191–200 of 207 posts
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Lower back tattoos were popular amongst young women in the 90s. Then the term "tramp stamp" caught on like wildfire and the practice came to an abrupt stop.
It is always disappointing when bullying campaign works.
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It is always disappointing when bullying campaign works.
Yeah, the world needs more tramp stamps and arse antlers
The issue is that some assholes just could not stomach those women having something nice, so they needed to bully them out of it. And these kind of assholes have too much influence.
I was at that point though where after having fallen numerous times, the skates were destined for long term storage
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> Skaters started calling rollerblades "fruit boots" and that killed it for a lot of people who didn't want to associated with something seen as weak and "gay". Their problem, a lot of fellow queer people rollerblade and they have a hell of a time. It's actually extremely funny how homophobes will stop having fun specifically because something gets coded as queer. Like they're deliberately cutting off their nose to s…
I think people who don’t want to be called gay are homophobes. It seems like you implied that though. It’s very normal to not want to do things that make you unpopular.
If someone stops doing a hobby just because they are being called gay, that is homophobic, yes. Someone who is not homophobic wouldn't give a shit, and wouldn't view being called gay as implicitly bad.
If people started insulting them in a non-homophobic way, it is unlikely that that would be viewed as a reason to stop the hobby by many people. In fact, in 'nerd culture' the insults are viewed as a badge of honour of sorts -- these people do not stop programming, electrical engineering, and hyperfocusing on Star Wars just because they are being insulted. This largely only happens with hobbies that are considered gay or otherwise 'feminine', because being called one of those are viewed as worse than just being insulted, and the reason for that is implicit homophobia.
There's a good tangential argument here as to the social and cultural forces that led to 'blading' being dropped en masse: https://toldandretold1.medium.com/the-great-blading-bubble-h...
Roller skating and inline skating have been gaining popularity for the last five years or so. I took it up (sort of again) in my late thirties, due to my son being invited to a roller skating birthday party, and discovered how much I enjoy it as both a challenge and Zen-like experience of focused concentration on both nothing and 'everything going on around me'. I only do it at a rink and in that context I love it. I…
> so much so that it makes me question my own maturity / adulthood, but nowhere near enough to suppress that enthusiasm Part of maturing is realising that a kindred spirit is something to cherish. Trying to maintain a facade of maturity is what becomes immature.
Roller skating and inline skating have been gaining popularity for the last five years or so. I took it up (sort of again) in my late thirties, due to my son being invited to a roller skating birthday party, and discovered how much I enjoy it as both a challenge and Zen-like experience of focused concentration on both nothing and 'everything going on around me'. I only do it at a rink and in that context I love it. I…
I wrote a bit about ice skating / figure skating here. You might find some inspiration there: https://tildes.net/~talk/xoh/the_one_thing_i_wish_someone_ha...
About 10 years ago I read a bunch of former roller bladers and skateboarders talking about the death of rollerblading in the 1990s. It is much easier to do tricks on rollerblades, also it was viewed as a "gay" activity in a much more homophobic time in society. There was a picture of a rollerblader in a skating mag and they photoshopped pink makeup on his face and made his rollerblades purple. Skaters started calling…
Back in the late 90s, myself and a few friends popped on our first pair of inlines[0]. I think years of attending "skating parties" as school events designed to give parents a day out and kids an opportunity to be a problem made switching from quads to inlines very easy. We discovered we could much more easily pull of various tricks on inlines that were more challenging in quads due to the range of ankle motion that inlines allow.
My friends and I became a bit obsessed. At one point, I dropped $240 for a set of high-end indoor ABEC-9 bearings. I owned several sets of wheels with different hardness/size and some nice wrist guards and knee/elbow pads, the latter used only when trying to learn tricks that were obviously challenging -- the rule is that it is far more cool to do something dangerous in a manner that maximizes injury if you fail, I guess (no helmets -- that was way uncool!). Kind of amazed I didn't end up with a closed-head injury as a kid with that thinking... I did land a concussion at one point.
I can say somewhat reliably that, at least where I'm from, I don't recall anyone ever indicating that the reason they don't skate is because "it's gay![2]", or specifically pointing out that "I must be gay because I use inlines" -- not that having the "SO GAY" thrown around at me was all that unusual. I don't think you could have guy friends in HS in the 90s without a constant barrage of "you're gay" accusations.
I think the hurling of "gay" had a lot to do with: It takes a reasonable amount of skill to learn -- and there are a reasonable number of people who will give up. As popularity increases, the number of people who get frustrated increases. Not wanting to be left out of a trend, they employ shame/reverse-fanboi-ism to knock those who have mastered it/enjoy it down a peg and encourage them to do activities that the shamer can participate in.
There was a bit of "parent's make it uncool" to it, too. My 50 year old dad took up inline skating for a year. But I think it's more than just "when old people start doing it, it's uncool". This happened in my HS in the 90s with skiing. Where I live, ski/snowboard clubs in HS are common (despite having very little worth skiing on other than an abundance of snow). I watched during High School as skiing became "uncool" (in my HS, I'm sure it was "gay!") -- far more than half of those in ski club were snowboarding. Snowboarding was a much less expensive way to get on the slopes. Parents pushed their kids that way when discovering that purchasing a pair of usable (new[3]) skis, boots, poles and bindings was twice as much as the proliferation of lower-end boards that we started seeing early on. And the nerdier kids tended to have wealthier parents and tended to buy skis. It's, arguably, more difficult to learn to ski, as well[4].
