The Best Skate Videos & Parts of 2020 — QS Readers Poll Results

Illustration by Cosme Studio
Ballot Tally Assist by 4Ply Magazine

One of the biggest cliches is discussing just *how much* skate content there is. Everything is available at once, and keeping track of it for one viewing — let alone multiple — is hard.

Last year’s decade poll aimed at a snapshot of skateboarding in a ten-year span, as it grew exponentially into the content waterfall it is today. It was very fun to do, but perhaps easier in that with ten years to reflect on, it was apparent what loomed large over tricks, styles and trends. We brought it back for a single year to try and form a canon at a time when so much of the conversation is geared around things moving too fast for a consensus.

Yes, you’ll notice an inherent recency bias here, and year-end content is obviously an imperfect art — the poll closed on December 4, which is before John’s Vid and Third Shift came out online, two projects that definitely would’ve ranked if eligible. (Honestly, John’s Vid might’ve ended up being #1 or #2 given the readership of this website.)

So here it is. No commentary for the full-lengths this round. Full-length skate videos capture a zeitgeist, and sometimes, it takes a while for those effects to truly make themselves known.

Shout out to all the writer friends from the internet who helped with write-ups, and extra major shout out to the team at 4Ply Magazine for the help on tallying the ballots.

And if you’re joining us, this ranking was voted on by QS readers during the first week of December, with voting ending on the 4th.

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Triple Kink

The new Blue Couch edit is their best one yet — a lot of which is just filmed in the vicinity of the 125th Street Fairway? Never realized those inch-high curbs at Grants Tomb were a doppelgänger for the London ones Tom Knox, Mike Arnold and them always skate.

Krux has a new edit with Arin, Marbie, Cooper, Kristin Ebeling, Ryan Lay, and others hitting Blue Park, Alligator, and all the spots under the Kosciuszko.

The Creed Video” is filmed around New York, Richmond and Charlotte. These sort of homie videos have a special charm ♥ Sincerely smiled at the turnaround after the 5-0 180.

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Thunder in Eight

scrapbook

Via Requiem for A Screen, duh ♥

Phew, The Bunt is back. Season four, episode one with Elijah Berle.

Really heavy new edition of LurkNYC’s “Mean Streets” series went live this past weekend. The 5050 at Chase, Howard Street ollie and Columbia ollie were all insane. Is that Water Street ender an NBD? Wow.

Jason Byoun is like an O.G. nu-age Brooklyn Banks head.

This past weekend, Brian Wenning did his first switch back nosegrind pop-out since Photosynthesis, and it looked fab. Sorry to link two single tricks two links in a row :)

There’s an official trailer out for Pat O’Dell’s feature documentary about Big Brother.

Is a “VX Montage” in an HD video like when they throw a random experimental song in the middle of a rap album? And holy shit, that 360 flip

A couple more parts from Ricardo Napoli’s Making It Happen video are up over on TWS: A non-VX montage featuring Akira and a bunch of dudes, Taylor Clark + Jarrod Brandreth’s shared part, and Bruno Aguero + Lindolfo Oliveira’s shared part. Also, Transworld, please do something about your video player. Tried to rewind a trick and had to watch a Pennzoil commercial mid-video…

Ripped Laces on the recent resurgence of yellow gear in skateboarding.

“Alas, as ledge skating gained supremacy and skateable blocks began trading at a premium due to police pressure and general scarcity, peg damage and huffy attitudes came to divide the camps, such that by the time the handrail age set in, extreme bike riders became punchlines.” Dunno about the “punchline” part, as we’ve linked a BMX video or two on here before and like ummm, ROB CAMPBELL, but Boil the Ocean considers the relationship between bikes and skateboards, circa 2017. We Citibiked up to Lenox from Soho yesterday, and it was pretty beast ;)

An extensive interview with Ian from Jenkem.

Luis Tolentino was actually Spiderman all along.

Spot Updates — 1) Defeated lol on them re-paving every part of this spot except where we needed them to re-pave. At least Avenue A getting re-paved is the biggest thing to happen to New York skateboarding since children discovered Indoor Ten. 2) Spot was a two second bust and for pros, but those rails parallel to the narrow banks on 33rd Street are mad high now. 21. 21. 21.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: So, Thunder in 8, right?! With the Russ adoration running high on here this past season, let’s take a second to remind ourselves of J.R. Smith’s brilliance — sorry, meant NBA Champion™ J.R. Smith’s brilliance. [Also remembered how annoying it is that we now have to wait until the end of June to find out who MVP, 6MOTY, etc. is now.]

Quote of the Week: “Harden is like the guy at the spot who knows how to land all tricks, but he’s wearing fat Globes and skinny pants.” — Francesco Pini