Another year
has come and gone. Scooters have
continued to progress in multiple ways, from Ryan Williams pushing the limits
on the Nitro Circus, to new, innovative products being designed, to more and
more riders taking filming seriously. As
in any other year, certain trends have emerged from the wildly diverse scooter
world. Some may pass into 2014, others
may not. This is a short list of a few
of the trends I thought were the biggest.
Keep in mind that this isn’t a “best” list, nor a “worst,” just what I
found to be popular in scootering over the past year.
-Starting a “Crew”
There have
always been different crews of riders in scootering, but most of them were of OG
riders who all eventually parted ways, to go on with life or a pro
career. I think the first crew to really
set off the new generation was Friendly. These guys were affiliated only by
friendship, rather than because they were sponsored by the same company. The pictures and videos they’ve dropped show
how fun scootering can be. 2013 saw full
lengths and other montages
by more crews than I could name. Do I
think it’s necessary for a group of friends to call themselves some fruity
name? No. But do I back the time and effort they put
into making videos? You bet. Peachy, Concrete, Trend, Basic, Venture,
Kooky, Funky…the list goes on. So while
the number of scooter crews got bigger, so did something else…
-Big
Scooters.
There was a
time when having tall bars
made you wack. In 2013, if your bars
were less than sack height, you might be considered the odd man out. The bar height trend is directly related to
deck size too. Demand for bigger, more comfortable
decks increased, and to compensate, bar height was raised. There are still plenty of shorter decks for
the younger, smaller guys out there, but with the advent of decks like the 22
inch Threshold, more and more riders are opting to upgrade their size. And why wouldn’t you? Girls
love a big deck.
-Handrail
Hucking.
Over the
years, there’s only been a handful of riders willing to toss themselves down
gnarly rails. But over the past year, we’ve
seen tons of younger riders on the come up, looking to prove themselves. The result? Thrashing unlike what we’ve ever seen
before. It was just a matter of time
before we started to ride handrails on a more regular basis, but the
progression we’ve seen over the past year is remarkable. Who would have thought that Zack Martin, a
relative unknown until 8
months ago, would be backlipping
Rincon? We all know Jessee Ikedah is
on another level, but his peg
abilities down rails are unrivaled.
And let’s not forget Mr.
Backlip himself, Tyler Bradley.
Anyone can wildly huck themselves, but when you watch T-Brad ride, he
makes it look so
easy and natural. I could keep going.
-S4S
This is one
of the more annoying trends I’ve seen.
Instagram is my favorite social network.
It’s extremely popular among scooter kids, and mostly everyone under the
age of 30. It allows you to share your
pictures, short video clips, and connect with those of similar interests. Many riders instead choose to use it as a
popularity contest. Giving shoutouts in
return for shoutouts to gain followers…it wouldn’t be so bad if it was only once
or twice, but there are riders perpetually doing this. This type of thing has been going on for
years (remember the sub4sub comments on Youtube?), but that doesn’t make it any
less wack. Ya’ll
be thirsty.
-“Trippy”
Editing
You all
remember the film burn. Popularized by
the likes of Nickeh, it was imitated by a legion of aspiring filmers and
editors across the world. This year the
cool thing to do was adding in trippy visuals with a psychedelic song. Nobody did it quite like clothing
company Satori did. Of course, you
can say they just copied skateboarding’s Pyramid Country/Palace, but they were
the first to really do it successfully in scooters. There was also another kind of “trippy”
that swept across the scooter world. Juicy
J’s army of codeine
fueled riders produced more videos than I could count. This wasn’t the only trend in video editing
either…
-Old Movie
B-Roll
To add onto
this, we also saw a lot of videos with footage from old movies as b-roll. This originally seemed like a cool idea- Tyler
Wheeland’s Nimbus fork edit featured pictures from WWII because Tyler has
always been interested in wars. And McKeen’s
Addict So What part had a lot of footage from old b-list horror movies, and
it felt like it fit the vibe of the part.
I’m not sure if the same could be said for a lot of the videos of
2013. It’s different when you’re
bombarded with images that you have no idea what their relevance is to the
rider. But kudos for trying.
-Fashion
I wasn’t
going to include this one after discussing
the topic so thoroughly in my last article, but there were some aspects I
didn’t include. A lot of guys, myself
included, have been into dressing nicely over the past year. I do it because I think it’s good to look
good, others because they are so “into
fashion”. White
button ups, dress pants, parted
hair, it’s all a part of the look. Some
have even gone so far as to start tucking
in their shirt. The fashion trend seems to have kept mostly in the circle
of OG “street elitists” but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it more widespread
over the next year. Insert Dylan Rieder
comment here.
So there you
have it, a list of what stuck out to me as the biggest scooter trends of
2013. Honorable mentions include: The myth of the Tilt wheels, crewnecks,
standard definition, Miley Cyrus, hurricane fullcabs, drinking, motorcycles, and
kickless rewinds. Agree? Drop a comment and let me know. Disagree?
Drop a comment so I can delete it.
