Doubles: the state of skate videos

Oh, the skate video. A central pillar of skateboarding culture for nearly a half-century. Over those decades, a lot has changed. From the skaters to the cameras to where a video is published and what their purpose serves — we’re a far cry from The Bones Brigade Video Show. In this inaugural edition of "Doubles," Andrew Murrell and Cole Nowicki look back at 2024’s slate of releases and do a temperature check on the medium as we creep into 2025.

AT THE WHIM OF THE ALGORITHM

ANDREW: A friend of a friend heard from however many connections are enough to avoid suspicion that a prominent brand (that 100% knows better, mind you) directed staff filmers “to always open video[s] with the best trick we have” in an attempt to capture the viewer’s attention. I guess it’s not enough that we’ve been primed to see every video’s highlight reel on Instagram minutes after the video goes live; now we have to actively flip the script on forty years of filmmaking because brands can’t afford some stupid fuck on YouTube losing interest and closing the video if they aren’t properly stimulated within ten seconds of clicking a link.

We’ve actually seen a loose version of this tactic at play recently, and while Brandon Westgate’s roof-to-roof ollie was a shocking start to his Intervals part when you first watch it, I can’t really think of a compelling long-term argument to open his Intervals part with that ollie, rather than end the part with it. 

Four years ago, I wrote about how the YouTube algorithm impacts the videos you’re served and what you watch. A proper follow-up that dives into Instagram and TikTok’s impact on the media landscape is in order, but the general consensus was to make the video you want, not the video you think will please the algorithm. Maybe this is an inevitable development, as brands have to carve space for themselves in an increasingly cluttered board brand landscape and battle dwindling attention spans.

COLE: While in Nanaimo, BC, a couple of months back, I happened to meet one of the daughters of the late philosopher and communication theorist Marshall McLuhan. You know, “the medium is the message” guy. She was just hanging out at a bookshop.

Her dad died some 45 years ago, but he’d probably be nodding along with all of the above if he was still around and, for whatever reason, a big Westgate head. The medium — the social platforms that skateboarding now primarily lives on — have irrevocably changed how we consume things and the things we consume. Skateboarding is no different. Social media has this icky stultifying effect, where various mercurial engagement metrics determine the “success” of “content” and not the artistic merit of a project itself. That eventually leads to a flattening of creativity and purpose — are we making things to please ourselves and each other or the algorithms that bind us?

I wonder what McLuhan would think of Mr. Beast. Or Netflix pouring untold millions into the production of “second screen” programming, which is designed to be half-watched while you’re on your phone or doing laundry. Those have got to be some pale horses for us as a culture — a horrifyingly boring endgame.

Maybe I’m being dramatic. However, TikTok game theory and other engagement metric hokum already influence major television and film productions, so why wouldn’t a skateboarding brand act in a similar way? What I always come back to with this stuff is whether it even works. And what does “work” mean as a brand with a bottom line? If you have higher view counts are more kids buying your boards or shoes? More people seeing something doesn’t make it good or inspiring. It just means they’ve seen it.

ANDREW: Have you read Kyle Chayka’s Filterworld yet? Sounds like it’s right up your alley. He argues that social media flattens culture because the algorithms we interact with serve us “median” forms of content while actively overlooking more challenging songs, pictures, posts, etc. This pushes creators towards that median and encourages passive consumption on our part. Ultimately, human curation is still the only thing that can look beyond the surface-level details algorithms recognize (“You like fast-paced indie rock songs from the 2000s”) and make deeper connections based on taste, historical context, methodology, and more (“No, I like songs from skate videos I watched when I was 14”).

Let’s apply this to skateboarding: An algorithm doesn’t understand you gravitate towards skaters with a mean back tail, it won’t know the nuances of spot selection, it doesn’t know the difference between goofy vs regular, and it definitely won’t serve you skaters who do that crazy pre-trick backwards shoulder thing Simon Zuzic does. We still rely on tastemakers for that. (I give anyone who skates for Pass~Port or Hoddle the benefit of the doubt.) The Instagram algorithm is more likely to send you to the Boonies than show you something sick. 

