I have to apologize. Sometimes, I get a little bit over-ambitious here at Everything Skateboarding. Last month, I intended to get all of the travel articles hung and published on the site. As the old adage says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”; sadly, I can now verify the underlying truth in this oft-repeated sentiment. Between being on the road, writing about being on the road, launching several full-scale initiatives, and beginning the painfully tedious process of executing on those initiatives, I simply did not have to time (nor the energy) to get everything done. Thus, the apology.
I’d like to chat about those initiatives for just a moment, if I may. Those are significant, because they are an effort to plow and plot the way forward through the modern maze of mass media. A maze that will surely get a lot more complex and sophisticated in the coming years.
Art by this month’s featured artist, Lakota Cloud. See his Featured Artist profile here.
Big business is quickly losing its stranglehold over skateboarding. That is hugely significant. Skateboarders around the world are taking skateboarding back, in droves. It doesn’t matter what part of the industry or the community we’re talking about here; that basic premise remains true all across the landscape, no matter where you’re looking. Skaters are starting new brands, new retail (and e-tail) skate shops, organizing skate clubs, throwing their own events… there seem to be more events happening this year than there have been in the entirety of the previous decade… and, yes, they are also starting to take back their own media as well.
Art by this month’s featured artist, Lakota Cloud. See his Featured Artist profile here.
Of course, social media was a fundamental step in that direction. With social media, everybody is the media. But there’s still a pretty big philosophical (and functional) divide between social media, and the more traditional mass media. Skaters are starting to span that chasm, and encroach on the last bastion of big business in skateboarding: The Mass Media Paradigm.
With new blood will come new ideas. That’s inevitable. Everything Skateboarding is planning for the inevitable by launching initiatives and partnerships that will (hopefully) hit the emerging issues and problems head on. by putting solutions on the table before the said problems even become readily apparent.
Art by this month’s featured artist, Lakota Cloud. See his Featured Artist profile here.
The Skate Shop Outreach is a natural place to start. Skate shops are still a vitally important contributor to local scenes… and as I’ve said a million times before, if we lose those shops, then we’ve lost an irreplaceable infrastructure that simply cannot be duplicated. At least, not easily. Nor, quickly.
Along with the outreach, we are also working on that Free-To-Join Skate Shop Union that we discussed in the March issue. That will be slow going, and it might even take a solid year or two to really gel. But initial interest is strong, as is the resolve that such a thing is exactly what shops need right now, along with the quiet resignation that there is simply no more time to wait for somebody else to come along and do it for them. Ultimately, this is gonna have to be something that the shops do, and do by and for themselves. But we’re more than happy to help the process along as much as we possibly can.
The Content Sharing Agreement (CSA) is another wide-ranging initiative with long-term implications. Designed to be something like an Associated Press of Skateboarding, the CSA is already showing some potential payoffs for the member medias. Because it works on a friendly (and honorable) handshake, it’s definitely easy enough to implement and to utilize for everyone involved. The bonus is that we can work together to get readers’ eyeballs on stories and issues that they might have otherwise missed in the media madness. Nobody can stay on top of everything these days; the CSA helps both the media, and the readers, by building and implementing stronger interpersonal networks. We’re obviously totally open to bringing in even more member medias to share the wealth on this one. Indeed, I spent a lot of my time last month doing exactly that sort of outreach.
Then, we have the Content Credit for advertisers. This allows advertisers to pay for part (or all) of their advertising with articles, photos, captions, and art. This allows even the smallest brands to play on a relatively level playing field with the big boys, while also encouraging them to play a more pro-active role in the process of making the e-‘zine itself.
Art by this month’s featured artist, Lakota Cloud. See his Featured Artist profile here.
Everything Skateboarding continues to grow and change in other ways. This month we are featuring the first of our “Storytime” segments with the ever-entertaining (and hysterical) Nate Sherwood, and his colorful story of a lost love and a broken heart. There are several artists coming on board for the next round of Featured Artist segments that we’re super excited to tell you all about. Our senior writer, Daniel Fedkenheuer, is leaving New Jersey for the sunnier pastures of Southern California; we’re looking forward to following his move to the skateboard industry’s central mass, and hearing his stories of high adventure. Candy (Candice Dungan) continues to recover from her recent skateboard accident, and is (once again) managing to inspire us all in the process; a determined human is, after all, a fierce animal, and Candy is a perpetually determined nugget. Claudia Yaw in on her first special assignment, which ought to be a whole buncha fun for everybody. And every month, more and more creatives come on board to add to everything that Everything Skateboarding represents, while more and more advertisers are coming on board to support them in their endeavors.
Art by the author. Should’ve stuck with Lakota. See his Featured Artist profile here.
Lastly, we have the guy that runs the place over here, and his never-ending ambitions to stay out on the road, skateboarding as much as possible in between roadside visits to all of those American oddities that modern-day road tripping enables and encourages. This month, I finally got around to publishing the Summer Tour 2016/2017 articles in their entirety, as a complete body of work, as originally intended. You’ve probably never read a series of tour articles like this one, simply because there’s never really been a tour like this one. While most pro (and amateur) skaters are out there living the version of “The Dream” that 99.999999% of us will never be able to enjoy (or even relate to), my version of “The Dream” is one that almost anybody with a driver’s license, a tent, and an inflatable mattress can do, and do on a pretty paltry budget to boot. If you have the brains, the brawn, and the budget to whip yourself up a home-built micro-camper? Even better!
More than anything else, I want Everything Skateboarding to serve as a beacon of imagination and inspiration for our readers. It may or may not be working out the way I intended, but hey, at least we’re tryin’. That’s the important part. Enjoy the issue, see you next month.
Bud Stratford
Executive Director,
Everything Skateboarding