As bladers, we are shunned by those with whom we share the skatepark. Drag the bottom of the barrel and you will find me, along with the rest of my fucked up little underground of darkness. (Darkness as in, “no media exposure darkness,” not, “Michael Jackson childhood darkness.”) And ya know what; I think we’re all fine with that. But the other day, as I was in the middle of a line at the skatepark, I crossed paths with a scooter-kid not more than 15 years old. I heard him curse me for getting in his way and mutter, “Jesus Christ, fucking rollerbladers!” He scowled and scooted away with the arrogance of a skateboarder in a BAM tee and an undeserving sense of belonging in the skatepark.
Really? Is rollerblading that uncool that I was being chastised by some kid whose mother probably brings a picture of Ryan Sheckler to her local Pac Sun when school-shopping for the little fucker and says to the girl behind the counter, “Ok, so my son wants to look like a skater!”
I’m not even trying to hate on scootering, I just want to know where they come from. How do kids get into it? I mean, skateboarding has Tony Hawk, Rob Dyrdek, and the X-Games to thank for turning their icons into household names and essentially brands in themselves. BMX has Dave Mirra. Surfing has Kelly Slater. Wakeboarding has rich people from Florida with boats and snowboarding has Shawn White; but what about scootering? Is there an industry? Are there big name pros and personalities? Who knows? And until I find out, I’m just going to live under the assumption that their only purpose of existence is to get in the way at the skatepark or to fall really hard in front of a camera while jumping a set of stairs and inevitably go “viral” on YouTube. (Literally a day after I wrote this, a Thursday Night Skate sesh was interrupted because of a scooter demo. There were at least 75 of them all in one place.)
Ahem.
Dear Scooter kids,
Where did you all come from? I feel like I’m in some Disney Channel movie or hanging out with Justin Bieber’s alternative little brother when I see you guys. Are you aware of how much suck you generate? Tell your mom that if she doesn’t get off the ramp, she really does run the risk of it being her fault when someone gets broken off trying to impress her. Damn, that ass can’t be a day over 35. There’s no way your little pumpkin head came out of that body, scooter kid.
Are those pegs on your wheels? WTF? Seriously, I kind of blame this on skateboarding. If you hadn’t become so popular, so mainstream, maybe scootering might still only be enjoyed by collegiate Asians in between class or someone who would commonly be mistaken for Michael Cera. This isn’t a matter of being cool, or me thinking that I’m better than you for Christ’s sake, lest we forget, I’M A ROLLERBLADER. I am just curious as to your sudden invasion of skateparks all over the place. I’ve seen you guys at parks in Long Beach, Phoenix, Cleveland and San Diego. I almost want to release one of you into the wild on one of those days when it’s only OG skateboarders at the Venice Beach Park except that I’m scared it would be like that goat/T-Rex scene in “Jurassic Park.”
But putting our differences aside, who am I to judge? I feel like you will probably get bored of scooting (scootering? Not sure of specific scoot-lingo [Ed’s Note: Freestyle Scootering? Aggressive Scooting?]) soon enough and it will have proven to be just another fad so there is no reason for me to get all grumpy or think that for one second I’m better than you. (Even though I am.) That’s the beautiful part of these “alternative” activities that we all take part in. This isn’t football and these aren’t team sports. There’s no try-outs, no closet-gay-coaches harboring emotional issues and no need to prove ourselves to anyone. We do what we do, because we love it, bottom line. Surfing, skating, biking, blading and hell, why not, scooting—let’s just say fuck it and get along. It could be worse; you could play Ultimate Frisbee with your bros, brah. — Saul Grynde
ONE Mag should be above this kind of shit. I say take this shitty uninformed article down.
Lets not be like the boarders were to us. Heads high.
