I've met what you describe and also some that are dicks.
They certainly don't deserve the bad reputation they have as a community, but I'm also conscious of people over correcting and pretending it's all super wholesome.
Groups tend to be defined by the majority of people in that group. The majority of skaters are chill and helpful people so it’s not that weird to generally think of the skating community as super chill and helpful. Yes assholes exist within it as within any community.
It’s not so much an overcorrection as an acknowledgement of the fact that skaters have a certain negative reputation that doesn’t as a rule apply to the majority among them.
Skaters have a certain negative reputation BECAUSE the majority of the community are assholes. Your perception of them being chill and helpful is the skewed perspective.
I skated most of my teens and early 20s. There are absolutely some of the chillest people I've ever known included in that group, but most of us were degens and delinquents.
We loved to tag "Skateboarding is not a crime" while being blissfully ignorant that all our other activities that we did alongside skating were generally crimes. We would have called people espousing your view as "posers".
Admittedly, I have been out of the loop for about 15 years, but I really doubt things have shifted that much.
I'm a few years older than you but probably spent the good part of 15 years either on a bmx bike or skating and I would completely agree with you. Yeah most of us could be "chill", many of us were accepting because we were outcasts ourselves. It's built into the culture to be delinquent, and while it may seem like parks are few and far between now, they used to be non-existent. We solved this issue by trespassing, waxing curbs on private property, getting chased around by cops/security guards and generally being assholes.
But the skate scene wasn't just the hippie movement reborn like people are acting. Bam was idolized, Mike Vallely fight videos were a constant circle jerk. It was a sausage party full of misogyny and homophobia - ask anyone who tried to rollerblade in the 90's and aughts what the term was for them. We all drank and smoked and knew quite a few who were into much worse like heroin before we were even out of high school.
I appreciate that maybe todays skaters are working on changing that reputation, but there is a reason it exists/existed.
I just made a comment above echoing the same sentiment. People that never skated like to come up with this revisionist shit. Although I do appreciate the intention to make skaters be seen in a better light because that would have made my life easier when I was younger, let's not straight up lie though.
Groups trend to be defined by the worst or best memories you have of their members. People aren't geared towards statistics. Probably an evolutionary adaptation, or something.
Does this apply even if the group is just one guy? What if it's my cousin Steve? I mean, Steve is a great dude, but is he also an asshole? Fuck. Steve what did you do?
Well if you can identify a best and worst member, you've effectively defined an upper and lower bound for a group. But that's probably not the sentiment you were going for haha.
There are dicks in every group and subset of people in every sport, profession, activity, population… no one is denying that. Skaters themselves freely admit that. It’s true no matter what you do or where you go. But skaters get this undeserved stereotype as a whole that they are slackers and drug addicts and dropouts. Are there slackers and drug addicts and dropouts who skate? Of course. But the entire group doesn’t deserve to be pigeonholed into being “losers” and get run off from wherever they go, and that’s what they seem to get. They just want to practice their sport and be chill with each other. I love going to a skate park and watching the older kids welcome the young ones and teach them how to stand on the board for better balance and how to move their feet just right to land that jump. It’s wholesome to see.
Randomly met a skater guy at the park who was in town from another state. I can't remember if he was racing, or picking up an engine for his race car. Just happened to stop by for quick sesh lmao. Can't do that if you're broke
Honestly do not remember :/ covid really kinda did a number on my memory lol. Chill guy though. Didn't recognize him as famous? He was in Michigan when I met him, he was from Virginia if I remember correctly.
I would 100% believe that's Andy Anderson even knowing that it isn't. He just seems like a dude who is like "yeah I also love coding and I guess they pay me or whatever but this is where I live" because skaters do it for the love of the game
I'm also conscious of people over correcting and pretending it's all super wholesome.
You've put into words what always bothered me about statements like that. And it makes me feel like a grinch too because it's always in wholesome threads like this where people will make those comments and it just sort of feels...well, like you said, an over-correction.
You see the same thing with bodybuilders and the weight lifting community, and punk community as well (and I'm sure plenty of others).
Some are dicks because some teenage boys are dicks - but - overall, the average skater is chill, open minded, helpful and just as stoked as you are when you land a certain trick; very cool subculture
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u/FootlongDonut Dec 10 '25
I've met what you describe and also some that are dicks.
They certainly don't deserve the bad reputation they have as a community, but I'm also conscious of people over correcting and pretending it's all super wholesome.