AN INTERVIEW WITH FUSILLI GRIND

DISSECTING 2026'S VIDEOS, TRENDS & TROPES WITH THE FUSILLIONAIRE

If you aren’t subscribed to the FUSILLI GRIND YouTube channel you’re blowing it, especially if you skate tastes lean towards the esoteric. Through long-form video and active livestreams, the Fusilliverse offers not only valuable criticism, analysis, and entertainment, but his work fills an important void in the skateboarding media diet.

Fusilli Grind is an A-list Tier List maker, often accompanied by other enthusiastic enjoyers and chatters who can riff on music, aesthetics, nuance, trick selection, spots, and more. Topics include vintage tees with Brad Cromer, ranking tall skaters, skateboarding’s most famous watches, and, unlike other take-havers, Fusilli’s upfront about what isn’t in his wheelhouse.

That’s rare in this age of skateboard-explaining, slopboard content, and clipbait. (You know, Clipbait—those accounts where someone constantly posts old skate clips they didn’t film and proceeds to get everything wrong… then gets mad about the comments and shit). Mr. Grind doesn’t do that. Thank God.

Six-plus months into 2026, the Fusillionaire and I chopped it up for almost two hours. Below is our edited conversation and thank you to Fusilli for kindly speaking with me for almost two hours.

ARTLESS: Why do you think there’s so little real criticism or analysis of skateboarding out there—compared to, say, film or music criticism?

FUSILLI GRIND: I think it’s partly because more people are doing skateboarding than have time to sit around and talk about it or maybe that kind of skateboarding just doesn’t invite discourse as much. Obviously everybody sits on the sesh with the homies and talks about what’s sick and what’s not, but not too many people are doing real commentary on it, and the few who are tend to lean more and opp… mainstream vibe. Also, in the modern internet world, controversy sells, right? The reason I do this isn’t to make money—I have a regular job—it’s just like me talking with the homies on the sesh, extended into cyberspace.

In the wake of the COVID-19 “skate-boom, there’s been an ongoing conversation about “what’s wrong with skateboarding?” Everyone has their doomer theory, blah blah. But I feel like you can’t improve on what you’re complaining about–regardless of what that is–without being critical of it. And by that I mean, using criticism and critique to make a thing better, not in the stupid-ass way Pitchfork applies a “number” to music.

That’s why critics are still a thing and that’s why they’re valued. If there’s not a vocal critic, there’s the act of breaking off and creating your own thing–a squad, a brand–is criticism. You can go back to (Steve) Rocco going at Powell Peralta with that Blind ad. That was critical. We’re so inundated with media that there’s a desire for discourse—anything, any topic. The airwaves are polluted. But there aren’t that many voices in what people would call “the core skating world.”

Even with that deluge of content, the avenues feel fairly limited—the back pages of Thrasher… YouTube videos, your Instagram. What I mean is that there isn’t a resource in skating like The New Yorker’s movie reviews or Artforum where you go, “OK, this came out, this happened, and here is an informed take on it that I may or may not agree with.” Instead, we just go to a source knowing what the take is going to be before we hear it.

We’re finally getting to a point where people are pushing against it where people are starting to “touch grass” and read books. I was on stream recently and we started talking about literature. For the longest time it was just drinking from a firehose—Instagram, short-form content—but I think people are yearning for less connection with social media and more stuff that people actually worked on and cared about—less of the McDonald’s-fast-food dopamine surge.

I’m barely on Instagram anymore, trying to get off it completely if possible. I’ll still see the videos I need to see—they’ll come across my desk or someone will ask if I’ve seen it. I’m still in the YouTube ecosystem–which isn’t a whole lot better than Instagram. I hear more and more people saying they’re over Instagram. Maybe it opens up space for more real critical work around skating and for people to get back to really reading and having a genuine discourse around stuff. I’d like to see it go that way.

I think we’re at the “dead mall” point of Instagram where the way things are presented to me are just making me dislike things I used to like. I’m in the mall, I used to go to that store or the food court, whatever, and now I’m just depressed being in the fuckin’ thing.