I’d like to think that skateboarding knows better than to feed into this system, but of course we don’t. At the same time, it makes me think of other, more subtle ways technology has impacted the way we absorb and archive skateboarding—DVD re-edits and bonus parts, straight-to-the-web tour videos, rough cuts and b-sides, fan-made Instagram compilations. Lots of this feels like people fiddling with the medium just to fiddle with it, though. I doubt Ty Evans thought more establishing shots in Fully Flared was a viable way to increase Lakai’s market share (but Bill Strobeck definitely made a point to pan over the box logo whenever possible). 

I guess the question boils down to: does opening your video with the banger trick encourage active human connection with a skate video, or is it just a cheap way to farm engagement? I think the former means the tactic is working; the latter means it’s not. (As I type all of this out, I realized several videos I really enjoyed have done this effectively, as well. Opening with the most anticipated trick is a good way to circumvent expectations… but is that a business decision?)

COLE: It’s a real blue dress, gold dress situation. As someone whose day job is in marketing and who in the past has done “social media” for various companies in different industries, I can say that, at least in my own experience, the goal is always conversion, i.e. turning the viewer into a customer. Engagement is what the company hangs its hat on when it doesn’t have the financial win — proof that at least the dragnet was wide and the “brand” was “seen.” Active human connection means more to us as thinking, feeling beings, but is ultimately just the other side of the same coin to a business.

If readers haven’t realized by now, I’m clearly pretty jaded on this subject. I get that, in practice, it’s all just people trying to make a better buck, myself included at times, which is probably why I’m like this. Because if engagement hacking is the reason we wind up with Braden Hoban’s ender in Catalyst getting spoiled in the video thumbnail, then bruh, what are we doing here? 

To be fair, though, I don’t have any better ideas for convincing people to buy a Plan B board either.

ANDREW: Not our problem to fix… but board brands should start putting free DVDs back into the shrinkwrap. Couldn’t hurt.

SOTY SEASON FATIGUE

ANDREW: As loath as I am to bring it up, we have to talk about the way Skater of the Year impacts video releases/pacing. In the years since Jake Phelps’ passing, the average SOTY campaign calcified into a fairly standard formula: the video part at the end of the year, two or three auxiliary parts sprinkled throughout the year, a Thrasher cover, and some random bits of coverage that get people talking (a "Cold Call," a viral Instagram post, a pro shoe, et al). There are variations on a theme, but very few people have won without these basic tenets/factors.

Jamie Foy — a skateboarder of admirable talents who I really have nothing against — or should we say his sponsors, pushed it to the extreme this year and asked: what if instead of the video part, we just made all three video parts the video part? This strategy might have backfired. After a “Cold Call,” a Spitfire part, the last part of Honeymoon, a Thrasher cover, an “Out There,” and the last part of Intervals, fatigue set in and a lot of people in my bubble reached a point where they said “Jesus Christ, dude, we fucking get it.” 

I don’t think this is necessarily an issue with quantity as it is with overexposure. I loved Tom Knox’s parts last year and everything Joe Campos did this year, but those felt like skate videos, not content. 

Is there space to slow down in 2025 and beyond? Is there an acceptable amount of footage to release before skaters start diluting their own output? Do I just need to click on less videos?

While we’re at it, is there enough collective memory for a magnum opus? Like Jamie, Braden Hoban dropped three heavy parts this year, and sure, there’s some variation between them, but nothing he’s done feels like the definitive part. As longer parts more frequently become the norm, does the concept of a magnum opus disappear? Do skaters still strive for a definitive part? People clowned on Mark Suciu’s statement wall, but five years on we still vividly remember almost everything about Verso. Just sayin’.

COLE: It is a funny gripe on its face, but there is a lot of skateboarding content out there. It’s nearly impossible to keep up. That’s both a function of skateboarding being a pastime and profession that encourages the constant documentation of oneself doing and sharing it, skateboarding itself growing and so many more people documenting themselves and sharing it, and our consumption habits changing so drastically since the advent of social media, as we touched on above. We’ve taught ourselves that more is best.  

That’s why when SOTY season descends upon us in the midst of our base-level content deluge, it can feel almost suffocating. While it is awesome to see the best skateboarding done by the best skateboarders at such a rapid clip, it probably wouldn’t hurt to slow down on those clips, you know? Or, as you’re saying, save ‘em up or deploy them with more care. I loved Leo Romero’s SKATER part from 2023. That came out in February and I still had it top of mind come December.