Hey Dan it’s ironic and tongue-in-cheek and overall actually is asking a real question: where do the scooter dudes come from?
hey je, who cares? obviously a lot of rollerbladers could care less about scooters, no one wants to know about it. yes, it was comical, going to examine the stand point that they are at, because at one point, blading was there as well. But you calling it a fad, something that won’t last, couldn’t people say the same about blading? Or have said the same when we were first coming up? And look what happened: rollerblading lasted. Don’t knock these dudes just because they might be something that you feel is beneath us. I mean obviously you felt that way enough to post an article about it, and, in some way or another, it came out as a stab at scooters rather than just being some light hearted joke. It’d be nice to know who Saul Grynde is, but I’m sure it is just another moniker that you are hiding behind because you realize that the content here is so absurd and out of whack that you cannot attach your own name to it. Only the BEST in rollerblading media, right?
Regardless of all this bullshit, I think we should all JUST BLADE.
It isn’t ironic, and who cares where they come from? Blading needs to do its own thing, this type of thing just brings us down. ONE mag, take it down.
Oh, but how some of you wish it was just good ol JE with the unpopular opinions. I got news for everyone, there’s more opinions out there than mine. So get used to anonymous bylines and aliases as more and more people get ready to share their opinions on blading and our culture. Blading doesn’t make it easy to be honest with thoughts attached to a real identity, something that anyone that’s paid attention to the legacy of JE has realized/learned. Been writing about blading under my own name for 12 years. An actual alias would hardly have any point now.
Dan has a point. Just take it down. There is a difference between an unpopular opinion and an unnecessary opinion, this article being most certainly the latter of the two.
Thanks Dan, We need more people like you.
This website fucking sucks.
This guy is sick. Matt McKeeen.
Scootering is just a really easy version of BMX, kind of a step below. Scootering is for those kids that aren’t big enough for a bike yet and too much of a bitch to try Blade.
I dig the response that we got from posting that Open Letter. I enjoy stirring up the pot when all these fools are taking everything so seriously. I anticipated it almost, but I just wish more people got what I was really trying to say and saw the irony. I felt like I was making fun of blading more than I was scootering. We have almost 25 years of history under our belt and a community, some sort of cohesive identity. We know who we are, most of us know where we come from, where we’ve been and what we want. We KNOW rollerblading. They have no history or solid identity yet they are still beating the shit out of us in terms of sales and gaining more participants by the day. You say that we’re on an even playing field and that they are where we once were? I say they’ve already surpassed us. If scootering is more popular than blading, it’s because its US who need to get our shit on track. Blading is stagnant right now. If some 15 year old kid would rather scooter than blade, that says something about the image that the public has on blading. I fucking love rollerblading just as much as anyone and I don’t think that we are “better” or “cooler” than scootering. My jabs were in good fun. Hell, technically, a scooter kid could just say, “Taig Kris,” or “Rollernews,” and that would be a good enough come back to shut down that entire wall of pretentious text above. Where’s your sense of humor?
-Saul
When it comes down to it, this article isn’t interesting and it isn’t particularly funny in any way. Its just kind of…lame
Thanks for wasting my time one
saul this is were you are wrong. scootering has been around for like 10+years and ofcourse they have there chris haffeys and personalities and contest. They are almost like us rollerbladers in many ways, And i think the worse thing anyone can do is mess with them because it turns us into the very thing we hate. Ignorance from another sport.
Even if your not hating then at least do some research into the sport before you put it out there like that. Then after you do that look at youtube and see the videos of how high the level they take there sport too. They are doing some incredible things right now its breath taking, However just like our sport you rarely see anyone in skateparks representing what it truly is.
Im not goin to check this post again if you do have any questions as to whom is doing what in there sport contact us at nyrolling@yahoo.com and we will link you to there culture.
I LOVE ONE MAGAZINE WITH ALL OUR HEARTS BUT THIS POST WAS VERY IGNORANT. And makes me feel like a douche bag skateboarder if i agree with it.
Tasteless.
Why would ONE even give this any attention?
Not only was it not funny (though apparently Saul thinks it is, asking us where our humor is) but it wasn’t even exceptionally well written or thought out.
Let Colin handle the rants from now on, at least his are funny.
Hey, Timothy James Kelly, didn’t you get the award for “most likely to suck Andrew Nemiroski’s dick?” Get a life you poser.