The one thing that keeps me coming back is being able to contact people I wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise—that’s how I linked up with people like yourself or Ted (Barrow) or Brad Cromer. I wouldn’t have connected with them without it, so for that alone it’s worth still dipping a toe in. The other thing is the archival nature of it. It goes way beyond skateboarding, but it applies there too—if you follow the right pages, you’ll see incredible archival footage you’d never have found otherwise if you were just on an ill YouTube trip. There was a clip of a 1992 demo of Mark Gonzalez skating in New Jersey, and I realized that was the parking lot of my old middle school. Stuff like that is great. But the fact that it’s designed to keep you glued to it so they can sell you more ads—that insidious part almost outweighs the positive of connecting with people or finding cool shit.

Now if you want a good Instagram session, you almost have to actively curate your algorithm. I’ve done that on the Fusilli account—gone on an ill music tip, reposted fifty stories of archival music I’m into, and for the next day or so I’ll get great stuff in my feed. But then it’s right back to slop. AI slop. It’s insane.

I was watching a very non-slop YouTube pod called Revolutions Per Movie where they talk to a musician about a music doc or movie. The only reason I found the entire show was because Lou Barlow was on there discussing the 1993 Sebadoh Tour Video “Vs.” Pantera’s Vulgar Video. To be clear, I am not a Pantera-Enjoyer, but there’s a cult around those home videos and hearing that Lou loved them had me hooked. Anyway, there’s a part where Lou talks about how you couldn’t recreate those moments because back then, pre-camera phone, people weren’t used to being on camera, so it created a different type of dynamic. Some people thrived, others looked timid, but it was all adapting to it in real time. Do you think that idea has impacted modern skate videos at all? That we’re constantly on?

That’s really interesting. Culturally, yes, we’re more comfortable being on camera because everyone’s got one in their pocket. Everybody’s filming all the time, trying to catch their congressman out in some sort of unsavory light. I don’t know if that’s why things have been feeling stiff in skating. Here’s my pushback: skaters have always been forced to be “comfortable” on camera since the birth of skate videos.

If you talk about classic skate videos, you go back to the Baker videos—Baker 2G, Baker 3—those guys were constantly on camera, and there’s tons of extra, interstitial moments captured there. The awareness was already there. Beagle and whomever were filming them were anticipating those reactions. These days, certain skaters are comfortable showing some personality on camera, but there’s almost a reaction against that. “I don’t wanna do that. I don’t wanna talk.” It’s a delicate balance.

Some people have charisma on camera and add to the whole package; for others, I wish I hadn’t heard them open their mouths. That’s something Joa (Field aka Gifted Hater) talks about a lot with Joe Campos—on Hockey, filmed by Benny Magliano, he came across as this moody punk kid, little guy, but super cool. Then once he moved to the Strobeck/Violet side and started talking on camera, he sounded a bit like a dweeb, for lack of a better term—nasally voice, mouthing off to cops, coming across like a Little Lord Fauntleroy. I kind of wish he was more mystical or elusive.

It’s that whole balance of maintaining your mystique versus giving too much away. In some cases it does help—everybody’s good at skating now, so I could use a little more panache from these guys—a little more of them just being themselves rather than doing the prescribed thing. I don’t even care if it aligns with my interests–I want them to like what they’re doing, instead of feeling like they need to show me who they are. I want them to be their own thing.

I think that’s the modern trap. The brand or the filmer might know you’re a fuckin’ dweeb, so now they need to figure out a way around that. In the 80s, it was “Give him a bad-ass graphic! Now when people see this regular person, but very good skater, they’ll think of a monster” or whatever the fuck.

I’ll give you an example: If Dylan Jaeb had a debut pro model on Primitive–you know, some gold-foil eagle graphic, followed by another one with a Rick and Morty character with his name on it, it’s a lot harder to see him anywhere but in that world. It frames how you think of Dylan Jaeb.

Despite my prior pushback, I’ll give you credit about people always being on camera–we already know too much about riders now. That example specifically—Dylan Jaeb going to Quasi—It’s like a shoehorn effect: you can’t really cast yourself as this cool, mysterious, gritty East Coast artsy type when everyone already knows you’re a mini-ramp kid who grew up crushing a California skatepark your whole life. We’ve already seen too much. Someone like that already had his character arc as a kind of child star. He’ll probably be fine—having seen the videos he and his friends put together, he clearly has a good eye for filming and composition—but it’ll be hard to shake that SoCal vibe that was already all over everyone’s Instagram feed years ago.

