Hey, fuck you (doesn't that feel good?) | Simply Ranked
Plus: Emile Laurent, Momiji Nishiya, Jereme Rogers' liking spree, is this skateboarding? Vol. 32, and more.
The definitive weekly ranking and analysis of all the skateboarding and other things online that I cannot stop consuming and how it makes me feel, personally.
A force that refuses to be flattened
Rank: 1
Mood: 🌪️
There is a believable, almost obvious, argument to be made that the current mire of mainstream "content" or "entertainment" we find ourselves in is due to an institutionalized rejection of taste. When an algorithm divines the creative direction Netflix takes with its programming, gaining some vague notion of what audiences want by reading a series of data points, you end up with slop. Gruel. Movies and shows made in the image of whatever data scientists tell executives with no creative experience will keep people on the app the longest. Entertainment product that is enjoyable enough, not quite bad enough that we look away, or, for the more cynical, pablum we've since been conditioned to take in.
When Spotify is allowed to run roughshod over our listening habits, its algorithm is empowered to push whatever it wants into our ears, and, as New Yorker writer Kyle Chayka writes, makes finding what you want increasingly difficult. But you've formed a relationship with its service so you keep using it, despite its increasing "enshittification."
In Chayka's book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, he contends that we're losing our taste and even our ability to develop it, thanks to handing over the job of curation to machines (via Behavioral Scientist).
What we gain with algorithmic feeds in terms of availability — having instant access to a broad range of material to be scanned at will — we lose in connoisseurship, which requires depth and intention. It’s ultimately a form of deep appreciation, for what the artist has done as well as the capacities of our own tastes.
Has algorithmic curation affected the taste of skateboarders? I've gone on at length saying that it has, in a way. Or, more directly, social media has drastically altered our consumption habits, in turn changing the production and pace of skateboard media, and how we then consume that.
While social media's effect has been deleterious in many instances, skateboarding, for now, for some, retains its sense of self. There is, at the risk of being too flowery, a wonder that remains hard to extinguish. A "you know it when you see it" factor that draws people in. It's why something as simple as a Cyrus Bennett kickflip can floor you. This "wonder" and its absence is different for everyone. I had an almost visceral adverse reaction to the Dickie's full-length Honeymoon, finding it, in its execution, an uninspired slog. New Balance Numeric's Intervals, a video that is also incredibly polished and not terribly compelling as a creative project, I enjoyed. Not everyone felt the same. Both videos featured incredible skateboarding but, for the most part, lack that wonder. That joie de vivre that makes you want to skate.
You know it when you see it. You cannot ignore it. Especially when it's pushing rabid in an oversized tee and ill-fitting bottoms as if in homage to Justin Bieber circa. 2014, perhaps toward a launch ramp that inexplicably sends it — a ball of fuming, electric chaos — onto the hood of a car.
When you see Emile Laurent in Polar Skate Co.'s excellent new video, I Don't Even Know How To F****ing Airwalk, you know it. Whatever that wonder is, Laurent was cast in it. From being Portland's most wanted to the glowing core of the skateboarding world's attention for the last week, it's unmistakable. It also defies what many would define as "tasteful" — endless bonelesses, lipslide hand-shoves — and it doesn't matter. It's in his energy and approach. The fact that he is clearly and purely himself.
Since I Don't Even Know How To F****ing Airwalk debuted online, your respective algorithms have likely served you Laurent. If that influences the taste of the masses, that would be a good thing. The algorithms don't appear to have influenced Laurent, who resides on his own plane of existence. Cultivating taste is an individual experience. Taste is expressed in infinite ways. Momiji Nishiya's phenomenal adidas Skateboarding solo section, Momiji, uploaded on Tuesday, is a show of utter control.
Nishiya, an Olympic gold medalist, proves here to be one of street skateboarding's brightest stars. Everything in Momiji is clean and precise, almost in direct opposition to Laurent, but still thrilling, dynamic, and original. Can Nishiya physically lift her arms above her shoulders? We've yet to see proof of that.
It should be noted that much of what we feel about a skateboarder rests in the hands of a filmmaker (or photographer) with the eye and ability to make their subjects become more than participants on screen and instead have them come through it. In the editing suite, Pontus Alv, Sirus f Gahan, and Chris Mulhern do that better than most. They are, in their way, curators. Their tastes influence our own.
It's unlikely that even a dense, unfeeling mathematical equation can flatten a force like Laurent or Nishiya. But maybe, just maybe, despite itself, it can help give depth to the taste of those enthralled by them.
'Tis the season
Rank: 2024
Mood: 🗓️
At This Time of Year, it's difficult to avoid viewing new skateboarding media offerings through the lens of Skater of the Year. Within the bubble, it's become a matter of fact — because it is, in fact, a fact — that brands and skateboarders flood the zone from September to December with "content" in hopes of winning Thrasher's SOTY award.
As someone who writes a weekly newsletter about this sport, it does get a bit tiresome, this routine we've developed for ourselves. That doesn't mean I don't engage, obviously. If you're a regular Simple Magic reader, you'll know that I've been writing about potential SOTY contenders for the last quarter. It is fun to think and talk shit about — in moderation. What I came to realize after watching Didrik Galasso's Uneven video part, which debuted on Thrasher's website on Monday, is my excess because the first thought I had was whether or not this puts Deedz in the running.
