2014 New York Skateboarding Year in Review: 5-1

Final post of the year. Previously: 25-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-6, 2014 in T.F. Obstacles.

Happy New Year. Be safe tonight if you’re inclined to go outside.

5. The Burning Question of 2014: “Is Chinese Seaport #Legit?”

It is bad enough that our culture has been diminished to an abyss of spots-that-aren’t-really-spots and Houston Street construction scraps. New York-based skateboarders have now found themselves overthinking miracles like the resurrection of Seaport.

“Does it look too much like a skatepark?”
“Will my footage here still look #core between the traffic barriers and late-night wallrides in my ‘Summer Trip to New York’-part?”
“Am I lame for thinking a metal ledge needs wax?”
“Will my friends back home say I sold out for not skating Reggaeton Ledges instead?”
“If there was some #urban graffiti on the ledge, would it be more #legit?”

Do you think the dudes at Para-lel, who attained ungodly manual and ledge abilities over the years, ever stopped to question as to whether or not their spot was *too* good? Americans, man.

4. Zered’s Transworld Part

“I haven’t cared about a Transworld video since _____!”

For whatever reason, anyone who grew up on Feedback, Modus and Sight Unseen loves to brag about how out of touch they are with current Transworld offerings. Except their “haven’t cared”-benchmarks usually don’t end up reaching as far back as they think. Everyone watches TWS videos; they’re a safe, reliable product. You know what to expect with each one, and we expect them to be pretty Californian.

This time around, they gave a guy who once filmed — maybe not the greatest “New York part” per se — but the best part filmed by someone whose primary residence at the time of filming was in New York, a four-minute window to show us how he’s still the best, ten years later. Nice way to win us back ;)

3. Enron

^^^Maybe it’s dropping tonight at 11:59:59 P.M?

Anti-Hero received much fanfare for releasing Destination Unknown without any build-up — except they, like almost everyone else in 2014, were biting Bronze. Enron dropped without warning on a Sunday night, to the befuddlement of web traffic analysts everywhere who could not fathom such disregard for #peak #web #hours.

The video marked ~eight years of annual output from the Sidlauskas Institute. Flipmode-turned-Bronze may be today’s longest-running, still-operational independent skate video series besides Static.

2. Paych (or whatever)

These videos have been enormous leaps from one another in quality. Paych is way better than Beef Patty, which was way better than Space Heater, which proceeded that video called “video,” etc.

With success comes great responsibility. Analysts are expressing concern over the growing rate of bottle service club footage in the Wilson franchise’s supplementary video blogs. Some pessimistic corners are already making grim references to Brian Wenning’s ominous DC Video intro. Only time will tell if 1OAK and HD cameras will throw it off the rails, even if 2014 was bright for the Most Productive Crew™ in New York skateboarding.

1. “cherry”

Photo by Atiba

[Full disclosure, in case some genius wants to point it out: There is a Supreme ad on the right column of this website. That has nothing to do with anything written below, but you’re going to believe what you want regardless.]

Nobody knew what to think when Pretty Sweet came and went. People assumed (maybe out of habit) that Girl/Choc’s product would steer everyone on a certain course for at least a few years. Why not, right? Fully Flared had long-lingering effects on any kid who began skating with skate plazas already a standard part of life, just as Yeah Right! was the definitive blockbuster video of the early-2000s. In 2012, the minds that had navigated skateboarding for fifteen-plus years let up on the gas. Shit, it happens. Two decades is a long time.

“cherry” didn’t push skateboarding in a single direction, in as much as it was the perfect way to sum up that nobody cared about exactly which way to go anymore.

Marquee pros were saying bye to the legacy brands, some of them starting their own thing, because, fuck it, what better time to seize a niche than now? Instead of an extra flip-in or another step, kids talented enough to have a lens pointed at them redeveloped a bag of tricks untouched since the eighties. The video itself openly expressed its non-skate inspirations between the tricks, and was more free-form than what we’ve come to expect in the routine of first, second-to-last, and last parts.

Even if you’re some stubborn, “those-damn-kids!”-adult who has never spent more than $20 on an article of clothing, it’s tough to say that anything besides “cherry” better encapsulates what has been going on in skating these past few years. It is the most resonant east coast video since Puleo brought cellar doors to the mainstream.

Quartersnacks 2014 Readers Choice Award Winners

Skater of the Year: Max Palmer [100%]
Best Non-Regular Stance Hardflip of the Year: Lucas Puig – Switch Hardflip on Flat in Helas “Captains Attack” [44%]
Slicky Boy Facebook Status of the Year: “yo why everyone suddenly wants to be artsy it’s corny as fuck” [47%]
Static of the Year: Static 4 [64%]
Album of the Year: Rich Gang – Tha Tour [63%]
Producer of the Year: DJ Mustard [58%]
Thing Ruining Skateboarding of the Year: Shaped Boards & Instagram [32%]
Part of the Year: Antoine Asselin – Dime: Lunch Break [27%]
Jam of the Year: Chris Brown – “Loyal” [100%]
TM101 Award Winner: Jerry Fowler – Orchard: Stone Soup [40%]
Hottest Move in a QS Clip of the Year: Tommy Cuba – Frontside Wallride w/ a Bottle of Moët [40%]
Hottest General Move of the Year: Jake Johnson – Slappy 5050 Clipper [31%]

[Full results here]

Even if it happened in 2013, it made its way to video in 2014. We leave you with this:

See you in 2015. Rich gang.