Less-Than-Half Baked Conspiracy Theory Time, in real time. Is Dylan Jaeb a psy-op–the Geese of skateboarding? Did he hire a PR agency to get into my feed?

It might be simpler than that. Being a San Diego guy, he was obviously a mini-ramp baby, which means someone in his family was nudging him that way from an early age—babies don’t skate mini ramps unless someone’s pushing them toward it. San Diego is basically the skateboard industrial complex, so it’s less a formal psyop and more that he was already tapped into a hotbed scene, surrounded by people entrenched in the traditional distribution world—here’s some Zero boards, here’s some DC shoes. He’s kind of a Justin Bieber type: a young kid who was keen to be overproductive on social media and caught fire. Is it a psyop in the way a government psyop works? Probably not—skateboarding still doesn’t have that kind of money in it.

OK, we’re past the half-way point of 2026 and I think it’s fair to start to think about what full-length videos will define or be important to the year. Since we mentioned Joseph Campos, let’s talk about Violet’s long-awaited long player, SQUEAKY. We get some linear parts, some longer parts, Strobeck Signature choices, but also, the pacing is…. It’s kind of like his version of The Brown Bunny (Vincent Gallo). Everyone is waiting for this thing to happen–you know Kader is coming–and then it’s not quite what you expected. Is that fair? Is the payoff similar to Jake Johnson’s part in Converse Cons Purple?

This is a tall order. I did not rewatch it in preparation. [laughs] Someone big bro’ed me–in a good way–on a sesh. I was going on about Brian Anderson—who was already older then —and how he doesn’t produce anymore and was slowing down–you know, thank you for your service. This older guy said, “That guy doesn’t owe us shit anymore.”

Jake Johnson is in that echelon of skaters who don’t owe us anything anymore—he’s been dealing with injuries for a long time—that’s a little inside baseball—basically since the end of the Alien Workshop era, but there’s enough on wax that he still deserves his shoe deal on Converse and his pro board on Quasi.

But this Violet video was the most anticipated video in recent memory—we’d been waiting on it for two or three years—and Kader’s also been dealing with injuries, though not as chronically as Jake Johnson, but he might have a different chronic issue–pun intended. Don’t give him last part if he only has 12 clips. Give him first part, that’s valid? The editing, the song choices. If you’re going to choose an iconic, pop-culture-phenomenon song for your part, you really have to come correct with the skating and the edit to match it. It just felt half-baked. I don’t know what your reaction was.

I went through a few different stages. I liked the tigther parts. Then I go to, “Well, this isn’t for me. I’m old.” And I despise that phrase, but, hey, it exists for a reason. Does it showcase the brand? You have nice shots of the graphics, that’s cool. Is it different from a Supreme edit? If I were 19, would I want a Violet board? You have so much time to think because of the edit, that I was in my head. [laughs] It’s a bit like being a Guided By Voices Fan–the trope has always been “Uncle Bob needs an editor! This decent album would have been a banger EP. Even saying that is a trope. Jesus.

Right: this video could have been an email. The flow was not there. It felt rote, like watching Strobeck do Strobeck—similar to watching the last couple of Wes Anderson movies, where you’re like, OK dude, give it a rest. We’ve seen this and it’s been better before. That’s not to discredit what Strobeck has given skateboarding—that can’t be undersold—but it felt like resting on his laurels. All those slow-mo replays of tricks could have done without that. It fell short for a video that was so anticipated and that’s going to happen with anticipated videos, but it feel spectacularly short.

Given the amount of talent and money that team has access to—riders who are paid enough to see doctors and physical therapists whenever needed—it’s a rare situation in skateboarding, and it still fell short. Guys are paid. They can get physical therapy. They can go on trips. How old is Kader? Early twenties? He’s obviously still got it but he’s not being managed well. What if he was still on Baker? I can’t see that as a worse trajectory. He could still have his foot in the Supreme universe–look at Rowan Zorilla… Baker, shoe with Vans, Supreme and heavily in the Thrasher sphere. It’s better to be well-rounded, with a mixture of people managing how your footage looks, where it shows up, how it’s edited into projects rather than spreading too thin or putting all your eggs in the Strobeck basket.