I wasn't thinking about the absolutely bonkers slides and grinds on comically long and kinked and curving ledges that have been his forte across the four video parts he's released so far this year or marvelling at the feats of technical expression that he manages to pull out on unforgiving cobblestones.
Sure, that's a testament to how impressive Galasso's efforts are that my mind immediately questions whether he might be the year's "best," but it also feels reductive. To think that this is all due to his participation in some race with ill-defined rules and he isn't constantly cranking out exciting skateboarding because he wants to, or that it's simply his job and, for him, fun.
I mean, you don't make a Steve Olson in Fulfill the Dream reference unless you're having a good time, right?
Didrik Galasso in Uneven (2024) and Steve Olson in Fulfill the Dream (1998).
Or, more importantly, perhaps none of this matters, and we whip ourselves into a froth thinking it does. After all, it's just people skateboarding and some other people deciding who they like best and that person getting a marketing boost. And, most importantly, is there anything else interesting to say about Skater of the Year?
Who knows. Perhaps once Thrasher announces the winner next week or the week after. In those intervening days, as more videos get released and more skateboarders stake their claim, it'll become harder and harder to ignore. So maybe it's worth giving in to the dull pulsing between my ears now. Allow it to take over as the drumbeat repeats over and over again: Deedz. Deedz. Deedz. SOTY. Deedz. Deedz. SOTY. Deedz. SOTY.
Jereme Rogers' search for like
Rank: 4
Mood: ❤️
Have you, dear reader, probable skateboarder, and likely human with an Instagram account, received any surprising engagement online in recent months? This is a leading question because of course you have. Or you haven't. The camps are distinct, but the former grows every day.
At first, the anecdotes were fun curiosities. Why is former professional skateboarder and current musician(?), Jereme Rogers, "liking" stranger's Instagram Stories? And not in the usual way you like a stranger's Instagram Story; that stranger a notable person you follow or someone who has shared a post that comes across your feed that you find enjoyable so you like it. It's only natural.
Unnatural is Rogers' liking spree. J. Casanova is pressing the heart icon on Instagram posts from complete and utter unknowns (to him). People he does not follow, some who don't even post about skateboarding. On Tuesday, a friend who primarily shares his street photography DM'd me a photo of Rogers liking his Story reshare.
That led me to put out a call on Bluesky to see how many others had experienced the same thing. A number of people reported back that they had, which was surprising considering the small reach of my profile on the fledgling platform. One poster said that Rogers had liked several of his posts. Another said that Rogers liked "...a picture of me in Lakais with my neighbors dog."
What's going on here is not a mystery. It's doubtful that Rogers is scouring all of these disparate, unrelated accounts himself. That means he's probably using an automated service that promises to grow your follower count by interacting with others. This is an old-school engagement hack as far as social media goes. There are countless apps you can purchase that promise to inflate your numbers, and this is how they do it: betting your likes will convince others to look at your account and follow.
What is unclear is why Rogers is doing this at all. He has 70k followers already. Does he need more that badly? Well, yes, because that's what the social platforms train us to want. More is always better. And, in a world where our relevance and import are often tied to the data points affixed to the top of our profiles, what else is there to want? That's all there is. It can lead those desperate enough to game and change their standing, which makes one wonder how many of Rogers' 70k followers are real, farmed, or bots.
I reached out to Rogers over Instagram to confirm whether he or an app was behind all of the likes. I've yet to hear — or get followed — back.
Is this skateboarding? Vol. 32
Rank: 1
Mood: 👣
I ask because much in the same way that a burble of anticipation forms and sits in the centre of my being after spending money I earned by the sweat of my typing fingers on skateboarding-related hard or softgoods that I will then use in the act of skateboarding, I felt a similar burble form and sit after buying a new pair of toenail clippers. Now, clearly, there is a big difference between skateboarding and clipping one's toenails. Those differences are numerous. They abound.
For one, you don't go out to a designated spot to clip your toenails with your friends. You also don't need to put on a particular outfit to clip, which, for the discerning skater, you do when you get clips. And why would you need a 'fit? Trimming your toenails is something you don't want anyone outside your household to see you doing. We've determined it to be an unseemly act — the removal and discarding of bodily excess. A thing to be done in private.
The number of similarities, however, might surprise you. They both, in most cases, involve feet. You can get hurt doing both — have you ever had an accidental wedge of flesh caught in the maw of the clippers? That's a slam. While there are, at least to my knowledge, no professional toenail clippers, there are a lot of unique — or one could say, signature style — clippers. Just look at this thing:
On top of that, there is a whole universe of clipping videos with a dedicated fanbase who follow them. Those people are into them for, uh, different reasons, but, c'mon, it still counts.
So?
VERDICT: Mmm, this is a bit of a stretch.
Hey, fuck you (doesn't that feel good?)
Rank: ...
