We are bombarded with media, both humans and our community of skateboarders. That media comes from both inside and outside of the skateboarding community and industry but it all has one thing in common: it strives to portray a perfect image. A perfect image of an individual, a perfect image of a product or a perfect image of a situation, with the idea that you the consumer will strive for and want that perfect image. You want to be that perfect individual, you want to have that perfect product and you want to be in that perfect situation.
Reality, however deals us a different hand. Reality is sometimes not perfect, it is sometimes imperfect, it does not quite meet the criteria for perfection. However sometimes also life can be more than perfect, when you don’t script things, when you don’t over plan, when you don’t have massive expectations then life can present a situation that is beyond perfect.
The point of me telling you this is that simply most media companies and most companies are lying to you and are creating false, unrealistic expectations. Further to this, it’s possible that the “Perfection” media is contributing to the increased frequency of mental health issues.
You are simply not given any realistic depiction of the world around you. And if you are force fed an unrealistic picture of the world around you then after while it’s not surprising that you start building an unrealistic picture of yourself.
The skateboarding industry and skateboard media are not only guilty of this but are more guilty than most. The whole of the skateboard industry is image dependent. Every brand has an image and every brand markets itself to a particular sub genre within the skateboard community, which in turn means that it carefully crafts a perfect image of that sub genre for the consumer to buy into.
The most rebellious thing for me to do as a skateboarder and a media producer is to produce media that presents a realistic depiction of the world around me. That’s why I have a strictly no editing rule, that’s why I ask questions of everyday skateboarders that are not pro or sponsored as well as the celebrity skateboarders. Within skateboarding the pro’s and sponsored skateboarders only make up a small proportion of the whole of the number of skateboarders, so if I only asked them questions then I am only getting a response from a very small percentage of actual skateboarders.
When I skateboard I don’t land every trick, I don’t have new perfect clothes on, I don’t have brand new shoes on, I don’t have a brand new 8.25” wide board with no riser pads, and I’m not doing this seasons tricks. Nor are many of the people around me, but that’s quite often what I see in magazines, on websites and on adverts.
I see my job as a media producer to reflect the reality of life within skateboarding. That’s what I do, I don’t edit the material because life is not edited, I speak to non celebrity skateboarders because that’s the reality of what I am presented with, I leave in slams and bails and people talking with all their coughs and weird bits because that’s the reality of the life around me.
I am here to portray real life as it is not an image that has been carefully created.
Real skateboarders, real questions, strictly no editing.