When it comes to something like Skater of the Year, of course, the skateboarding on display is top-level, but here too, we’ve essentially established that more is best. There are now years of brand marketing strategies built around that established idea. How do you change something like that? You alter the reward structure.

Show skaters and their sponsors that there are other ways to be. To do that, Thrasher should give SOTY to a complete wildcard. Someone who hasn’t put out a zillion video parts or is even that good at skateboarding. A person with a rocket kickflip who would disintegrate if they ollied down ten or more stairs. For the sake of skateboarding’s future, Thrasher should give SOTY to me.

ANDREW: I’ll admit this is probably on me. I shouldn’t knowingly click on a lifestyle piece and then complain we’re being inundated with lifestyle pieces. They could stand to be a little less transparent, though, especially given their role in the final quarter. Let’s push the powers that be to vary with the timing and formatting of these pieces in the latter half of the decade – I love the little voiceover clips Thrasher’s been posting on Instagram, and I’m surprised no one’s really cracked the secret to good live content. 

I don’t remember any specific clips from Leo Romero’s SKATER part (not quite my bag), but I remember it well enough to know exactly what you’re referring to, which I’d call a win for Leo and Emerica. For a while, I filled a playlist with every web part I anticipated watching more than once, but I lost the habit of updating it during the pandemic. I should get back into it, because more and more videos are disappearing from the internet – for example, Mason Silva’s 2020 Nike part is unlisted. 

Going forward, I think actively campaigning for SOTY should be a disqualifying factor. The award should go to a skater who just happens to be on a once-in-a-lifetime run they’ll never match, like T-Funk in 2022 or John Shanahan in 2023. But more importantly: you’re in your thirties and you max out at ten stairs?! Jesus, dude, what’s your secret?

COLE: That’s a necessary callout. Thank you. I would implode Scanners-style going off of a five. 

SURPRISE SURPRISE

ANDREW: When was the last time a big-name skate video part really surprised you? Not the contents of the video, just the fact that the video itself exists out of nowhere: no hype, no interviews, no premiere tour, just a thumbnail in your YouTube feed.

In November, Polar’s I Don’t Even Know How To F***ing Airwalk went from an Instagram flyer to mandatory viewing in seven-ish days and became the biggest surprise video since John Wilson unceremoniously dumped John’s Vid onto YouTube a random Thursday morning. Polar’s release strategy benefits from the stark contrast to months of hype leading up to Intervals (as well as the fact that Polar just released a video in May). I Don’t Even Know How To F***king Airwalk marks the brand’s return to form: intricate, a little chaotic, and much more than you’d expect from something announced a week prior. Emile’s after-credits Burnside part was the highlight of the video and made me feel things I haven’t felt since Nick Boserio’s after-credits line in We Blew It At Some Point six years prior (interesting, because it’s the only section in the video Pontus didn’t mine for nostalgia).

At one point, the internet was surprising — Thrasher dropped game-changing video parts unceremoniously at three in the morning, skaters came up almost strictly from social media, watching team changes in real time — but the content cycle is so transparent now that I can pick up a copy of Thrasher and predict everything coming down the pipeline in the upcoming eight weeks, just based on who’s featured. I feel like there’s less room for surprises now.

Truthfully, I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but just pointing out that most of my favourite skate videos have some sort of experiential component and I think that’s really lacking nowadays. I know I’ll never recreate the feeling of getting juiced on a video as a teenager, but I feel like a surprise release is a good way to make a video stick in your mind.

COLE: I’m of a different mind here. I want skateboarding videos to have longer hype cycles. One of the things that I think makes all of this video content hard to hold on to is that it’s announced and released with such little pomp or circumstance. I’m generally not the biggest fan of highly polished productions like Intervals, but the couple of months they spent hyping the project did have the intended effect on me. It added a certain sense of anticipation that is almost a throwback to print media’s heyday when a video was promoted for months or years in advance. Tease us with tricks and storylines. Give us a reason to care. 

