I completely agree but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
Traditional or ‘thrasher magazine’ style skating has an entire industry built around it. Thousands of shops across the world stocking hockey/wknd/regional skate brands that won’t touch the YouTube generation stuff.
Magazines, advertising, hundreds of thousands of jobbing pros and ‘back end’ workers.
The internet personality end of skating has a massive chunk of DTC sales and views/YouTube money facilitated by pre teens.
But there’s maybe 40 odd youtube personalities of this new era. It hasn’t taken over yet.
Revive braille camp is about 20 associated faces.
Australian bloke with long hair
Dan corrigan
Andy Anderson
Black ninja (still active?)
Ben de gross
Gifted hater
Chris chann
I’m starting to run out of names- I’m sure there’s more but the amount of reach they have doesn’t outweigh the accumulative output of ‘traditional’ skating.
I agree it’s shifted, and I think the next 5/10 years will really be the end of what we’ve seen before.
the kids who watched revive videos and grew up on YouTube vlog and tiktok style content that are currently approaching their 20s are the generation that will be working within skating and completely do away with the traditional structure of board sponsorship and skate section as the main marketing device.
A lot of Revive/Braille output is just skateboarding flavoured viral content. It’s not made strictly for skateboarders and it seems they’re starting to run out of ideas. I don’t know if it will continue to be such a force in the future.
I do just think that this demographic of middle america/arse end of nowhere skaters is a lot bigger than people give credit for.
It’s like when someone on here said that FA was one of the biggest brands in the world. Like, what? That was one of the most echo chamber comments I’ve ever read.
Talk to young female skaters about who they follow on insta. I asked a bunch here and there and none of them followed Nyjah. Or Suicu. Or Tiago. Or Revive. It’s on one hand eye opening but on the other, its one of those “of course you don’t” moments.
But yeah, I think you are totally right.
Someone on here spoke about metal, black metal, speed metal and all these niche genres of ‘rock’ music. I think thats probably the best analogy of where skateboarding is at right now.
…but then I’d hesitate to describe JG as pop music as pop music has a tendency to come out with absolute bangers.
Have many people complained about the mundane editing on that part? I’m probably glossing over replies in my usual, mid-morning way. I haven’t opened up the Slap thread on it to know what those 'ol Americans have to say either, but I honestly did pay attention to that more than the skating. But it stood out to me, how they wanted to portray him more so than the skating its self. Even though as Magee said, should’ve gotten him to re-do that noseslide 270 (plus some other lines could’ve definitely been cut out or re-done). Less is more, I guess?
After all like others said, he’s in his own world with the type of skating he does; an idea of a British Nate Sherwood doesn’t appeal to me and I guess that’s ok, ok where’s the remote to chuck Mixtape now on, mun…
I wouldn’t want to play 'im in skate, let me tell 'ew.
There’s no reason if you’re a YouTube/TikTok skater you can’t have good quality standards. There’s currently a thread on Slap critiquing Carlos Ribeiro for not locking in to his clipper noseblunt properly. Arguably that’s a bit too picky haha, but skateboarding like anything needs quality control. Why does anyone put the effort in if they could get away with basic level?
There’s no reason someone can’t do triple flip under flips manuels but have them presented in a better way. Daewon did insane tech but he skated fast. Heroin doesn’t have technically superior skating but it’s presented in a cool way. Can’t help but feel there’s a level of quality that companies like HopKing and Revive are failing to reach and they’re doing their riders a disservice.
But kids today are no different they were 15/20 years ago.
I really liked Chris Haslam when I was a kid because he did mad flip in flip out tricks - but almost or Transworld or whoever didn’t phone in the way his footage was presented. If they had maybe no one would have taken his skating as seriously.
I think there’s a bit of a difference between the big full lengths we’d pay £20-30 for and the YouTube/ IG content cycle kids are on these days. It’s a trend much wider than skating. Kids who spend all their time on YouTube just want more and aren’t revisiting things in the same way so presentation/polish can take a back seat. Especially with so much of this vlog style stuff that is meant to be a bit rough.
Why would some of these creators bother spending more time that they need on one thing when they’re already working on getting the next bit of content out. Of course when something is really well done it can stand out but feel like it’s on less of a pedestal than maybe it once was to a lot of people
A few years ago I casually mentioned to my dad that i had been listening to ‘theme from Sparta f.c’ a lot.
That Christmas I got a 6 disk rare b-sides and live performance deep cut compilation set of The Cure.
Not the sort of thing I was expecting but thought it was nice that he’d taken a risk I looked up and said ‘oh yeah, nice one thanks mate…?’
We looked at each other both trying read each others faces for a few seconds until he broke the silence, exclaiming ‘fuck! MARK smith, not Robert’
Think as Gconroy said next 10 or so years will be interesting to watch, whether this YT skater generation does become more discerning and gravitates towards something more ‘core’ or they just start their own things on a different tangent to the current established industry
Similar here. She’s 8.
She likes to see how many cartwheels in a row she can do and she likes it when the board does the craziest spinning flip.
She likes drawing Snoopy and she likes it when the drawings on the skateboards look fun.
No fucks given to your sticker job, sponsors or approved crew.
There are 30-40 of them just like her at the skatepark every Saturday and Sunday morning.
…well before all 9 of the locals our age would go skate.
