The endless grind of history | Simply Ranked

Plus: Bloody pros, Red Bull rents out an airport, bliss of the flipless and more.

Cole Nowicki

May 13, 2022 — 5 min read

`The definitive weekly ranking and analysis of all the skateboarding and other online things that I cannot stop consuming and how they make me feel, personally.`

The endless grind of history

Rank: 1 AD
Mood: 🗿

Sometimes, when I find myself in a Value Village, making my way item by item through endless racks of second-hand clothing, I’ll come across a relic from a different era. An RDS logo tee, faded Matix cords, or a pair of puffy DCs teleported from your local skatepark circa 2003. We often overlook the historical value of these pieces, so they sit for an untold number of years, collecting dust and uncurious fingerprints. But occasionally, something will catch your eye that makes you look a little closer, question its authenticity, and wonder how it got there and who is responsible. An encounter that leaves you in a state of uncertainty as to whether what you hold in your hands is a hack forgery or a priceless artifact.

The bliss of the flipless

Rank: 1
Mood: 😌

It’s only natural; let it flow from your person freely. Don’t feel like you have to put on airs (or flips); sometimes, the simplest answer is the correct one, like Occam’s razor. But, please, be careful around razors of any sort when in the vicinity of Alexis Ramirez’s shoulder-length locks. Just look at how they bounce when he pops that flat ground nollie. Unburdened by the demand of technical flip tricks to fill the flat spaces between maneuvers in his line, his hair seems to have more volume, and an increased liveliness that we can assume extends through the rest of the self once the stress of a nollie tre or hardflip is removed. This five-second clip is a vision of a more welcoming future for us all.

Concussive pro

Rank: 2
Mood: 🤕🎉

Last weekend, at the Stockholm premiere of the much anticipated Sour Solution III, both Martin Sandberg and Vincent Huhta received their passes to the professional ranks, which came raining down from above. Huhta’s pro model striking him in the head, causing him to bleed profusely from somewhere above the hairline. What followed appeared to be a smeared and bloody celebration of years of hard work and dedication to a craft that will routinely leave you in bloody smears—a fitting image if there ever was one.

It’s also reminiscent of the pained excitement we’re all collectively sitting in as we wait for Sour Solution III to be released online. A video that will likely be a smack to our collective conscious, leaving us all smiling and in a daze.

Check your baggage; their paper trail

Rank: 3
Mood: 🛫 🛬

For the second year in a row, Red Bull has rented out New Orleans, Lousiana’s disused Louis Armstrong Airport for an event dubbed “Terminal Takeover.” The premise is simple enough; different sections of MSY are outfitted with various types of skateboarding obstacles, and a handful of regionally specific teams of skaters are invited to the airport to film an edit, which will eventually be voted on online. The winning crew then receives $5,000 in support of their local shop or organization of choice (a somewhat paltry number for the amount of money that has assumedly gone into producing this event).

The main refrains throughout the various videos and promotions for the event are that skating freely through the airport feels like you’re in a video game, specifically Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3, where there is, in fact, an airport level. This thread is pulled tightly through 2022’s edition of Terminal Takeover, with stations set up in MSY where invitees could play THPS, and Kareem Campbell, THPS original, was even invited along. And while it might feel like being in a video game, Terminal Takeover also feels like something else.

Which is fine. Just because an idea isn’t original doesn’t mean it can’t be good. I’m sure it was a blast to be flown in for the event and skate through the vast concourse, all expenses paid. So kudos to the energy drink behemoth for that. But it does beg the question, how are their coffers so deep? Do people really drink that much Red Bull? Seriously. It’s safe to say someone’s always doing a Jägerbomb somewhere, but the only people I regularly see gulping back a can are the ones who are paid to do so. So with purely anecdotal evidence and wild, irresponsible speculation, I’d say it all feels a bit fishy. Where does the money to rent out the top of Jamie Foy’s head really come from?

Where a trick goes to ______

Rank: 5
Mood: 🤔

This is where we are now. A world, a place in time, where a trick as impossibly technical as Löffelberger’s is not only possible but relegated to debut in the weekly churn and waning days of an online content mill. Is this a move Löffelberger will eventually do in the streets, or is it stricken from the trick list now that tens of thousands have seen it across various social channels, its impact diminished? Perhaps it’ll find its place as a button on a quick throwaway line, one that I hope, for Löffelberger’s sake, is mercifully preceded by a quick flatground nollie.