That may have made sense ten years ago with Blessed, which was good, and Play Dead, which was also good, along with the San Francisco Strobeck video and the one he did in France a couple years back. Those shorter projects have all been fine. It’s been good, but I was looking forward to this and it fell short.

People want that “defining part”—that’s something we constantly talk about with certain pros—but I wonder if that concept alone is an old-head thing or at least antiquated. Here’s what I mean: Look at (Jason) Dill. He was 16/17 in 101 Snuff and that was a defining part for him at that stage. Mike Carroll… he’s 16/17 when we see his part in Plan B Questionable, Virtual Reality a year later, and then right after that he starts Girl…

They had the “child star” thing.

Yeah, but who didn’t in that era because you’re retired at 23? [laughs] Maybe with this longer timeline in skating, that model doesn’t work anymore. In a weird way, the “defining” part isn’t for the pro–it’s for the audience who “wants” it. So if you don’t give a fuck or care about that pressure, why bother? Just do shit for all your sponsors and keep it moving. You can’t please the comment section anyway.

My measuring stick lately for a part or a video is: will I go back and rewatch it? Looking at that Violet video through that lens, I viscerally don’t want to sit through it again—any part of it. It’s sad, because there are good clips and a few good tricks in there—it just wasn’t handled well. I wouldn’t trust Strobeck to put together my part right now.

FUSILLI CONTENT (ABOVE)

Palace Detroit 313—maybe not a fair comparison to Squeaky since they worked on it for 87 years, but I think there’s a parallel in how a big brand puts a project together with big personalities. My notes on this one is that expect Palace videos to be great–always. The drawn-out Charlie Burch section worked, because the video had a rhythm that set up a slow down. And Danny Brady. No disrespect–in fact it’s said with major praise—but would have guessed out of everyone in Fully Flared (Lakai, 2007) that Dan Brady would be hitting this hard in 2026? A man–a team manager–at his advanced age skating like that is fucking shocking.

Lucas Puig too, although I haven’t seen a lot of footage from him lately—those two guys are the only ones left skating at a high level.

I don’t blame Mr. Puig for not wanting to leave the life of leisure he’s carved out to skate in Detroit—he has it pretty fuckin’ dialed in. I thought it was interesting that Lev Tanju acknowledged the shift in Palace in Farran Golding’s piece on Quartersnacks–how the brand started pretty “yo” in his words, then techno, and now they have someone such as Ville Wester, who wouldn’t have fit on Palace back then.

I’ve thought about this with Polar too, who put out what I’d call the best video of the year (YOU GOT IT MY BOY JAMIE)—top three at least, arguably the best. I think the real test for a brand is whether it can survive multiple iterations of itself and still be fresh—still be relevant, still put out good stuff. That’s true of both Palace and Polar, and it comes down to having strong creative minds at the helm with clear ideas of what they want. In both cases that’s caused some people to drop off—Palace no longer has Blondey, who was a core part of the early years, and other people have stepped back or simply aged out, like Benny Fairfax, so you need a real succession plan.

What’s cool about the Detroit 313 video is that they spent seven years on it and dovetailed it to a shared interest—house music, jungle, the club scene, which is a much bigger part of culture across the pond. Palace has always hit on music I genuinely like, with deep cuts—Palasonic is one of my all-time favorite full-length skate videos, with Danny Brady’s part skating to Origin Unknown (“Valley of the Shadows”), or the Jamal Smith section with Roy Davis Jr.’s “Gabrielle”—real, important club tracks used authentically alongside the skating. They also have the benefit of being British, which gives them a leg up on narrative and comedy—that Palace “Gogglebox” bit they did recently, sitting at home with Lucien Clarke’s mum and her little dog, was so naturally funny and dry–they’re perfect characters. Rory is funny in everything. They’re not trying to be funny; they just are, while clearly trying to put together something good.

