A Portrait Of The Skater As A Young Brand
William Strobeck’s Cherry, now a year old, has been discussed in the skateboard world ad nauseum, the consensus being that it was a big deal. The video felt like a response to skateboarding’s endlessly complicated relationship with the demands of an “industry.” It offered a new model of branding that focused on the individual instead of a larger, more profitable, entity. The irony, of course, is that the video was for Supreme, perhaps the biggest entity within and outside of skateboarding. Still, Cherry managed to tap into something that resonates with that key block of ‘young’ consumers. By presenting Supreme’s riders in what Complex describes as “raw form” (lol), Cherry displays these skaters the same way we see ourselves — as brands.
Skateboarding’s relationship to brands is less confrontational than its disregard for property would suggest. In fact, brands are what define skateboarding, the objects themselves act as a pieces of promotional material. Tension only arises when a brand’s benevolence comes into question. See: Consolidated’s ‘Don’t Do It’ campaign.
What makes Cherry and the subsequent boom in attention paid to ‘indie’ skate companies interesting is that it happened despite big brands — including Supreme. In their sort-of review of the Vans video Propeller, Quartersnacks summed up the current state of big-box brands across industries.
Watching a big company skate video in 2015 is like watching a championship game between two teams you have no emotional attachment to. Everything built up to that moment, everyone’s been waiting a long time to see the result, the people involved are the best at what they do, but it’s impossible to go all in on. That’s why most verbal reviews of skate videos are prefaced with “The skating is obviously good…” At a certain age, there’s no point in re-watching any new video that doesn’t have your friends in it — or skaters that remind you of your friends.
In other words, big brands aren’t dead, they’re just irrelevant. What matters now are the individuals themselves. People we can identify with. Its the logical next step in our relationship with The Internet — specifically the commodified Internet where companies like Taco Bell force themselves into our conversations with paid reach like a ‘cool dad’ trying to hang out with his son’s friends by letting them party at his house. Our gradual disengagement makes sense to everyone but the brands still tweeting “fleek.” Skateboarding is probably a few years ahead of the mainstream — as it tends to be — on this front, but there are a few instructive examples of what’s to come if we look closely.
Eli Reed’s collection for Opening Ceremony looks like the uniform for the kids in Cherry — and most skaters with active Tumblr accounts for that matter. It also occupies this space between an independent company (Eli’s brand is literally just his name) and a major fashion retailer. People buying Reed’s collection aren’t doing so because of any immediate brand recognition — there are no logos stitched into the butts of these pants. Instead they’re buying from a skate legend whose style they identify with.
Even skaters who exist far from legend status are making it work. Babyscumbag, a YouTube skate rat named Steven Fernandez, is an annoying kid who is as good at skating as any California high-schooler. He’s also something of a mogul. His YouTube channel has more than a half million subscribers, and he was even featured in a PBS documentary where he described at length how he uses social media to make money.
Right now there’s an entire industry built around skaters just starting. Young kids who’d rather watch other young kids learn how to skate than watch middle-aged men perfect it buy things like rubber practice wheels, decks, stickers and clothes from these companies that exist exclusively online. In this Jenkem article about Youtube pros, we meet Joe Katz, a guy who has learned to skate quite literally in front of an audience. Despite wearing a helmet and looking like a children’s show host, the guy racks up Youtube views and sells his product on his own personal site. Skateboarding was never just for ‘cool kids’ anyway.
It’s all part of something bigger. Skaters across the board are quickly taking every part of the industry and doing it for themselves. Jim Greco makes skateboards and advertises them on Instagram. Alex Olson is on to something with Bianca Chandon and the adamantly independent company Mother Collective sold out like every shop in America. Right now in skateboarding, the fight against capitalism is already in its final round and “the people” are winning. We’re not getting rid of Red Bull and Nike altogether, but we’re not allowing ourselves to be enslaved by them either.
Sean Pablo — every girl’s favorite skater in Cherry — offers the best example of what we can expect from young people as they slowly realize that they don’t need any of the brands targeting them. His clothing line, available online under various URLs, lets kids who love everything he represents — the ones who tell him he’s their idol on Tumblr — buy the shit that he comes up with. No Supreme, no Converse, just Sean Pablo. He’d be silly to sever ties with any of the profitable brands he’s associated with, sure, but he’d be even sillier if he didn’t realize how much value he has separate from those entities. This goes for all of the Cherry kids who, a year later, each have their own brands in one form or another. They’ve realized what we’re all slowly coming to understand: the only people that actually matter are us.
