Identity Politics — On Skateboarding’s Evolving Attitude Toward Sports

📝 Words by Mike Munzenrider
🎨 Collage by Francesco Pini

Deathwish am Davey Sayles was too ripped to rip. “I couldn’t skate the first month, I was so top heavy, I was swole,” he says. Six years ago, Sayles quit college football. He took a three-day bus ride home from West Florida University to Vista, CA. At 5’10” he had a playing weight for the Division II Argonauts of 220 pounds. Sayles says his skating weight is 50 pounds lighter. “It took me three months to slim down.”

The 28-year-old says he was a skate rat turned running back who was a natural on the football field. Sayles says he played because his family has a history with the sport and that he broke records at every stop in his gridiron career; he walked away from it while having pro prospects in Canada. Still, he says, he wasn’t able to be himself as a football player – for years he watched from afar as friends like Rowan Zorilla succeeded as skaters, stacking clips and turning pro. Having given up on football, Sayles says he wanted to prove himself as a skater. And he has – check him out in Baker Has A Deathwish Part 2 for proof – cutting a fascinating career arc along the way.

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Wish It Was Miami

Simple Magic compiled a list (with excerpts!) of 2023’s best skateboard writing, including Mr. Munzenrider’s QS story about skate shop tees + Mr. Carbonite’s annual Song of the Summer x Part of the Summer study.

“You just got white rice?” Stephan Singh has a sick edit out called “Drop Top Drippy” featuring some deeper spot digging than any ol’ local edit. That firecracker bank thing on Morris Avenue might be the most London-ass spot in all New York. Kickflip was the one.

IMPULSE is an Albany / upstate scene video by Chris Sendzik with parts from Cooper Qua, Jeremiah Gray, Yafay Towles and a great closing section from Nick Persico.

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The Best Skate Videos & Parts of 2023 — QS Readers Poll Results

🎨 Illustration by Cosme Studio
📊 Ballot Count by 4Ply Magazine

The results are in: a time-capsule of 2023 skateboarding, as voted by QS readers. Some old favorites have returned to the rankings, and some new ones have emerged.

And yes, it should be stated, perhaps louder than in other years, that year-end rankings are an imperfect artform. Miles Silvas’ “City To City” part that would eventually land him Thrasher‘s S.O.T.Y. trophy premiered a few hours before voting for the QS Readers Poll closed (that didn’t stop him from getting some votes in those final moments though.) Yuto dropped his April part three days after voting closed. But we are committed to the belief that nobody wants to talk about 2023 after Christmas. And for a year when it felt like Skateboard Oscars Season™ began in August, we had to make the call. All those parts that missed the cutoff will be eligible for next year’s voting, same as years past.

If you are just joining us, this ranking was voted on by QS readers from December 4th to December 8th. If you’re interested in the methodology, 4PLY broke down how we tally the votes

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Shrinking Attention Spans & The Search For the Perfect-Length Skate Video

📝 Words by Mike Munzenrider
🎨 Collage by Francesco Pini
📊 Data Analysis & Graphs by Pete Glover of 4PLY Mag
📼 Data Courtesy of SkateVideoSite

It has never been easy to make a full-length skate video. Today, it might be harder than ever.

If you’re Josh Stewart, owner of Theories of Atlantis Distribution and the filmmaker behind the Static series, videos just take time. So much time, in fact, that he says Brett Weinstein, who stars in the forthcoming Static VI [58 minutes], put out a half-dozen other video parts with his Chicago crew, Deep Dish, in the time it took to finish the latest Static.

Or, if you’re a company man like Deluxe team manager and videographer Tim Fulton, you’re fighting everyone else’s schedule. If someone on Real has enough footage for a part, Fulton says, it’s unlikely everyone else is also close to completing a part — and even then, skaters are eager to get their footage out. So they put it out.

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How To Have A Good Time in Detroit — An Interview with ‘Minted’ Videographer, Justin Bohl

📝 Words by Mike Munzenrider
📷 Photos by Justin Bohl, Daniel Stelly & Max Garson

Could your skate scene use a Justin Bohl? The 39-year-old Detroit skater and filmer, whose most recent video is called Minted, says he improved 88 spots while filming the video, and no, a simple bondo job doesn’t count. Bohl’s total only includes spots that required an hour or more to fix – his most involved jobs, like, replacing dirt with brand-new sidewalk squares, could take upwards of 40 hours. Some 41 spots he fixed for the video had never been skated; he says he spent $3,500-plus to make it all happen.

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