Mood: 🖕
When attempting to look into the future, that distant, bright, and beating thing is obscured by the present. Swirling environmental crises, dead-end technological trends, feckless and cruel administrations, endless and unblinking slaughter — sunblots. It is difficult to see through or past them, especially when they seem like the only endgame those with power want in their dead-eyed pursuit of profit and cultural revanchism.
We should still have hope and crane our necks to look toward what could be, however ignorant that seems in this present moment. There's no other choice. To that end, we should also take every chance to shit on the people who actively make this place worse.
While minuscule in comparison to the many plights of this world, the doofuses behind Spines — a company that claims to use "AI to proofread, produce, publish and distribute books" — deserve to get shat upon. Spines, by all accounts, is another soulless, humanity and worker-phobic venture meant to "disrupt" an industry. That industry being publishing, and by "disrupting," it's not clear that they know what that means, as an article in The Bookseller details.
Spines recently secured $16m in seed funding and claims to have so far published 273 titles in September 2024, 33 of which were published on the same day. “We want to publish up to 8,000 books next year. The goal is to help a million authors publish their books,” Yehuda Niv, c.e.o and co-founder of Spines told The Bookseller.
Niv said he realised “three years ago that the publishing industry was about to be disrupted by this emerging technology named AI”. At the time, he ran a hybrid publisher and publishing services business in Israel called Niv Books. “I realised I had two options: either to be made irrelevant by AI, or to lead this opportunity in the world,” he said.
"This emerging technology named AI," says Niv, like someone who doesn't know what AI is. Their service is simple. All you have to do is pay Spines — which, according to Niv's LinkedIn page, used to be called BooxAI, lol — upwards of $5,000, and they'll proof, print, and, one assumes, distribute your book in just three weeks. It's unclear who will be buying or stocking those books or what the "AI" actually does besides being used as a limp buzzword. It's all pretty depressing, especially when you consider their disdain for the livelihoods of the people their "tech" would affect, not even managing to address the issue directly when asked by The Bookseller.
When challenged over the potential negative impact automated AI processes might have on the livelihoods of proofreaders, book designers, translators, editors and other professionals in the book trade, he said: “We are not here to replace human creativity. We focus on books that are written by humans who are looking for the most efficient and up-to-date way to get their manuscript published and distributed worldwide.”
The bright spot is that it's doomed to fail. There are already self-publishing services out there for those who wish to pursue it. Flooding the market with books that'll wind up as chum on Amazon may work for a time, but there are already companies doing the same thing with completely AI-generated trash. The only thing these dinguses are doing differently is making a big show out of how callously they plan to profit off of people's dreams of being published authors.
Just look at these jagoffs.
Even at literal face value, they have no juice. You're safe to assume their assets are tied up in shitcoins. They're just grifting interlopers in an industry they don't understand or respect. The only evidence I can find of any of them dabbling in writing, you know, the thing they're trying to convince people that know and care about, is a self-published children's book called Doctor Puncture by Niv Ovdat, Spine's COO. His author bio on the Amazon listing reads:
Niv Ovdat is the VP of Niv Book Publishers and an IDF Veteran. He additionally illustrated and written two children's books on his own. In his new book he shows his respect to auto mechanics through the eyes his a little boy Shahar.
Riveting. And, yes, all of Spines' founders served in Israel's genocidal military. Fuck these guys. Anyhoo, I'm done. It feels good to let it out sometimes, you know? Support your local bookshop.
Something to consider:
Patrick Fealey
Good thing: Joe Allen is back with his latest excellent video, Safety Net. It's got a whole wack of pals in it, and Farran Golding put together a zine in tandem that you can preview and pick up here.
Another good thing: Danny Empey is back in the alleys.
That's right!! Another good thing:
Justin
A good pod round-up:
Justin
A Jungian thing: 'sletter friend Paul O'Connor on "The Application of Carl Jung’s Thinking to Action Sports: A Skateboarding Case Study."
Until next week… the weather has turned. Crisp, cold. The wind cuts instead of soothes. Still, when the sun breaks through and the leaves crunch underfoot, there's a magic to it. Autumn is someone who takes a while to know, but once you do, their warmth is unmatched.
Laser Quit Smoking Massage
NEWEST PRESS
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My new collection of essays is available now. I think you might like it. The Edmonton Journal thinks it's a "local book set to make a mark in 2024." The CBC called it "quirky yet insightful." lol.
Book cover by Hiller Goodspeed.
Right, Down + Circle
ECW PRESS
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I wrote a book about the history and cultural impact of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that you can find at your local bookshop or order online now. I think you might like this one, too.
Here’s what Michael Christie, Giller Prize-nominated author of the novels Greenwood and If I Fall, If I Die, had to say about the thing.
“With incisive and heartfelt writing, Cole Nowicki unlocks the source code of the massively influential cultural phenomenon that is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and finds wonderful Easter-eggs of meaning within. Even non-skaters will be wowed by this examination of youth, community, risk, and authenticity and gain a new appreciation of skateboarding’s massive influence upon our larger culture. This is my new favorite book about skateboarding, which isn’t really about skateboarding — it’s about everything.”
Photo via The Palomino.