Maybe some of the issues with the Violet video came down to people not trying hard enough, or trying too hard in the wrong way, so it didn’t gel. The Palace video felt like everyone was on the same page, genuinely friendly with each other, with a good breadth of skating styles—proficient technical skating alongside guys like Jamal Smith, Chewy Cannon doing his own thing, and Shawn Powers, whose skating is classic New York style, not the most proficient but with a clear Bobby Puleo vibe: cellar-door-heavy, lots of ollies, simple tricks. I like Shawn Powers. For some reason it all gels and works. I like that they spent seven years building toward a real concept—a “Detroit” hook—rather than just churning out another video with a Detroit section tacked on somewhere. It’s not just “here’s the new Palace video,” it’s built around an idea, and that matters. They had a good synergy.

It could have gone wrong. Ville could have skated to “Homies.” But seriously, when you’re working with such a large span of time, the footage could have been noticeably from different trips, but it felt seamless. And it didn’t feel like a “tour” video either.

I’m with you. It felt like a real video, probably because their guys are all very secure in their own style—skating, trick selection, clothing—it’s like they’ve looked the same for seven years. Heitor Da Silva looks the same as ever; Danny Brady has looked the same since roughly 2004. There’s something about being certain in yourself that comes through on camera—like they’re not trying to be anything, not “Jaebing it,” for lack of a better term, and certainly not pandering. And I’m not picking on Dylan Jaeb–he’s cool. It felt like an honest, respectful showcase of Detroit as a city, rather than something that could have easily played like tourists on vacation.

OK, it seems like a theme is coming through. How can I describe it? Probably some shit like, “the cart before the horse.” Is it the riders who dictate the aesthetic, the skating, the owner? Do stand-out projects have a balance. I dunno… let’s get on to Polar. They’re similar to Palace in that you have a headstrong creative vision and a lot of turnover.

It is and it isn’t. Now I feel like they’re in a new wave. I was kind of nervous when I saw the drop for the new video: is this going to be good? Watching it made me more certain that the strength of Pontus’ vision for the brand is what carries it—it doesn’t matter as much who’s on the team as long as he’s making the selections. It’s a bit like Reynolds and Baker: Baker’s had a few iterations, and the current lineup isn’t what the old Baker was, but it still captures that same feeling. “New” Polar isn’t skating exactly like it used to, but the aesthetic vision is still really strong.

They haven’t pissed me off. Usually by now, something gives me the ick, to use another zeitgeisty phrase. David (Stenstrom) and Hjalte are no longer on the team, where’s Dane Brady? Those were guys I’d look forward to seeing in a Polar video, but the vibe holds and the succession plan has been good. Ebou (Sanyang) is a great addition, Emile (Laurent) is a poster child for Polar who fits well with the brand. I like Dylan Mills, I like Jamie Platt—the selections bringing new riders into the fold have been strong, and the editing on that video is some of the best I’ve seen in a while.

Pontus could have gotten into Wes Anderson territory, but he brings in Sirus Gahan who is aligned with him, but has his own tastes and choices. It’s kind of a cheat code. The visual cues are there, but they aren’t tired.

There was real filmmaking in that video. It’s so scarce and rare. There were funny moments and crosscuts. There were scary moments. It made you feel. That’s what we’re looking for. I will rewatch the last however many Polar full-lengths have insane rewatch value.

Getting Ville off Polar was probably a good move too—I don’t know if he works on Palace either, but it’s fine. On Polar he was a little too, “look at me,” whereas a Polar rider tends to feel a little more faceless, serving the greater vibe of the video. On Palace, almost everyone reads as a larger-than-life character—except maybe Danny Brady, who’s super normcore and quiet, letting the skating do the talking. Guys like Jamir has a look, Sean Powers reads almost like a cartoon character. Even filmed across seven years, they look consistent because they’re essentially caricatures—in the best sense.

Palace doesn’t have a lot of skate crossover in their team. Jamal Smith isn’t going to do what Kyle Wilson does… Chewy has his own lane. They have a rail guy… here comes Lucien. That almost goes back to the original Plan B team–they were all specialty characters. But from the name of the video to the footage, Jamie Platt is now “a guy.” Right?

