All this for some shoes?
Nardwuar vs. P-Rod, Tyshawn vs. Supreme, tradition vs. modernity, Simple Magic vs. Dirt, and more.
The definitive weekly ranking and analysis of all the skateboarding and other things online that I cannot stop consuming and how it makes me feel, personally.
All this for some shoes?
Rank: 20 (years)
Mood: 🤔😄
Call it leveraging your existing partner relationships or laddering campaign beats; there are any number of ways to bend the cloddish, emotionally void language of the brand marketer to describe how Paul Rodriguez ended up doing an interview with Nardwuar the Human Serviette in the basement of Neptoon Records in Vancouver, British Columbia. It's an interview ostensibly meant to promote the rerelease of Rodriguez's first signature model shoe with Nike SB, which celebrates its 20th anniversary today, May 16.
But why use Nardwuar, the beloved music journalist, as an interlocutor for such an activation? It is safe to assume it's because Nardwuar is receiving a Nike SB Dunk later this calendar year, as Sneakerfiles reported last week.
Brian Betschart
That's some slick, forward-looking go-to-market follow-through. By putting Rodriguez face-to-face with a popular creator (sorry Nardwuar) who excels at drawing stories out of his subject's pasts, you've set up Rodriguez for a potentially viral spot (the YouTube video currently sits at 94k views as of this morning) creating a moment that both reflects on Rodriguez's long and storied career as a professional skateboarder and is thematically aligned with the product; the rerelease of the shoe that is one of his career's premiere milestones.
Just a few days prior to that video going live, "news" conveniently "broke" of Nardwuar's rumoured Nike SB shoe. Then people started piecing things together, and those, like myself, began to wonder, are they gonna ship Yuto to the basement of Neptoon Records next?
Hopefully! That would be appreciated. While it's evident that Nardwaur isn't that well-versed in skateboarding and his stylings don't hit quite as hard with Rodriguez as they might with others (the two spend a lot of time just flipping through old skate mags and talking about various PROs who Rodriguez has varied levels of affliation with), it is still more entertaining and better researched than most endemic skate media interviews.
In this environment, Rodriguez also comes off as more relaxed and approachable than he has in some time, a stark contrast from recent and embarrassing appearances alongside his friend and former professional skateboarder, Chris Cole, who's attempted to podcast his way through allegations of domestic violence.
Either incongruous with or reflective of the above, Rodriguez is clearly media trained — or just media savvy — as he makes sure to describe to Nardwaur's audience what a game of S.K.A.T.E. is, as well as other cultural nuances that normies might not pick up on, but it reads as mostly sincere. We hear some fun stories about encounters with Marcus McBride and Tom Penny when Rodriguez was an upstart, and get more insight into his relationship with his daughter and father, the comedian Paul Rodriguez Sr.
Frankly, it's just special to see a professional skateboarder get the Nardwuar treatment, even if it's potentially a contractual obligation. At one point, while looking at an old ad for the éS Koston One, Rodriguez makes sure to spike the camera and clarify that Koston is now a Nike SB athlete. Still, having Nardwuar look expectantly at Rodriguez while he holds up a picture of the CIBC rail in Vancouver is such a stupid, beautiful thing.
This, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your outlook, is what a solid marketing effort looks like, especially for someone at this stage of their career, like Rodriguez, where it makes more sense to lean into nostalgia than produce another video part (though he's certainly still got it). It's somewhat left field, has people talking, and perhaps asking confusedly, all this for some shoes?
Impunity in the name of commercial gain
Rank: 26,000,000
Mood: 💰💰💰💰💰
Relationships between professional athletes and their sponsors are fragile things. Like most business partnerships, they are performance-based. If the athlete performs well and abides by the contract, there's potential that contract will be extended and additional perks gained. What makes them fragile is the delicate nature of the human form. If the athlete begins to slip in ability, responsibility, gets injured, or breaches the agreed-upon contract in any way that reflects poorly on them, sponsors — businesses that need to make money to survive — won't hesitate to cut what they consider to be "dead weight."
