Gun bros on social media are going to make me quit skateboarding.
And they can have it, they seem perfect for each other. Like the woman who can’t stop stealing from her family to fund a meth habit and the meth dealer who can’t stop beating her, they deserve one another.
My Every Day Carry
Glock 19 Gen 3, Shockport and milling work done by Centurion Armament Group
Delta Point Pro, Phlster Minimalist Holster, Mastermind Wedge
Surefire Tactician Flashlight
Integrated Skills Group Wallet with Rare Earth Picks
9.3″ Ray Rodriguez signature deck, Ace 66 AF1 trucks, Bronson G3 bearings, Orangtang 70mm 4President wheels.
So, I skate almost every day. Mostly for transportation. I’ve messed my ankles too many times to be that frequent at the park anymore. I also watched a skating buddy tear his achilles back in June and that killed the momentum I had for the bowl stuff we were doing. I’m in my 30’s, and the little stuff doesn’t heal like it once had. Many of you reading will feel this.
I grew up skating in much this manner. My high school town didn’t have a park, so we used our boards primarily for getting around. Flatland stuff was cool, but we were more interested in hill bombing and speed runs.
We liked this niche cuz, at the time, we thought Thrasher was pretty much becoming a caricature of themselves. They had the best photographers, yeah, but all the interviews seemed like they were trying to fit the culture of Thrasher to make the magazine rather than just being themselves. We were good kids, and interviews about pissing yourself on the tour bus just didn’t hold a lot of appeal.
Which, as I write this, I realize I can hamfist that as a segue.
The Industry is Feedback Looping
I joke often with Aaron about how being a poser used to be the largest diss in any skate group. It used to be uncool to wear branded shirts or walk around the hallways at school with your board. We thought that being ‘hobby forward’ like this meant you were trying to ‘feel cool’ or garner attention. Of course, trying to be cool was the lamest thing you could do.
Instead, we thought the magic was actually showing up to the session, skating around all night, being the guy that always had enough wax for the curb, et cetera. We didn’t give a shit about your shoes, and really didn’t care if you were any good or not. You showed up, you tried, you got better each time. That was the magic. And it was cheap – that was nice.
Today, people no longer consider Vans as skateboarding shoes. Supreme has elevated beyond skating to be its own simulacra. People my age are wearing the sort of halfpipe warped tour duds that they were clueless about when the whole festival was still new and cool. It’s a fashion absolutely divorced from the actual enterprise that bore it. The culture I knew is gone.
I write this in a small fury after seeing a post from a training company full of former action guys on instagram.
Which, tl;dw – It’s a guy in full kit dropping in on a mini ramp and calling it a “skateboard breech.” Then they advertise courses and t-shirts to you. I did not see if it was a Raid SB deck, but boy, wouldn’t that just be perfect?
I think this is the shark being jumped.
Wearing a JPC and dual tubes on social media is no different from wearing a slouch beanie and converse in 2023. I could probably ask the latter about fake bands and they’d probably pretend to know them. I could probably ask the former about platoon maneuvers and they’d probably pretend to know them, too. It’s a fashion absolutely divorced from the actual enterprise that bore it.
The dude wanted you to know he could drop-in on the ramp AND that he was an operator, then found a pretty cheeseball way to combine them. Trying too hard to be cool is no longer uncool.
The Perfect Marriage
The past time that used to be about not being a poser and putting in the work has become mainstream so it can be marketed. Am I talking about gun-toting careers or skating? Yes.
Skateboarding is in the Olympics now. No one can pretend it’s this edgy rebellious thing like the brands of the 00’s really, really wanted my friends and I to think it was. Gun youtubers have millions of subscribers wearing Call of Duty masks and dressing up in Rhodesian dogwhistle camo. They really want you to think it’s a homogenous community with a pipelined set of values to make it easier to sell to their target demographic. Barf. If you thought it was about marksmanship and personal agency, you won’t find corroborating ideas that present in 4k resolution.
The goal of both has truly aligned to make you feel okay to buy the shit even if you’re not actually participating in the activity. A step further, they would love if you felt that you couldn’t participate in the activity unless you had the shit. Shit as a prerequisite, shit as the point.
Because, of course, they’re trying to sell you shit.
Hope
Thankfully, the problem should solve itself. Once you dip below the surface level of media accessibility and really start putting time on either the board or at the range, the marketing should begin to become more lame to you over time.
Skating is great in that all the talk doesn’t matter if you show up to the session and you never get better. Shooting is great in that all the talk doesn’t matter if you show up to the range and you never get better. They’re both great in that if you’re ass, but you earnestly want to improve, that’s 100% the value. They’re both great in that if you’re really good at it, but don’t make it your whole identity, being really good becomes even cooler.
The issue arrives in the advertising. In cultivating an identity that wants someone to believe a skill or participation level before either are actually demonstrated.
Intrinsically, I know I’m preaching to the choir with our readership. You guys subscribe because you already get this. You don’t wear the band’s shirt without actually listening to the band. Perhaps this was a bit of a cathartic adventure in unleashing a bit of angst I’d had about where both of these sects of my life are jointly headed.
Perhaps I’m just the resident hipster to wanted you that I was into skating before it was cool, if only to end up the old man flustered that ‘kids these days’ aren’t doing it like I used to.
I think the point here is to thank you all for being under the noise, and to keep persisting. The vast majority of kids and fellow old-guys at the parks I meet aren’t making a skateboard their entire outward identity to the world. Likewise, you aren’t making a military look from the 2010’s your entire outward identity to the world.
I get flustered about the media stuff; we all do. But the moral ends up the same, generally. Put the work in, and you usually end up in proximity with others doing the same.
Thanks
-Jake Allen
