The story of the skateboard all starts with the surfboard. Surfing has been around four hundreds of years as a recreational activity for various indigenous peoples. Flash forward to the 1950’s where the first ever skateboards are being made. Most are homemade skateboards with very simple trucks and clay wheels.”1″ They were invented in mostly coastal states where they took their influence from surfers. The term used for the idea was sidewalk surfing. In the 1960’s equipment was sold in surf shops until the mid-60’s when the sport fell out of fashion due to injuries due to the low durability of clay wheels.”2″ The sport came back in the 1970’s as teens began to form communities around the sport and would often skate in public places. The main reason for this sudden burst in popularity is because in 1972 the polyurethane wheel was invented giving the skateboard more durability on various surfaces.”3″ Since the activity became less of a liability businesses began to embrace the rebellious culture and companies were born to cater to the crowd like Vans shoes. The popularity of the counterculture led to a movement to open skate parks so that the new communities of adolescents could have fun without damaging public property. The first skate park was opened in the late 70’s in England wouldn’t cross over into the United States until 1980’s.”4″
By the 1980’s skate parks were being opened all over the United States, but all of the popularity had a cost. The media began to escalate their claims about how dangerous skating is and the horrible actions that is claimed to be committed by the members of the skateboard community such as vandalism. A particular type of vandalism that the skating community were accused of being the cause of was graffiti, and this continued on into the 1990’s.”5″ However, in the 90’s something came along that gave skaters a chance to make money for their talents. In 1995 the first ever X-Games was held in Rhode Island.”7″ This event showed skateboarding as an official sport instead of a reckless hobby and allowed for the creation of many skateboard companies as well as for preexisting skateboard companies to globalize. This event also gave the members of the skateboard communities a chance to break away from their delinquent labels that were given to them by the media and show the world that skating is a lot more than a rebellious fad. This is a legacy that continues to this day.
References
Diana S. Sherry et al., “Education and Outreach,” Evolution, November 14, 2019, https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com./)
“Vintage Skateboard Magazines.” The Quarterly Skateboarder. Accessed September 26, 2019.
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Prentiss, Anna M, Randall R. Skelton, Niles Eldredge, and Colin Quinn. “Get Rad: The Evolution of the Skateboard Deck.” https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com. Bio Medical Center (BMC), June 24, 2011.
Taylor, L. and Adelman, H. (n.d.). About Surfing and Skateboarding Youth Subcultures. [ebook] Los Angeles: Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA, pp.1-13. Available at: http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/youth/surf.pdf [Accessed 24 Sep. 2019].
Radikonyana, P., Prinsloo, J. and Pelser, T. (2017). The Contribution of Skateboarding to Societal Challenges. 4th ed. [ebook] Pretoria: African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure, pp.1-20. Available at:https://www.ajhtl.com/uploads/7/1/6/3/7163688/article_28_vol_6__4__2017.pdf [Accessed 24 Sep. 2019].
Haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu. (n.d.). Skaters – Subcultures and Sociology. [online] Available at:
https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultures-and-scenes/skater-subculture/ [Accessed 25 Sep. 2019].
Pickert, Kate. “The X Games.” Time. Time Inc., January 22, 2009. http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1873166,00.html.