Wasn’t everything better in the good old days? Wrong question. At least, when it comes to skateboarding. Because skateboarding re-invents itself again and again. Young kids around the world don’t care what came before them, they do their thing without inhibition. Skateboarding is not a just a form of movement but also a form of expression. It’s an attitude and a lifestyle. Now as in the past.
When talking about skateboarding back in the day, we need to return to Southern California in the 1950s. Surfers fused together their younger sibling’s roller skates with wooden planks they had pilfered from nearby building sites. Shortly after its invention, the “rolling board” went “viral” as we would say today. The idea was “shared” und “liked” as much as possible. However, not digitally, but via the old-fashioned method of seeing and copying. There were very few pictures and surely no marketing programmes, advertising or media. And still, the board had its breakthrough: suddenly, all of America went surfing without waves and turned tarmac into the beach.