Tribes of Midgaurd is a game about crowdsourcing.
I had an epiphany during a convo with one of the little turds here in the get along gang about skateboarding in the Olympics. I tuned out while they were droning on about how Skateboarding in the olympics was a "sellout move" and how it's a slap in the face to the purity of the sport. I didn't tune out out of disrespect tho, rather because I know there is no way to help a child through that part of their life.
It wouldn't help to tell them that the six years of them skating does not qualify them to make that statement, nor does any amount of time. It wouldn't help to tell them the olympic skateboarding organizer created 411 Video Magazine, and if he hadn't provided that marketing exposure almost no one outside of California or Hawaii would have ever picked up a board, himself included. It wouldn't help to tell him that telling me this in a Nike Skateboarding shirt is creating a hypocrisy wormhole.
So instead of listening to yet another person's insecurities projection TED talk what I did was realized that skateboardings Olympic debut is really a celebration of it reaching an Antifragility state. I know it seems absurd now, but in the early 90's skateboarding was pretty much done for and almost every person was this guy, gatekeeping the culture to death in a desperate battle for king of shit mountain.
But thanks to 411 magazine, low priced boards, and street skating, the big three barriers of entry of any activity (information/cost/access) got demolished and all the sudden you saw hood kids, punkers, preps, and everyone in between seeing themselves in the sport and contests living just fine alongside pool skating, street skating, freestyle, slalom, and so on...
If US skateboarding fell off the face of the earth Brazil and Japan would carry the torch. Some kids just post to insta without a sponsor and do just fine. Supreme, Thrasher, and Nyjah are household names. But a kid can also just buy a board and skate a parking lot all day by themselves and they are also just as valid a "skateboarder."
I consider skating America's' second indigenous art form next to jazz and the confirmation that both will far outlive us is warm and/or fuzzy. Cool, let's do gaming next. And for the record I told one of my mentors this story and they said, "Yeah, I have to tune you out like, 90% of the time..." Disrespectful.
rip tb rip tc rip tall - T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.
