying to switch big spin crooked grind flip out over and over again ad infinitum without actually knowing how to actually kickflip a skater or an actor make?
I think the answer is self-evident.
This isn’t to say that almost all those caught up in the wave of underground mainstream culture don’t love skateboarding itself; it’s simply (and sadly) that they feel they must somehow use it to elevate themselves above not only the world around them but their peers as well. Singly, you can’t place blame on them. It’s the culture as a whole, through Internet chat rooms and multi- million dollar marketing campaigns (cleverly made to look “core” and “raw”) that has evolved into a self-destroying merchandise machine, churning out cookie cutter images and the assorted flair needed to fit them. What would happen if everyone got off their $120 jean encased asses and instead of logging on or superciliously looking for a way to debase their comrades, they simply got that shiny, super rare collab deck off the wall and hit the streets, actually using it to (Gasp! I can hear the eBay collectors crying already) go skateboarding.
Now there’s an idea.
* Lettuce Bee image borrowed from the great Andy Jenkins.