Yeah, his last big Polar appearance, around his pro announcement, was also strong—that felt like his coming-out moment. This one felt more like, “OK, I’m a pro now”—closer to a proper first pro part. I think he’s great. Contrary to Palace, Polar keeps up a bit more with current trends than some other brands, with more of a Euro bent, but it still feels tapped in. Ten years ago it was Hjalte in skinny jeans and a Nike dad hat, and that was Polar, and it worked. Now it’s Jamie Platt in super baggy, modern—the modern meta of young cool men—Dover Street Market-style, super cropped tee, and it still feels authentically Polar. Pontus is smart—he wants to stay relevant, so he’s willing to acquiesce on things and follow some current trends, but the composition of the whole thing stays cohesive and still feels genuinely Polar.

If you think back to old Polar–where they leaned into the No-Compy imagery and even repopularizing step-off tricks—the idea of leaning into what’s not cool or accepted is built into Polar’s branding.

It does feel more like a brand that could have been around before it was around. It could have survived at any time in skating.

Another prominent brand came out with a full-length and a supersized solo part. I really enjoyed Quasi’s HARD RESET, but I also acknowledge that the soundtrack reminded me of my 2008 iPod, so that alone had me hooked. I wrote about JAEB | DEBUT previously as well. Did either of those get a rewatch?

I liked HARD RESET and I think Quasi is another brand with a good succession plan rolling out—the newer riders fit into their world well. But it was strange that not long after, we got the Dylan Jaeb part—the pomp and circumstance almost eclipsed the full-length. I’d have loved to see that part trimmed down and included as an ender within the Quasi video itself—that would have let us definitively judge whether it worked, rather than keeping it separate, which almost makes it more obvious that it didn’t quite land. I get that he was skating a lot of Primitive boards in that part, so maybe they didn’t want a Quasi full-length full of Primitive boards, but the timing being so close to that part was the real issue for me, not the video itself.

I really liked Cooper Qua’s part—a genuinely composed section from a rider I’d mostly seen on Instagram and heard about from people in New York. The music was good too; I liked the Drop Nineteens track, and Dick Rizzo’s footage was, as always, solid—he’s a good cornerstone for the brand, holding down the East Coast side of things. I almost wonder if they could have had Mark Humienik on Quasi, but then they’re like “DYLAN. JAEB.”

I get wanting to have a big name, and Quasi is distributed like the logical continuation of Alien—obviously FA and Hockey are that too, but more of a departure-reaction brand. Quasi holds down “Modern Alien” with more of an Ohio, grassroots vibe. There might have been a better path in staying a little more grassroots rather than reaching for a bigger name, though I still think their succession plan is solid and I’ll go back and enjoy that video again. It’s still a little bit tricky. Bobby De Keyzer reading a poem was a little bit silly, but I’ve come around on it. It’s kind of cool that Bobby De Keyzer went on Hypebeast and talked shit because not enough people do—everyone’s too worried about speaking up and he’s so fuckin good that he can.

Eternal pass for BOBCBC.

I loved it—it was my favorite thing from last year. For that to stand on its own as its own piece makes total sense. For the Dylan Jaeb part to stand alone the same way makes less sense to me; that felt more like it should have been part of a video. I fuckin’ love it when someone gets introduced within a full-length—that’s a fun moment. They could have handled it so much better, man. We all already knew he was on the team before that part dropped; I’d have rather been surprised, you now?

My little hole-pokey, nitpicky thing is that as soon as these pieces of video are out in the world, they’re disconnected. Sure, they’re living on a brand YouTube channel for now, but a full-length is the only branding moment you have to say: This is what happened during this time period, here is what people have, this is the level, and this represents a vision. To your point, as a “document,” it would have been interesting to see what Dylan Jaeb looked like in the full-length.

I’m with you on that. 100%. Chad… Gilbert… whoever is running the ship, Quasi gets a little slap on the wrist. [laughs] Those three—Palace, Polar, Quasi—for me, in the time I’ve been really into skating, are basically it. If everything else went away, I’d be sustained and stoked on skating off those three alone.

To that point, I want to get your thoughts on something. The bigger brand videos have the pressure and, meanwhile, the DIY projects happen when they happen. At best, they surprise you and become a favorite and at worst, they go back into the digital archive like some of those bigger videos. Singer Tower (Tristan Mershon) is one that jumps out from this year—well technically the end of 2025—ULTRAMAN (Nick vonWerssowetz), WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? (JP Blair). These videos almost fall into the ‘90s music world of major label vs. indie label. They’re satisfying in a different way. And you have a lot of edits and videos from Europe and Asia–they make me feel like I did as a college student seeing a “foreign film” at a dusty old independent theatre… you know, “I’m smart! I have good taste!”