Gay ass article shit. Rollerblades r gay lmao, like gay shoes with wheels. An they call scooters gay, go put ur gay ass wheelies back on homos
I have been riding scooters for about 7 years i do it cause i love it and im not stoping anytime soon. Ive done things on a scooter that most people wouldn’t think of doing in any extreme sport and i can still strap on a pair of blades and shred most of my local rollerbladers, sooo you guys need to get your facts straight before you go writing articles like this. sure there are little kids who tend to get i peoples ways but there are kids like that in EVERY sport even rollerblading. just thought i would clear things up
ya u guys dont know wat the fuck u talking about scooters are small in us but in uk and australia scootering is bigger than rollerblading skating and bmx put all together so if u think were small think again ya like righ said theres those little kids who get in ur way but thts with all the sports and another thing is where do we come from we buy a scooter we start to ride we get friends involved and we spread the word!! im not hating on anyone here like bladers skaters or bikers im just trying to defend the sport i do!! u have anything else 2 say or ask get me at my email below
where the fuck did you come from? roller blading is the last thing i would or anyone would think about being in a skate park. what the fuck can you do? just grinds and spins? get the hell out and delete this shit pointless crappy article because it just shows how ignorant you are.
Skater and BMXers probly said the same shit about fruitbooters when they started showing up to the skatepark. And its really funny that you say that about scooters because blades have hit there peak and are dying out. Cant remember the a time in the last 2 years fruitbooters outnumbered anything(skateboarders, BMXers, and yes even scooters) at any parks near me. And as hard as it is for you to believe scootering is booming.
Been riding for 8 years now. Started as a joke..It was just something different… and no one ever really dreamed it’d blow up to to where it is now. It sucks for everyone else that doesnt ride scooters because the reality of all this is…We ARE going to take over..Its already begun and you all know it
I have so much respect all you bladers out there. you guys have been killing it for years and you get no recognition. If anything, we should be teaming up…Showing ppl what else you can do besides skateboard because you were told that was the ” cool” thing to do.
I ride for MADDGEAR, http://www.maddgear.com
check out our youtube channel: mgpactionsports
And scope this!
You want a history on scooters? Go ahead and shoot me an email if you want a follow up to this with some facts about how it started where it came from and why it is growing today.
My name is Chris Gascoigne, I have been riding scooters for about 10 years now.. since the very begining. It is a passion of mine and I love it.
Saul, i personally invite you to please contact me.
Lol insults from bladers, cutting deep hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahajahahahah pathetic
Hey Saul,
Sorry about your encounter at the park. But as you obviously know, kids will be kids.
In the scooter industry (and yes there is an industry) we try to promote skatepark etiquette above a lot of other things. I know I hate going to a park where there are 100 kids all standing on the coping. It was like that when I was a kid and EVERYONE had a skateboard, and its like that today and everyone has a SCOOTER. Things have not really changed much other than the sport.
Like T-Bone said, we have respect for all other sports and would like to team up to stop all the hate. The owner of Razors Aggressive Inline and Ground Control owns a couple scooter companies (AO, Elyts, 841, Raptor, and Titen). And the homies Dre Powell, Brian Aragon, and the rest of the team are totally cool with us.
Are there personalities in the sport? Yes. I am one of them. I announce and commentate for all major contests across the globe. As well as write for magazines and work in promotions for some companies.
If you have more questions shoot me an email.
Funny how half of the guys in the top photo now are considered really great riders, and to see how we in the scooter comunity feels like scootering has grown so much, yet, just outside of our community, people don`t know a thing about these great riders.
Thanks
Great article.
Fun to read.
Thanks!
big-ups to the scooterers for pushing the limits, those edits were very eye-opening, they have passion for their sport that’s all that matters.
the last thing we need in rolling is bigotry. live and let live.
Personally,when I see anyone in a skatepark, I feel happy that those people share the same passion for alternative sports as I do. Sure, sometimes the little assholes who don’t know proper etttiquette in the skate park are annoying, but they come on literally everything and not just scooters. most of the adult scooters that I’ve met at skateparks aren’t anything like the dumb little kids snaking off everyone. Wether the people at the park are on blades, boards, bikes, or scooters, its always fun to see all the different tricks people do. most scooters are nice people, like baorders, bladers, and bikers. Don’t let the idiots ruin it.
