The huge emergence of street and trick skateboarding in the late Nineteen Hundred and Seventies and through the early Nineteen Hundred and Nineties has brought so much importance to society.
Firstly, recall the hugely popular critically acclaimed massively loved almost-Oscar-worthy biopic “The Lords of Dogtown” that made Ebert and Roeper declare 2005 the “greatest year for extreme sports cinematography since 1998” (in part due to the 1998 release of “Brink!”). ”Lords of Dogtown” was one of those movies that left you thinking about what you really wanted to do with the rest of your life, and if you’d ever find meaning in your life if you weren’t from Venice Beach, California looking to “get rich” by doing skateboarding tricks. The Z-Boys are a brand of man that should never be taken for granted.
Additionally and accordingly, there is great importance and value in the entire skater subculture. Here’s an elegantly written quote from the “Subculture Wiki” site for the “skater subculture”: “An interesting note is the fact that skaters often carry cameras. They record what goes on while skating in order to have a cool video, but also often record police action incidents, so a camera is a defense mechanism of sorts.”
The ability for skaters to have defense mechanism via their handheld cameras was an incredibly revolutionary progression that helped to gain larger recognition of the movement and its many encounters with police forces across the United States.
Finally, the Skateboarding movement continues to brilliantly adapt to society and its ever-growing needs for user-uploaded video content, like the following piece.
While it’s retrospective in its incorporation of themes from the 1980’s USSR classic game of Tetris, it’s also very innovative in its use of neon light technology and adorning headpieces that seem to be on the cutting edge of modern rave technology. Unfortunately, the Museum was unable to contact the composer of the score for the film, but we highly appreciate the composer, who goes by the alias of “Copy”, and his efforts to connect us better with the video-game meets dance-floor atmosphere of the video. To quote Copy’s information page found on last.fm, Copy “creates an emotionally affecting style that doesn’t neglect the dance floor. Meshing the sounds of classic synth pop with electro, disco, 8 bit video-game soundtracks and hip hop, an instantly familiar yet unique sound emerges from each song Copy produces.” Cheers to Copy and Skateboarders everywhere.
