📝 Intro by Mike Munzenrider
🎨 Art by Francesco Pini
For its first 40 years of existence, skateboarding’s popularity would rise and fall in regular cycles. But then, right around 1999, skating enjoyed two decades of enduring prosperity.
Come 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, skateboarding went nova – with pockets full of stimulus cash, folks sought activities to do outdoors, and skate sales exploded, albeit unsustainably.
And now, the cycle returned, so much that people point to an alleged crash in popularity. This past spring, we surveyed skateshop owners and managers to ask, “What’s the ‘Matter’ With Skateboarding?” The shops pointed to a number of factors, including higher prices for products, a lack of demos and in-person events, and changes in the way younger people interact with skating.
Some of the shops we spoke to also wondered: “Why are you only asking us? Ask the brands.” So we’re back, this time with the QS Anonymous Brand Survey.
