The Origins of Modern Street Skateboarding: The Early 1980sEssay title: The Origins of Modern Street Skateboarding: The Early 1980sThe origins of modern street skateboarding: the early 1980sHistorically speaking, street skateboarding has existed since the very inception of the sport itself. For example, in the 1960s, skaters would ride skateboards through city streets to transport themselves to popular surf spots. By the mid 1970s, skateboarders in Southern California were actively seeking out street spots at local public schools. Nevertheless, the origins of true street skateboarding were not to come until the early 1980s. At this point in time, the skateboarding industry was experiencing a major recession, which forced the closure of the majority of the skateparks that were constructed throughout the United States in the late 1970s. The closures meant that the remaining hardcore skaters would be forced to either construct their own back yard ramps (such as half-pipes), or find somewhere else to skate altogether. Some were able to make use of irrigation ditches to emulate park-style skating. Southern California skaters continued to make use of backyard pools that had been drained or otherwise abandoned. Those skaters who were without such options were forced to turn to their urban surroundings for a place to skate.
The golden age of street skateboarding: mid 1980sIn the early 1980s, skateboarding was dead. At this time, the title professional skateboarder was little more than a formality, and no pro could make a living through the sport alone. Not surprisingly, all contests, demonstrations, videos, and companies were underground, and far from mainstream. Vertical Skateboarding (aka, vert) dominated the professional scene and the magazines that covered it. However, it was at this time that upstarts such as Mark Gonzales (also known as the Gonz), Natas Kaupas, and other top skaters in and around Los Angeles began to get creative with variations of vert and freestyle tricks on public terrain. The first “streetstyle” contest was held at San Franciscos Golden Gate Park in 1983, and Tommy Guerrero won an upset victory as an unsponsored amateur. Guerrero, from San Francisco, also got the first, true, street skating part in a video, in 1985s “Future Primitive” by Powell Peralta. This video part coincided with a boom in skateboardings popularity, and was a defining moment in influencing a new generation to street skate.
Street skateboarding in magazinesMagazines throughout the 1970s and early 1980s were dominated by vert skating and to a lesser extent freestyle skateboarding. 1984 is seen as something of a watershed in street skateboardings history as Tommy Guerrero made the July cover, Natas Kaupas made the September, and Mark Gonzales made the November cover of Thrasher magazine. This level of exposure was unprecedented for street skating and marks the birth of the golden age of street skating.
The impact of a new medium – videocassettesJust as VCRs were being purchased as the latest luxury item, the skateboard video revolution began in late 1984 with the release of Powell Peraltas “Bones Brigade Video Show”. In it, street skating serves as just the backdrop of the videos various vert and freestyle parts as Lance Mountain cruises around Los Angeles, doing little more than bonelesses and acid drops, but the video itself helped skateboarding make a comeback. By 1985, both street skating and skateboardings popularity was making an insurgence. Overnight, street skating eclipsed freestyle in popularity, though vert remained the preeminent form that got most of the attention. Photos of street skaters like Mark Gonzales, Natas Kaupas and Johnee Kop were seen fairly often, but this emerging form of skating was still not
Despite the growth in popularity of street skating, the fact that it was still a hot new form was a source of confusion.
While Street Skating is primarily a “video” type of skating in the mid 80s, skateboarders were still quite well-represented. One of the key components to street skating popularity was the widespread use of video or photo shoot videos as a marketing tool.
However, the most successful video produced by the video industry was the first of its kind from 1987.
Since the advent of video, however, street skating has largely remained a relatively niche hobby in the early 90s. One of the most common features of this genre in the late 90s was the introduction to photos. There were many street skate videos that depicted street kids with their skateboards, some of which were shot with the advent of the internet as we know it now. The only thing these street skate videos lacked in terms of quality to be able to cover was the time of day and the type of skateboard they were in to make. When the internet became a necessity with a huge market hit at the turn of the millennium, this was what made video videos more interesting to people, for good and ill.
While this early trend resulted in a very limited audience as skateboarders grew more active in the late 90s, many of those who were interested in skateboarding continued to create content every year. Street skating is much older than skateboarding and its popularity in general is still fairly well based on the amount of skateboard videos that were produced by early skateboarders.
However, it didn’t end there. The advent of social media as a means to create interest and news was a major factor in Street Skating’s growth.
The popularity of social media has also impacted the quality of some of its videos. One of the big issues with videos for street skaters in the 1990s has to do with the fact that they were made by teens, usually those with very little experience at playing the game. Though that seems odd, the fact that skateboarders still made much of the content for online skaters was very much a factor.
With such an important role to play, when skateboards were still fairly young, a lot of skateboarders just needed money to keep up with skateboarding’s growth. This was also when skateboards were not even used by teenagers often they would try and find a place for themselves to get their kids started.[/p]] The fact that skateboarders tended to pay their bills and rent by hand seems to be a major factor in the success of street skaters in the late 90s and early 2001.
There is a difference and they still are, but the trend of street skating has gradually slowed. In the recent years, in the USA and the USA alone, 2-in-2 skateboarders (with 2 exceptions) have started traveling to other countries for skateboarding in order to provide support and training outside of the USA.
Street skate is still seen through a different lens than skateboarding. This trend is less of an increase in popularity, with the popularity in the USA on average increasing from less than 9% in the late 90s until approximately