What do you think of the current culture of “skateboarding” and I mean all of it, all the forms, all the people, the entire industry. It seems this year is a hot one with the “sport” going to the big games. Kids are growing up in skate camps and pushed into serious competition.
Some say the essence of skateboarding cannot be found, it is ingrained in the patterns and chaos of the emotional noise that the skateboard is used to express. It is a pointless and fruitless activity filled with risks and seemingly without any reward. Frivolousness and futility define skateboarding, we toil with our toys for what? What defines this activity, what drives us to ride?
Kicktails, short verses long, downhill or park skating, electrics verses everyone else. there’s camps and styles and ethics being pointed at left and right, criticisms and hate while no one talks about why…why?
I would like you to read something from the Gonz that may point out something we forget in the electric skateboard community. A place of disposable income, hobbyists and upper middle class middle-aged nerds and skaters, they all come to do what exactly? I am one of them. I need to remember that some people only have one skateboard some are still wanting their 1st, and to them it’s the most valuable thing they own. It is not their hobby or their passion, it is their life, literally…it expresses everything they have.
MARK GONZALES: "I think a lot of times people want to get involved in skating, whether it’s for money or to help it out, and they jump on board and try to get into the culture. But what they don’t realize is that a lot of these kids who skate really have nothing else. Death is going to happen, but to them, it’s like, “I don’t give a fuck.” And that’s why they skateboard, because they really don’t give a fuck. It’s hard for some people to understand that mentality.
So I don’t know about the Olympics. Skateboarding is not an answer – it’s a question, a game of logic and death. It’s sad, but there is a very dark side to skateboarding – there’s a side of the board that never sees the light [laughs]. I’m being silly, but also serious."
Maybe we can change the culture of skateboarding by trying to change ourselves, and learn to just let things be and “not give a fuck”…after-all, there is no point to any of this and it mirrors the greater truths of the world, accidentally tapping into an intrinsic meaning, a serious one, a dark truth as Gonz notes…skateboarding lives very close to that truth, maybe we should learn to embrace that fact, and let it drive the culture and the heart of what electric skateboarding may become in the future. You know verses what the marketers want it to become? just a thought…
The question is not what is the essence of skateboarding…we have the answer already, “The essence of skateboarding is pointlessness” what we should seek, is the important question skateboarding is answering for us…what drives us to do this when it’s pointless?
I ponder this as I let the news of members losing their life for a pointless goal sink in, I ask myself why I do it and have no answer, and yet feel so drawn to it and need to ride…why? what is it about this stupid toy that drills to our deepest roots?
I began a little quest to find the answer, and I found peace in a simple answer from the legendary Jeff Grosso. “IT’S FUN!!!”
Jeff Grosso said to me: “It’s not pointless, it’s fun. That’s all… the world can be a very serious, sometimes dark, place. It can be cold and lonely. Skateboards are a diversion from all that is our “reality”. It’s escapism. Don’t read to much into it. That’s pointless. It’s quite simply just fun. And yeah, mark is right. Most of us don’t give a fuck! We just want to have fun… to laugh… to make and be with friends. To connect. Stave off the loneliness. As Jim Morrison said. “I’m gonna get my kicks before the whole shit house goes up in flames!” I don’t know? It beats playing golf…”
He added: - “Don’t get mired down in some existential crisis. Go skate, have fun, fail, succeed, laugh…” and I realized that skateboarding is just like life…we just have to live, have fun, fail, succeed…die…it’s simple…
don’t take yourself so seriously.