ANDREW: Well, the Intervals hype cycle clearly had the opposite effect on me, but now you’ve got me thinking about BAKER HAS A DEATHWISH PART 2!!!. Andrew Reynolds announced the video on Instagram in January 2022, two full years before it dropped. There was hype, but it wasn’t a three-month wildfire – more of a controlled burn. I don’t think BAKER HAS A DEATHWISH PART 2!!! hit the highs I anticipated (my favourite thing about the original is that everyone had at least a minute of footage) but it’s still a good video that I’ve returned to several times over the last year.

What’s the difference between Intervals and BAKER HAS A DEATHWISH PART 2!!!.? Both brands have solid identities, both produce products and videos I like, both released other videos while working on their respective blockbusters. If I had to choose, I’d say Baker let people get excited for BAKER HAS A DEATHWISH PART 2!!! on their own terms. The hype around the video relied a lot more on word-of-mouth until Elissa’s Thrasher cover dropped a week or two before the video premiered (and I loved Baker’s full-mag takeover). On the other hand, Thrasher went all in on New Balance for several issues in a row, rather than a single full-mag takeover, and despite all the amazing skateboarding, I felt a little smothered.

COLE: You’re right, though; the surprise can be a good marketing ploy. When Elijah Berle’s former rival, Austyn Gillette, showed up in his Fucking Awesome video part, that was a fun moment. But the Beyoncé-style surprise drop only works if you have something special like Polar’s I Don’t Even Know How To F****ing Airwalk. Most things won’t be special like that, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be treated as such. Those skaters and filmers and editors bust their asses. If they’ve got the budget, those companies should market them just as hard.

ANDREW: Good call! I didn’t love everything about the New Balance video but I really appreciate that it was the JAMIE, TIAGO, and WESTGATE show. Setting aside my personal expectations and the business side of everything, those guys deserve the shine, as does everyone else who puts the time and energy into a project like this, 

At the same time: does a surprise drop make a good video more special? BAKER VIDEO WITH, ANDREW, ZACH, and ROWAN is already a good video, but does the memory of waking up to a new Andrew Reynolds part with no expectations make it even better?

GOOD FUTURES

COLE: Alright, we've waded through some doom and gloom, speculated, postulated, and executed some expert whinging. Let's leave off on the stuff we're stoked on. What is the contemporary skate video doing that we like?

I don’t think this is new by any means, but lately, I’ve been really appreciating a video that isn’t afraid to get a little saccharine and foreground what is truly special about skateboarding and skate videos: they’re the perfect excuse to spend time with your friends. It’s tricky to put a finger on what the exact “technique” is that achieves that, but you know it when you experience it, like a home-cooked meal or a postcard from a pal. I’m a homer for my local scene, so stuff like Angelo Fajardo’s take me with you and he and Shari White’s Antisocial Summer stand out to me in that regard. Jeff Cecere’s Triple or Nothing is a beautiful piece of work, too.

Those are the types of projects that pull me in and make me feel something. It’s also why stuff like Dickie’s Honeymoon can feel somewhat soulless — to the viewer, or at least me, it comes off more as a contractual obligation than something made with love. 

ANDREW: I think good music is key to cultivating that saccharine mood. I loved Dustin Henry’s song in the new Antisocial video, and Jeff Cecere has great music taste, as well. The Max Mafucci tribute in Triple or Nothing made me tear up; you can really feel the love that crew has for one another in all his videos. 

I got a lot of mileage out of Daniel Wheatley’s _SOUL_CRUSHER_ this year. I tend to gravitate towards work that feels cohesive, and every creative liberty Wheatley took with SOUL CRUSHER — the cast, the spots, the soundtrack, the titles, the VFX — is a very intentional step towards his specific vision. A great contrast to the relentless and somewhat personality-free Quickstrike that premiered days before.

Brendon Hupp’s Read the Room is another independent video that stood out in 2024. Never mind that I’m a sucker for anything San Francisco; while everyone’s clamouring for the spotlight and building their Instagram following, Kinser Martinson quietly released two minutes of near-perfect footage. He has no Instagram; he has no board sponsor; he has no clips logged on Skatefol.io; I didn’t even know his name until this part dropped. I want to know more about him but he’s still an enigma, and I’m forced to savour his part. It’s refreshing.