For Skateboarders
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- 52 Responses
- showpony0
fuck 'em. do what you love, and fuck the rest. just being yourself is the only counter culture there is. thank you.
- MarleyMarl0
"I actually skateboard, snowboard, ROLLERBLADE and surf when I can. So, I've had similar pleasures.
– itsmitch"
itsmitch is a fruitbooter! that explains it all!
- how does that explain anything? i've probably been skateboarding longer (and better) than you.itsmitch
- you're probably a better rollerblader tooBANKattack
- buduasier0
ahah yeah man, if you feel the need to rollerblade you clearly once again have not understood what skateboarding is all about.
- hiten0
I skated everyday for like 4 years but I could never get good at it. :(
I still have my board but it's collecting dust minus the occasion skate down the street to see if I can still balance on it.I inline now to help my ice skating for hockey, can't seem to get good at that either.
- itsmitch0
I've been skateboarding since I was 10. My older brother got me in to it. I'm not quite sure what's with the hate for rollerbladers. I've been doing that a long time too. The tricks you can do in the air are very similar to snowboarding (spins, flips) and the grinds can be as technical as skateboarding. Yes, it's far easier to progress than skateboarding since you are attached but none of you hate on snowboarders for being attached. I know back in the mid-90's rollerblading was growing far fasters than skateboarding and at one point surpassed it in the number of participants. The big skateboarding companies started attacking rollerblading directly because they feared it would drain the money out of their industry and you all just went along for the ride. You heard it, you believed it, you repeated it ... all without asking why. What the fuck do you care what sport somebody chooses?
You're making my point anyway. Go hang out with rollerbladers for one day and see what it's like to truly love what you do so much that you would put up with all the shit-talking, fights and abuse by another sport (skateboarding) just to do something you enjoy.
I remember when I first moved up north to a ski town. It was filled with snowboarders and skateboarders and I was the only one that rollerbladed. My first night out I was skating a handrail when some assholes drove by, yelled something out the window and threw a beer bottle at me. Then they quickly drove off without the balls to get out and confront me. They had a big fucking Independent sticker on the back window. By the end of my two years in that town they were all friends with me because they saw how much I loved what I did, that I went through the same pain to accomplish what I could do and I was out skating everyday.
- MarleyMarl0
HAHAHA, you're a fucking fruitbooter dude!
- IRNlun60
^^ When I first saw rollerbladers at the local park or spots they just didn't understand the rules. For one, don't drop in on people... that is in my opinion what got me to not like rollerbladers. They think since they can move around faster that they somehow have the right of way.
It's like people who first learn to surf. They paddle out into the line up and start paddling for anything they can get, regardless of whether someone is on the wave or right in front of them paddling out. It just gets dangerous.
I do admit that I have seen some really good rollerbladers, respect to them.
- grunttt0
shut up and skate.
- http://rlv.zcache.co…itsmitch
- Unoriginal thought = unoriginal speech.itsmitch
- pretty much every word you've typed in this thread is tired and recycled, ie: unoriginalgrunttt
- big-papes0
I have been skating for over 20 years now, and honestly I am not mad at the idea that it has become so corporate. Its great, there are nice free skateparks in almost every town now. And its much less risk,.
I used to get straight up shit on by cops, ticketed, handcuffed, had my board taken away, etc. But not the cops kids skate, so if they kick me out of a place, they'll ask me to leave, instead of pinning me on the ground.
Please understand when i was young, the counter culture angle really drew me into it, (as well as gleaming the cube), and to this day I still only shop at my local indie skate shop. No Zumies.
I just found out that Foot Locker just bought CCS, normally that would have pissed me off in the past. But and the end of the day, people are cashing in on it because its popular, and why wouldnt it be? Its fucking fun as hell.
- itsmitch0
I'll tell you why to get bent out of shape for it. Rollerblading is almost dead now as a sport after the boom in the 90's. There weren't any rollerblader owned companies during our boom, all corporate and when the "market" contracted for rollerblading, they all pulled out. They started making other things (like skis, etc.) and quit making rollerblades because it no longer had high profit margins. The companies that still kept on making rollerblades cut back expenses: they didn't release new models or even make improvements to old ones and the pros got completely fucked. Most of them can't make a living just doing rollerblading so they have to take up day jobs, do less contests, travel less, promote the sport less. It's cyclical because the less people that see rollerblading means less people take it up as a sport. Think of it as a mini version of the fucked-up economy we have in the US right now. In the past few years, we've had a few rollerbladers owned companies pop up but they're expensive as shit compared to what it used to cost for your setup because they're tiny. Most of our pros spend their time in Asia and Europe where they still have competitions. All this means less places to buy rollerblades (mostly online now), less competitions, less money in the sports, fewer videos released ... etc ... etc ... etc.
Now, as much as the skateboarding community has taken a shit on rollerbladers and what they do, I'd still hate for that to happen to skateboarding. And it could. Skateboarding has almost died a few times itself. If it goes through a downturn and there aren't skateboarder owned companies to put the sport before the profits then you'll have a clusterfuck of a problem. It would effect a lot more than you think. There used to be a lot more free parks that we have now and when skateboarding when through its downturn a lot of them were closed by the cities that run them. You can still find old cement snake runs that are beat up, half-buried and neglected because it costs A LOT of money to maintain a skatepark. Believe me, we're in the middle of trying to get one built locally right now and so we've seen the numbers and the research the city has done.
- version30
i think itsmitch suffers from something similar to the following...
tried to skate, couldn't
tried to skate, got made fun of
a skater fucked his girlfriendi mean you're still "getting it out of your system" a day later
;)
- 2cents0
Roller skating has no history and isn't nearly as marketable as Skateboarding. You're talking about a sport that evolved out of a product that was designed for kids, moms and dads to roll around the park on.
Skateboarding was born out of surfing. The roots run deep, it's not going to disappear. Everything has it's ups and downs. Remember when snowboarding nearly killed skiing? Now look where skiing is.
I still don't understand why you're getting so worked up and angry about it.
- I'm not worked up and angry. I guess I didn't convey that well through text but I was just pointing things out.itsmitch
- version30
I might have to disagree 2cents
http://inventors.about.com/od/rs…
- dyspl0
just a though, but I find amusing when Isee people complaining about the fact a sport is going meanstream.
-
When you actually work for such sports (skate snow, kite etc...), you see that all that underground/core shit, is only good at show or on blogs for customers.
And then while they pay their photographers, graphic designers etc with boards or whatever the produce for 2dollars, they put the most of the money in their own pocket....I agree with people who say these sports loose their soul once big corporate brands get into it, but at least people get paid.
- I have a hard time accepting the soul of a sport I love is somehow found in a brand.IRNlun6
- itsmitch0
dyspl: Hurley pays the designers they hire $10/hour (or at least they did when my friend went in for an interview). Corporate does not mean well paid. Watch http://www.malakye.com/ and you'll see just as many corporate companies paying jack shit to the people that design for them.
- I worked for Four Star Distribution and they paid a hell of a lot more.2cents