I love the stuff coming out of Europe. I have a real soft spot for the guys doing it over there, and more broadly for anyone making these smaller, more underground videos—it’s clearly for the love and that comes through. These guys would be doing this no matter what; there’s no money behind it. I don’t think fuckin’ Cooper Qua is riding high because he’s on Quasi–he’s gotta do what he does to get by. There’s such a thin veil between “legitimate pros or companies” and the videos you mentioned because we’re in a pretty low place in the cycle.

Singer Tower was so good. That’s a top-three video for me this year. Great filming, great skating, a group of thirty-plus friends getting it done. ULTRAMAN: It’s a crew of guys who are younger—I’ve been harping on the fact that truly young people aren’t the ones doing this right now—it’s mostly guys in their thirties. Max Palmer is thirty-eight, if you can believe that. I don’t want to say that’s old, but it’s such a different picture than ten or twenty years ago. Young guys don’t see the value in doing it the traditional way anymore and I can’t blame them: guys on brands are often still working gig jobs—fuckin Uber Eats—or menial work to get by, while they see people making a living wage on streaming or TikTok. So they go do that instead.

But as someone who cares about skateboarding being cool, I figure someone’s got to keep making videos and filming the homies—so that’s what I do. I’ve got a couple guys in their thirties in my area and we go out and film. Someone has to do it? That’s the vibe I really respect, and it’s why videos like Singer Tower, JP’s video, and ULTRAMAN—I liked that one because the riders were younger and have a lot of juice—you get a peek into another scene, whether it’s Budapest or the Pacific Northwest, give me something different. Videos where the music feels arbitrary, the spots are California-ed out, and the people on camera don’t seem like friends–those kind of videos don’t land for me, even if the skating is “really good.”

Skate videos like that can feel like a cover band. They’re good “players”--they’re proficient, but they aren’t exploring anything new.

Who’s carrying the skateboarding I wanna see? My peers or the people I like to watch, you know? I should be seeing young people. You watch tennis… these people are fuckin’ young, man. Skateboarding is still holding on to the past, in a way.

[laughs] It’s like congress. Skateboarding… a gerontocracy. Is this an “American” problem then?

I think it might be specifically American right now. I don’t wanna go on a geopolitical rant, but is it really that much of a surprise everything going on in the country? Everyone tightening their belts, waiting for the other shoe to drop economically? It’s not surprising the youth aren’t as stoked on skating as somewhere like Japan. Free Skate Mag… they do such great work. Maybe Europe.. Asia… they see more value in it. In America, it’s the all-mighty dollar. The bottom line. It’s a survival mechanism here, because other countries have a much better social safety net. They aren’t on the hamster wheel, trying to avoid being crushed.

Japan is a different story, largely because of the Olympic effect—legitimizing skateboarding as an international sport gave a country like Japan license to build real infrastructure around it, not just hype up youth participation. Someone like Yuto, a back-to-back Olympic gold medalist, matters a lot to a country with strong national pride: it gives them something to rally around and invest resources in. None of that matters much to the core skateboarding enjoyer, but the knock-on effect is that it produces kids with very strong fundamentals who get properly trained. Some of them will burn out on competition, but unlike, say, a Greco-Roman wrestler who burns out and simply leaves the sport to become an accountant, a skateboarder who starts with an Olympic dream, gets good technically, and then decides they don’t want to keep competing still has an avenue to stay in it, enjoy it, and keep a creative outlet.

I think the core skateboarding audience benefits from that pipeline, even if it’s really only a portion of those riders who end up “defecting” from the competitive track toward the more soulful side of skating—like what’s happening at that skate school in Sweden.

Conversely, American Capital “S” Skateboarding can feel kind of mercenary. Fuck, you just completely reframed how I think of Chris Joslin. He’s got his family, he’s got his craft, and it’s just him and his skateboard, fighting to provide. He’s basically a hunter—a pioneer, driven to survive and simultaneously sucking the joy out of skateboarding. [laughs]

There is no way I wanna revisit that whole thing but… wow, that’s great reasoning as to why that was so fucking boring.