It got me thinking, other than him, who are other “legitimate” skate youtubers?
I guess to answer the question, you need a loose definition of what legitimate means. To me, it would be someone who’s putting out the content for the sake of skateboarding and/or making a positive impact with their content. They should probably not be scientologists.
You’re welcome to have other definitions of the word, but the scientologist thing is non negotiable.
I watch a lot of Braille and Braille Army. I dunno what everyone else thinks of the guys on there, but I think they’re pretty legit. A lot of their videos are stupid stuff like skating glass skateboards etc just for laughs, but they also upload a lot of tutorials and some of the skaters are great to watch, especially Carlos Lastra.
Try the Ben DeGros tutorials. I found them pretty helpful at times. Got me to wrap my head around backside tailslides. I can’t do them, but I feel like I understand them now!
Whilst they’re certainly not terribly malicious… and I’m not sure that I can adequately articulate this at 11pm, but I kinda think they fit into a niche of youtubers, and skateboarding is merely their vessel for the content, rather than being a positive for skateboarding.
Until recently, I’d heard of Todd Falcon but wasn’t familliar with his stylings… then I watched a program called Post Radical (on 4OD) where Rick McCrank went to his house and filmed a part for (one of?) his skateboard horror story.
Yeah I’m guessing those decks aren’t that good then haha
I’ve noticed a lot of the videos must just be adverts/collabs with other brands, especially the ones like you said, Free Skates and Solowheel etc.
Still, I find a lot of their videos funny and the Braille Army vids are better for more ‘pure’ skateboarding
Also, I watched a few of the ‘Braille Origins’ videos, and Aaron Kyro (founder of Braille I believe) started out as a sponsored skater just trying to make videos, then started the channel when YouTube got more popular. I dunno, that seems pretty legit to me
Ok I’ve just done a little googling and I had no idea Kyro was actually a scientologist. I’m gobsmacked. My bad. On the other hand, I’ve known for ages that Tom Cruise is a scientologist. Does that mean I’m gonna stop watching Tom Cruise films? Nah.
Seriously though, Kyro being a scientologist has kinda freaked me out, especially after watching Louis Theroux’s Scientology Film
Have only ever seen a bit of one of their videos and just assumed they were aimed at small kids or something hence the relentlessly positive to the point of creepiness vibes. But the scientology connection also makes sense of it.
It still amazes me that in my Grey/Free/Thrasher whatever echo chamber that I could have completely missed the entire Braille team even though they have such a massive following
