THE RACE TO SOTY & SOME THOUGHTS ON RACE

The King Gets His Second Crown & the People React.

Since the advent of social media, the run-up and announcement of Thrasher Magazine’s “Skater Of the Year” honor have become contentious. That’s mostly a function of more folks having the ability to agree, disagree, shit on, vent, and wax about the award but this year… wow, it’s been strange if not aggressive at times.

Before we dig into all of this let’s make be crystal: The majority of talk around SOTY celebrates Tyshawn’s achievement but it’s worth unpacking the weirdness around the naysayers because that’s part of this newsletter’s intent–figuring out why people get so angry about skateboarding.

On December 8, 2022, Thrasher announced that Tyshawn Jones would net his second SOTY award, immediately causing everyone with the ability to post a reaction to catch feelings. Before we get into that, I’d like to note that this was the same day WNBA player Brittney Griner’s release from a Russian prison was negotiated, resulting in her freedom through a 1-for-1 swap, returning arms dealer Viktor Bout to Russia. 

Why am I mentioning this? Like anything Biden or almost any political figure does in 2022, Griner’s return was divisive, with many folks discussing the negotiation as if it were an actual sports trade. In my years on this planet, I’ve never heard so many people and pundits critique a negotiation. Some detractors were so irate, that the only parallel I can think of was the Iranian Hostage Crisis that contributed to Jimmy Carter losing the 1980 Presidential Election to Ronald Reagan. This of course had many, including me wondering if part of the “outrage” was that Griner is both gay and Black and, as we know, the answer is yes because this is the world and time we exist in—a place where we easily disconnect from humanity and context via social media posts because we feel some kind of way about something we’ll move on from in less than 24 hours: the outrage du jour.

THE NOT MY SOTY MEME

Before we get into Tyshawn Jones winning his second SOTY award, I’d like to speak artistic awards. That’s right, I’m calling skateboarding in this case an art because sure, you can say it’s a sport (or not) but in this instance, SOTY isn’t based on any real metric: it’s just a thing the mag invented and give to whomever they like. That’s perfectly fine in my opinion–it’s their magazine, their award, and have never claimed it’s decided by the people or whatever.

I mention art because when people are defending their art or art they admire, they often claim “art is subjective” which is a statement I loathe, not because I own a super useful bachelor’s degree in it but because I find that idea to be lazy and false. Art can be good and art can be terrible and that often lies in the intention.

Here’s an example.

You can give a group of 10 fifth graders some paint, brushes, and canvases and tell them they have an hour to paint whatever they like. One, maybe even three of their paintings might be visually interesting and heck, maybe some of the fifth-grade creators might have a cute reason behind what they pained such as “I painted how I feel when I think of polar bears” or some shit.

That’s great but it’s not art.

Conversely, you could ask a group of 10 art school students to create 10 paintings, put them on a wall upon completion, and have them talk about the work and decide–objectively of course–which paintings work, which paintings deliver on the artist’s intention, and which executions fail. 

Photo by Jonathan Mehring, Drawing By Some Kid.

So artistic awards… I generally don’t care about them and many people who consider themselves fans of the arts don’t either… until they do. We see this when the Grammys occur and people get big mad that their favorite musician didn’t win a thing that has no impact on their personal lives. But some artists want to win awards for several reasons and for some, it’s simply motivation, and after spending their time and effort to achieve something, they might be bummed they didn’t. That’s completely valid, of course.

In a sense, achieving “Skater Of the Year” is an exercise in delivering on your art which is your skateboarding. It can be gnarly art, technical art, expressive art, aggressive art, or something else, but the award (in theory) goes to the person who, during a calendar year (kind of), expressed their skateboarding through photographs, video, and in person in a way that fits with the coveted award. In 2022, Thrasher Magazine decided that person was Tyshawn Jones and you know what? That’s fucking awesome, king, because Tyshawn Jones is not only an incredible skateboarder, he’s an incredible skateboarder who unabashedly wants to win Skater Of the Year and did his best to secure it. 

But some people disagree with the decision and of course, that’s also something they absolutely have the freedom to express through whatever means of communication they choose. In fact, some folks feel that their favorite skater was “robbed” of this unmeasurable award. And, some people take it further by attacking the winner, and in Tyshawn’s case, they start to talk about his character in derogatory ways, sometimes with racial overtones, most commonly about his “work ethic” or even calling him “arrogant.” I don’t want to repost any of that but let’s dig into some opinions.

This guy has an opinion. (He’s a pro!)

So does this guy. (He’s not!)

And who could forget this guy?

He felt so strongly (or maybe felt there was a strong chance he could monetize his opinion) about a switch ollie that he created an entire video “debunking” a switch ollie because it could impact the award Tyshawn had yet to win, only to be debunked himself by Tyshawn Jones through an Instagram post. And then TJ won anyway.

tyshawn

A post shared by Tyshawn Jones 💰 (@tyshawn)

Regardless of any posts, tweets, or rants, Tyshawn Jones is Thrasher Magazine’s 2022 “Skater Of the Year,” and won the award by doing some incredible things on a skateboard. In a sense, NBDs are one of skateboarding’s only metrics outside of contests and Tyshawn did plenty of them.

*Perhaps Dumb Data or 4Ply Magazine can break them down and start another potentially awesome conversation, but there is no way in hell I’m watching a bunch of YouTube videos again to catalog NBDs and continue the discourse.

I interviewed Tyshawn Jones twice in 2017. During one of the interviews he told me the following things:

“I’m not a contest skater. No shade, but doing the same five tricks over and over perfectly is boring—it’s just doing the same thing. I like to do what’s in my mind.” 

“I’m always motivated because I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished everything I’ve wanted to yet. Maybe once I get everything I want in life, maybe I’ll get lazy—who knows?”

Since 2017, Tyshawn’s opened a restaurant, had two signature shoes on adidas Skateboarding, been featured prominently in Supreme videos, arguably the biggest skateboarding brand in the world, as well as other brand videos and projects, continued to operate Hardies Hardware, won Thrasher’s “Skater Of the Year” twice, modeled for several fashion campaigns, just launched a board brand, King Skateboards, with his friend Na-Kel Smith, and probably did a grip of other things I’m forgetting.

You can be upset that your binky didn’t win SOTY but come on, don’t call this man lazy, that’s objectively false. 

*A previous version of this post stated the date of the SOTY announcement incorrectly has been updated for accuracy.