Yeah, kooky can be cool!
Wouldnât say they are kooks in the slightest. Banging full length videos.
And here we go, back to why they are so unlikeable.
Watch this video (or not, I wonât) Is this kid going to destroy this skatepark? or is he going to skate pretty good, and along with the other riders have a laugh and show an average days skate. They are laughing because they are making money out of having an average day skate because they know people are going to click on their video.
Itâs cheeky as fuck.
Theyâre fucking kooky skateboarders. The great kind of kooky, weird, wonderful skateboarding. iâm not dissing them, I love oddball skating.
I wouldnât say really anything they have put out is kooky.
Jaws x Braille recently Iâll admit to.
Wow just seen, Braille over 5million YT subscribers. Thrasher 2.5million YT subscribers. Thatâs fucked.
Kooky isnât just âtheyâre a fucking kook, they kooked themselves out of the industryâ
Kooky is oddball, there is amazing and terrible inside. Iâd say Avi is kooky as fuck but damn, heâs rad and I love watching that shit.
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the reason is ^^^ in the tldr. While itâs impressive in numbers and people will legitimise them because of the numbers, they are what they are. Others will feel safe that they have stayed true to what they think skateboarding is even if they are not seeing any of those numbers.
Getting paid is not the pinnacle of life.
From my understanding of it their appeal is a complete disinterest in being cool as defined by the industry-led paradigm.
That applies to their disregard for style, tricks, rules, skill level etc that forms the backbone of âprogressive profitable pro skateboardingâ as pushed by the endemic media of skateboarding.
Itâs for the geeks, the weirdos, the etc - Iâm fairly sure that had Grosso lived, he wouldâve probably ventured into YouTuber territory on a future episode.
With all the above said - their shtick is just as cringeworthy and as contrived as things like I love weed hats and all that shit.
Iâm not taking any sides on it - just voicing my opinion on it in response to your question Chas.
Letâs face it, for every one person who loves the cultural history of skateboarding, loves classically defined style and bases their product choices around heritage/progression/etc there are ten kids who love Rodney Mullen and wouldnât know who Gino was if he was the one filming their fly out triple flip for their sponsored Instagram t-shirt company.
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Grosso called people out on their style, tricks, skill level etc too. He often joked that skating doesnât have rules but we have rules, that he agreed with.
He also passionately stated that skateboarding was for everyone.
Heâd definitely have taken the piss but I think we mightâve got a tongue-in-cheek Loveletter to the YouTube generation.
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Yeah that would of been great.
Grosso - Do it properly or donât bother. Heâd often say only three skaters in the world can do this trick right and yours are wrong, haha.
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True but at the same time the last LGBTQ+ episode explicitly pushed the âitâs participation that counts, not abilityâ line.
Internet enabled Democracy has many layers and all thatâŚ
Letâs not get confused, inclusion is a different thing to thinking someone isnât a great skater at sponsored level.
Wait am I missing something? Do they sponsor any members of the LGBTQ+ community?
My main worry with Braille is that Aaron Kyro uses the money from his channel to make sure his OT Level gets higher.
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Nah, I was referring to the Grosso debate.
Yeah that is sketchy.
But again, thatâs one of the inherent âdangersâ of a platform like YouTube. It can be used for anything.
Is Kyro part of Revive?
Is Braille part of it too?
I donât know that much about the business side of it.
It is yeah, but the YouTuber vibe kind of smells of âwe werenât included so we made our own industryâ.
Like a lot of phrases thrown around âinclusionâ in and of itself doesnât really mean that much as it can be used to mean anything I suppose.
Cool. Yeah, let everyone have fun for sure but when youâre starting to make money from skating, becoming a face/representative of skating, speaking on the behalf of it on a public scale, that is going to change.
Oh yeah I totally agree but that isnât and wonât happen.
Skateboarding is so decentralized that itâs impossible for any one school of thought to manage it. The fact that the two most influential media outlets throughout the cultureâs history (TWS/Thrasher) were established by skateboard manufacturers to push their products and their riders kind of blows a lot of the purity spiral stuff out of the water if you really get into it.
Itâs sad but the Internet opened Pandoraâs Box and threw the lid away.
Andy Shrock is probably more well known (in pure numbers terms) than any of the pro skaters I like. A decade ago, Iâd have cared more about that, these days I couldnât give a shit really.
This is a good thread though.
EDIT - As another aside âjust having funâ is another phrase like âinclusionâ that is so overused that it barely has any meaning any more and can be utilised to justify/defend anything really.
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Oh ChristâŚ
I just watched this.
Check the guy who films all their shit on his sci-fi rollerblades.
As I said earlier - Iâm not justifying this shit but itâs fascinating in its shamelessness.
TRIGGER WARNING - Beyond the Cringe.
