Not true at all. Why, here’s our leading Olympic hopeful punching an old man:
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Yeah, at first I was thinking he missed a trick by just doing a full cab over the hip in that line when it should have been a flip but at least he followed it up with the flip.
And this is the thing, the dirtbag side was previously the appeal to a lot of people, in so much that if you were a street skater you’d search out spots, travel around, broaden your horizons, go to perhaps sketchy areas you wouldn’t normally, and you’d learn to have your wits about you, every skateboarder from the 90s/00s has a story of some sketchy shit happening…
The skatepark environment is just so sterile, its like a family day out at most parks these days, then you combine this with a kids Instagram edit to trap music just skating parks and its depressing… And yeah you can filter the shite out, and I can watch EE3 as many times as I like - that still exists, but it feels like the next generation of pros aren’t gonna have those experiences of actually being out on the streets.
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Honestly, best thing to do, fuck off all social media, you soon migrate to what you actually like and end up only hunting down shit that stokes you out.
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Would of been overkill having bs flip and fullcabflip - Brady has arguably the best trick selection/choice of lines i’ve ever seen. So good.
Are you going to take your daughter to some really shitty areas when you’re out skating? Fuck no, neither am I. As you know yourself with kids all your free time is gone. You have to make the most of what time you have. Street skating for me just doesn’t happen and to be honest, I don’t really miss it. I go to a park, do what few tricks I can, make the most of what time I have, see some friends. As my kid gets older, if he wants to join in at a skatepark, great, everybody wins. In years to come if skating is his thing, he can go street skating with friends and explore the city that way. I mean, that’s something I sort of do with him anyway, either by bike or board & scooter, show him about and teach him a bit of street smarts.
As for da yoot being boring and sticking their same park, making park edits to trap tunes, etc. They’ll drop out. Quality always rises to the top and for now, (the gradual privatising public space aside) there’ll always be street skating - skateparks still aren’t ubiquitous yet.
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Whilst this is true there are absolutely geographic barriers placed on this now by the brands who dominate paid sponsorship.
If you’re not from a particular area - it really doesn’t matter how good you are, you’ll need to move to that area, which in many respects is fair enough and sort of always been part of the game but…
The above the biggest difference between now and 10/20 years ago.
But that ‘dirtbag edge’ became associated with skateboarding during a specific period: the 1990s, when skateboarding was quite small. I can see how, to a particular generation, that version of skating is the defining version - it’s when skating becomes ‘cool’ essentially. But that version of cool has specific aspects to it which could now be viewed as quite toxic - the aggressive masculinity of skating as a subculture during that time.
Now, I see skateboarding having multiple meanings and being a broader church. It’s much more inclusive, and this is a good thing. Women’s skating is a real positive. The ‘dirtbag edge’ is still prominent - GX1000, Supreme vids, Anti-Hero’s popularity etc. - it now coexists with a whole bunch of other ‘types’ of skating. People can move between these very easily now and I think this one of the byproducts of living in our current age. Those signifiers which we associated with specific identities or lifestyles have been democratised and made more accessible by the internet, mass consumption, a (hopefully) more tolerant and liberal society etc. So as Ciaran points out, you might have grown up skating the streets but as you age parks become more acceptable.
I think it’s kind of dangerous to say skating has changed beyond recognition - you become nostalgic for a perceived golden age and perhaps a bit bitter towards the thing you love, that ‘I love skating so much that I want it to die’ attitude. And we’ve seen where this kind of nostalgia can take us if we look at politics at the minute (are '90s skaters the baby boomers of the skate world?!). The stuff you love is still there, you just need to filter stuff a bit nowadays.
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1980s, surely. Crusties and skulls.
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Agreed about the parks. The question raised in the article was whether kids (and I don’t mean parents who skate with their kids) starting skating will want to go to a park filled with old men and women skating about? Will it put them off skateboarding all together, or will they reject the parks as something for old people? Or will they not care at all? I just thought it was an interesting question.
Yes, and I think the Olympics might compound this rather than attracting young people to the ‘sport’. The olympics has never been cool.
I agree with what you’re saying, I’m definitely not in the “Fuck Skateparks!” camp, I use em all the time, in fact the amount of parks must have had a positive impact on how long people skate for, and has inspired a whole generation to take it back up again, because like you say a family man isn’t gonna take his kids street skating on a saturday morning, but can pop down a skatepark…
I’m also not in the “Skateboarding is fucked!” camp, this past summer has been the best for skateboarding for me for many years, video content has been amazing, the Primitive demo I went to was insane, and my daughter has loved going to skate events.
I was more directly referring to sponsored skaters, and you’re right, quality does rise to the top, its just the pathway to the top that seems to have changed…
Skate parks aren’t going to get over run by parent and toddler groups any time soon are they, really? Skate parks are going to get a lot more heavy use by kids with free time. Used at different times in the week/day. You’re more likely to take your kids to an indoor park if you have one, if anything. It’s got food, drinks, parking and staff. Than the local council free skate park that’s full of riff raff, no cafe or parking, haha. Skate events are more of a mellow hanging out affair most of the time too. Unless you want to get in the thick of it.
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he’s such a role model.
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yeah let me know where these parks are that are overrun with old in pads, would make a welcome change
Pricing is up for Juve x Adidas x Palace.
https://www.adidas.co.uk/juventus_palace
£160 for the home strip. I will be pissed if I get one of these and its not the on field version of the shirts.
Why would anyone want those? I have no words for how awful that is. Palace is selling skateboarding out and it sucks.
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Its the best thing I’ve ever seen in Skateboarding since Nike SB FCs.
I love Football and Skating, so I’m going to like it, and its hilarious how Palace came from what it was to this – mwad.
I’m buying it to keep / probably sell.
Free indoor parks in London is proper selling skateboarding out.
It’s just another very odd collab, oh well, won’t be losing much sleep over it.
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That stuff looks honking. Would be interested to see if they manage to shift most of it. Could see it being massively deducted in a sale at some point in the future.