Gossip

This massively breaks my “no bullshit” rule, but I spotted a name recently and it reminded me of a time in skateboarding that genuinely made me feel shit. I’m not gonna drop names, but someone related to the UK’s Olympic efforts once invited me out for a day filming with a pro team, with the sole reason being they wanted me to bring a mate who was really good at skateboarding and basically be a taxi from Cov. They spent the whole day generally being really shit to me; acting like I either wasn’t there, or acting like I was no longer welcome – basically once our mutual friend who I had driven an hour from Cov was on the session I had outlived my usefulness and therefore was treated like shit.

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They played favourites with their mates when handing out freebies – I even offered to pay for shit they were giving out for free and I was told “there was no stuff left”, yet when their mates asked there was plenty of product to go around.

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Years later, after a misunderstanding over a Facebook post, they came at me with a bunch of aggro despite me explaining the situation, making it very clear they had a load of irrational beef with me. They were making out like I was some stupid kook who wasn’t a real skateboarder. Their take was I was ill-informed and was talking shit about a long established skater owned shop (I wasn’t, I simply suggested a mate go to Ride for a board and this was taken out of context as me slagging off another shop).

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Maybe there’s something about me that rubs people the wrong way, but it seemed odd to me that certain people with a bit of clout come at guys like me who are just down to skate and have fun with an attitude designed to bring us down. And the worst part seems to be that in skateboarding, this attitude actually gets you recognition and respect. It’s enough to make you focus your own board and stay inside playing video games, I tell you. These days I avoid “the industry”, and I keep it simple: make rad videos for my mates, no profits, no alternative motives, no bullshit, just skateboarding. And that’s how it should be.