It happened with hover boards, though for different reasons... almost the opposite. They used to be very expensive, but then a mess of them were dumped in the US. Enough of them caught fire to give the whole category a bad name and many had a design aesthetic that would universally appeal to a 12-year-old girl, but nearly nobody else. You'd think it would be possible to ride a device like this and not look like a person with too much disposable income and is so lazy that they'll risk explosion over walking but I haven't seen anyone on a segway-like-hoverboard (Ginger!) that didn't result in me thinking that, myself. This would have been a device pretty much made for a guy like me -- I was initially excited when the prices were reaching $300, but by then the bottom fell out and I had no interest in ever owning one.
I own/love my OneWheel (Pint), which seems like a hoverboard/e-scooter/skatebaord but is in a category on its own. I'm wondering if these will (or haven't already) landed in the category of "uncool". I believe there's potential for it, but there's a few things that are unique about these that I can't say confidently I have any idea what the future holds. They're expensive. They're really strange to learn to ride -- everyone I have taught has said the same thing "10-15 minutes of feeling like you will never be able to learn this thing, followed by an almost immediate jump to confident riding" (shortly thereafter, confidence exceeds actual ability, you nose-dive, and don't ride it for a little while/have a quick trip to the ER).
The only differences with this product and others that were fad-worthy is that the age of riders is extremely variable. I've met a lot of riders in my area -- many are older than 40, most above 30, one is 70[5]. I rarely see someone riding one (regardless of age) without a helmet. I think it has one major inoculation to the incoming "LAME!" label. People make the mistake of thinking this thing is "self-balancing", easy to ride/master and safe. I'd be tempted to respond to the challenge by offering my board up with a simple "It's self-balancing -- wanna give it a try before knocking it?" and then posting the results to YouTube. That's a challenge that doesn't work with inlines.
FWIW: if my kids are any indication, "That's so gay" is the thing that's being shamed. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of homophobia among the older boys in HS, but I felt pretty good when my son's friend called a video game "gay" and my son turned right around and said "it's the GAYEST!" rolling his eyes, shutting down his friend -- my oldest is 6'2" and is popular with the girls at his school. While you may never really know at this age, I don't believe he's ever questioned his sexuality. And he's a really good kid -- certainly not innocent of these kinds of things, himself, but very clever and has a good heart -- it made me a little proud watching him shame his friend trying to shame him using a slur.
[0] I'm being pedantic but Rollerblade brand skates were pretty shoddy, even staying way away from the skate-shop high-end inlines -- there were very few that had aluminum frames, all used the lowest end ABEC-5/7 bearings (nobody puts good bearings in, even today) and K2 made a much more comfortable boot.
[1] "Girls only like guys who have great skills!" - Napoleon Dynamite
[2] The author's observations of the late 90s, at least where I lived, is accurate -- "gay" was the chosen slur for anything that was "extremely uncool".
[3] The smart ones scoured Salvation Army stores (no Craigslist), purchased a banged up set that still beat the rentals, and took it to a ski shop to get sharpened/serviced. My mom was smart ... I had $30 skis that were amazing.
[4] This was not my personal experience, but I jumped to skiing for a reason -- I learned very quickly to ditch the poles. I was very confident on inlines by this point and an adjustment in thinking made me realize that inline skating and skiing involve the same balancing skills/muscles. I had not been into skateboards, and had learned to balance while moving sideways.
[5] And he's a bit of a terror on it -- I have broken ribs and taken some falls that, at 70, would have stood a chance of killing me.
Still hundreds of us in London going out every week and my mate’s skate school has FLOURISHED during lockdown with online lessons being taken up by ice skaters, locked out of rinks everywhere…
Hey where do you recommend skating in London? Also, what blades would you recommend for a noob? Been looking at FR X or FR 2 but have no idea what I’m buying really
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It’s easier to both bail (jump off) and control speed (by dragging your foot or doing power-slides) on a skateboard. So yes, skateboarding does have a speed problem but it’s easier to control for.
No, absolutely not. If anything, having controll on skateboard is harder pretty much no matter what context. And you have zero control over where the board goes once you abandon it on top of it - meaning you are more dangerous for anyone else.
I'm only saying that, placed at the top of moderately sized hill, a skateboarder has more options available to him/her to control for speed.
Like simply jumping off.
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It’s easier to both bail (jump off) and control speed (by dragging your foot or doing power-slides) on a skateboard. So yes, skateboarding does have a speed problem but it’s easier to control for.
Dragging your foot on a skateboard leaves your other foot planted on the board, meaning the board is vulnerable to catching on any crack or edge while carrying most your weight, which will send you tumbling. You can drag your foot exactly the same way to lose speed on skates by dragging one perpendicular to the direction of travel, while your other foot is still perfectly capable of jumping you over any cracks or edg…
You're doing it wrong. If you catch a crack with your weight planted dead center of your board (which is how this is done) then you're already in dangerous territory. Speed is not your issue - the terrain (or your lack of proper technique) is.
>I street skated for years and never became competent enough to use power-slides for governing speed on anything but the most ideal uniform asphalt surfaces. To propose that as some kind of accessible braking method strikes me as disingenuous at best.
Disingenuous? How rude. That's how me and my friends did it. Maybe if you were below advanced-intemediate level then power-sliding to control for speed might seem impossible (but it isn't - that's the beauty of skateboarding). I will concede it's an unreliable method because of the variance of the surface (which the other commenter mentioned). It does come with risks and requires sufficient skill.
Curiously, your comment left out the obvious thing I mentioned. You can jump off the damn skateboard. It's one of the very first things you learn.
You can jump off.
My 8 year old does it every day. You know what he and his sister do when they get going too fast on 'blades? Look for a grass patch and hope for the best.
You seem to be slighted by the mere suggestion that one measly aspect of 'blading is harder or requires a different approach.
I skated for two decades, and worked in the industry for over half of that. If there's one thing I learned it's that skaters are funny creatures. Especially when it comes to beefs with their "adversaries" like rollerblading, BMX and scooters.
It really makes me chuckle.