The Unwritten Rule About Who Gets To Call Themselves A Skater

• Posted by Dez Fontaine Sat at 9:30 AM Filed in Personal #personal growth  #Authenticity  #community  #skateboarding culture  #gatekeeping  18 views
  click to rate

  I've been thinking about gatekeeping lately. Not the kind where old heads tell you your tricks don't count or your board setup is wack. I'm talking about something quieter and way more insidious. It's the gatekeeping we do to ourselves without even realizing it.

  Last week I'm at this spot downtown, right, and this kid rolls up on a cruiser. Like, genuinely just trying to cruise and vibe. Not trying to ollie down stairs or learn kickflips or compete for Instagram clout. Just rolling. And I watched like five different skaters give him that look. That subtle head-to-toe evaluation that says "are you actually one of us or are you just out here playing dress up?" Nobody said anything mean. That's not how it works anymore. But the energy was there, thick as humidity.

  Here's what got me though. I used to be that gatekeeper. I was the worst about it too. I remember being seventeen, probably the most insecure I've ever been about anything, and I'd clock somebody's grip tape or their shoes or the way they held their board and instantly decide if they were legitimate. Like I had some PhD in Skate Authenticity that nobody gave me. Like my worth depended on being able to tell the difference between a real skater and a tourist.

  The truth I'm sitting with now is that skateboarding has always been about freedom. Always. That's literally the whole point. You take this wooden plank with wheels and you get to decide what that means for you. Maybe you want to learn technical tricks. Maybe you want to hit gaps. Maybe you want to cruise to your girl's house. Maybe you just like the way it feels under your feet. Maybe you saw it on TikTok and thought it looked cool and you're still figuring it out. All of that is valid.

  But somewhere along the way we created this invisible hierarchy. And I think a lot of it comes from fear. Fear that if everyone gets to call themselves a skater, then what does it mean that I've been bleeding for this for ten years? Fear that the thing that made you special is gonna get diluted. Fear that the culture that saved you is gonna become just another trend that gets swallowed by the mainstream machine.

  I get it. I do. There's something about being part of something underground, something that requires real commitment and real sacrifice. There's something about shared pain that builds real community. When you've taken concrete to the face together, when you've scraped together rent money for boards and wheels, when you've found your people in a spot at three in the morning, that means something heavy.

  But here's the thing nobody wants to say out loud. That gatekeeping? It's actually the thing that kills the culture faster than anything else. It turns what should be an open door into a velvet rope. It makes it about status and credibility instead of passion and freedom. And suddenly you're looking at skateboarding the same way the mainstream looks at it, just inverted. You're still measuring worth. You're still determining who belongs.

  I'm not saying standards don't exist. Skill is real. Dedication is real. The difference between somebody who casually rides and somebody who's committed their life to progression, yeah, that's a real thing. But that difference doesn't make one person more of a skater than the other. They're just on different paths.

  The weirdest part about getting older in this is realizing that the best skate crews I've ever been part of weren't exclusive. They were inclusive. Yeah, everybody could push mongo or whatever. But what made them work was that everybody was genuinely stoked for everybody else. The kid learning to cruise, the girl landing her first kickflip, the veteran pushing boundaries nobody even knew existed. We all had our lane and we all mattered.

  So I'm calling myself out first. Next time I see somebody on a board who's clearly new, I'm gonna smile instead of assess. I'm gonna stoke them instead of judge them. Because skateboarding gave me my life and my people and my entire identity. And if I'm supposed to be grateful for that, I gotta be willing to share it.

  What does skateboarding actually mean to you when you strip away the credentials and the validation? Like, for real.