It’s not all love and kisses in the world of skateboarding today. Louisiana skater Neal Boyd has set up a website to explain his problems with Go Skateboarding Day. It’s called No $kateboarding Day.
This site was created by a skateboarder in response to some corny corporate marketing. Skateboarding is great, spending a day skating is sick, and taking the day off to skate is something I can plead guilty to. However, skateboarding is also largely illegal, it’s loud, and it’s dirty. I like it like that. . . . Any excuse is a good excuse to skate, but this holiday shit has more corporate sponsors than a Nascar driver. . . Anyway, go skate and celebrate every moment that you get to ride… but don’t buy into any bullshit about what this contrived holiday really is… a big fucking commercial.
Can’t really say there is too much to disagree with here.
[Link: No Skateboarding Day]
I hope Neal had fun staying at home polishing his razor scooter and hanging on the Slap message boards.
Yeah, this guy did the “I don’t like being told not to buy blank boards” site as well. He’s quite the hardcore skater…and likes to be all ‘anti’ on the web.
I guess it just seems foolish to me to spend hours on to create a site that makes fun of corporations and the promotion of skateboarding. Wouldn’t it be more effective to just to go skate rather than just creating another form of propaganda?
And for the record, I went skating yesterday and didn’t support any corporations. I just hit the park like I always do…why is that a ‘big fucking commerical’?
no it would not be more effective to just go and skate; people forget that the majority of skateboarders aren’t out there jumping rails 9 to 5, they sit at computers all day making a wage outside of the industry. So when on a daily basis they read or hear about commercialization of skateboarding it forces them to use whatever creativity they have to by chance create a website and voice an opinion.
Oh no! Let’s all rally against the guy with an opinion contrary to your own, that’s really mature
Hmmm…not sure we’re rallying or against him, it just seems like in the act of creating a website and spending hours on the Slap boards isn’t “illegal, loud, and dirty”…it just kind of feeds into what he’s against.
And I guess raging against the machine is what you make of it…so more power to you. We’ll be looking forward to the anti-Sheckler sites, the anti-Mountain dew sites and anti-Website sites.
Or just go skating and leave it al behind…
Holy crap, Ken Block and Jake Burton read my posts? That’s a pretty hefty mind-tweaker there!
Ken, I respect you, but I’m bummed that you’d go straight to insults like that.
Jake, cheers and salutations from the dirty south. I visited Vermont a couple of years ago for a demo at Talent, I think Hannah and Dave were going to try to get us to visit the bowl you had (have?) but it rained every day we were there.
Anyway, yes, I spend a lot of time online… guilty. My job as a multimedia developer has me in front of a computer all day. I’m a geek… Slap is the bar I go to, plus it’s given me friends in nearly every city I’ve gone to skate in from cost to coast.
Anyway, in defense of the site, it’s not really all that contrary in nature, it’s not saying “don’t skate” (quite the opposite, actually), it’s simply pointing out the corporate backing (that people can choose or not choose to invest in) involved in the conception of the “holiday” in its current form. Hell, I skated my ass off that day, as I did the day before.
I did create the World w/o CEO’s site in response to Blitz’s site, but I think you oversimplified what I was trying to accomplish, which I feel was successful and an entire story on it’s own.
I’m pleased to say that since the CEO’s site, I’ve been able to work with Jim T, Steve Douglas, Miki, Black Box, and a host of others on project benefiting skateboarders (or skater’s families) in times of need. The project is still evolving, but none of it would have been possible without talking smack on the internet.
On another point, Jake… I don’t really see any conflict of interest in regards to my building websites, posting on the Slap forums, and making the statement I did on how I see skateboarding. I mean, your ability to comment here has no effect on what you do when you’re riding, and nothing I’ve written conflicts with the opinions I’ve expressed.
Here at home I’m fortunate to be part of a collective of skateboard activists that have helped to establish one of the best skate scenes in the south (both through grassroots efforts and all the way up to lobbying our state senate), but kids still get tickets and we still grind up freshly painted ledges because that’s what we do. There’s nothing hardcore about that, it just is what it is. There’s no controversy there.
Ken: on a final note, we appreciate the extremely generous donations from DC after the loss of one of our local legends (Big Mike, rip). Your donation along with some others enabled us to deliver a pretty substantial savings fund to Big Mike’s wife and youngest son.
Last thing, and only because it seems to be in question, I skate nearly every day. Aside from skating with my friends here, I also regularly document field-test-style product reviews from random companies, and I actively represent my local shop. I know it’s petty that I have to defend the act that I actually ride a skateboard, but I think it’s just as petty to assume that I don’t, as most people are quite capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.
Cheers!
-Neal
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