Tyshawn Jones, however, is not dead weight. Tyshawn Jones is a superstar at the top of his game. A recent two-time skater of the year with signature model shoes on adidas, he also currently enjoys an endorsement deal with Louis Vuitton. Of course, he had a high-profile clothing deal before that, with Supreme. The streetwear brand helped foster Jones from a young age, featuring him in their seminal videos like Cherry (2014), Blessed (2018), and Play Dead (2022). The brand and its resident filmmaker, Bill Strobeck, were pivotal in turning Jones into the massive global star he is today.
So it was curious when Jones appeared to leave the company in the fall of last year. Why would Supreme let someone of Jones' calibre, someone whose profile they'd helped build for over a decade, walk away? According to a lawsuit filed on Monday against Supreme by Jones and Grind Hard Holdings Corp., the plaintiffs claim that Supreme severed his $1 million USD per year contract 15 months early as a means to cut costs ahead of their impending sale to eyeglass conglomerate Luxottica last July. For their part, Supreme says that Jones was cut after an "incurable breach" in contract, after he participated in a photoshoot while wearing another company's clothing.
Peter Senzamici
While one would assume that to be cause enough, Jones says he was not only allowed but encouraged to participate in shoots where he'd wear other brands' products. There's a fair amount of evidence to show that, along with examples of other Supreme riders doing the same without losing their endorsement deals.
Jones' lawsuit claims “Supreme’s termination is pretext for cost-cutting,” it also alleges that his former sponsor is “Doubling down on their bad faith and willful breach... through several statements both impermissible and false, has widely disparaged Tyshawn as a liability, a risk — someone no brand would want to affiliate or work with.”
As the New York Post, which broke the story, notes, "Jones’ lawsuit seeks the $1.25 million he claims he was still owed through his contract term. He is also asking for $25 million in damages for Supreme’s alleged 'wanton and egregious conduct' towards him, and to help '[disincentivize] other like-situated companies from destroying young athletes’ careers with impunity in the name of commercial gain.'"
While there have undoubtedly been plenty of legal skirmishes between professional skateboarders and their sponsors in the past, most we don't hear about, so this one certainly feels unprecedented. One of the biggest names in the sport is suing one of the biggest companies in the industry for an astronomical sum. Tony Hawk once sued a helmet cam company for $115,000 after they allegedly shortchanged him, but that's small potatoes comparatively.
Has Jones' career been "destroyed" by Supreme? It sure doesn't look like it. But that doesn't mean there haven't been legitimate damages done. As I wrote about last week, following the brutal blood-letting at VF Corp (Supreme's former owner), where dozens of longtime Vans employees were axed, and have written about many times previously when it comes to the precarity of the sponsored skateboarder as an independent contractor, the human cost is always the first to go and its ramifications the least considered.
If anything, Jones is making sure Supreme considers it now.
Young bucks and brands bucked
Rank: 2.5
Mood: 🦌
At the risk of stating the painfully, bracingly obvious, if you are a skateboarding company hoping to sell your hard and soft goods to the purchasing public, you will need to develop and maintain a brand. That brand works as a demarcation between you and your competitors and a living pitch to the consumer as to why they should invest their attention and money in whatever it is you produce.
That brand, if done well, isn't a flat thing. It is dynamic, relatable or aspirational, visually and (potentially) intellectually compelling. That brand is built through recognizable art direction, savvy ad spots, an eventual longevity that nourishes an affection or sense of nostalgia, and, most importantly in the skateboarding space, skateboarders.
The skateboarders are what bring a skateboarding brand to life. While social media has made the individual more of a brand than some brands themselves at times, the people who don a logo and fill out a video with their athletic gifts are the best representatives of a brand.
Ultimately, it requires finding a balance between a company's branding and its roster, which, by design, intermingle. A skater can fit a brand's aesthetic, elevate it, or not make sense for it at all. Most brands realize this, some are slow to change with the times, and others, like Palace, have excelled at branding to such a degree that associating themselves with other brands — everyone from high-profile fashion houses to fast food chains like McDonald's — is a part of their brand.
A big part of how Palace has defined its brand in skateboarding is through its video output. Generally shot on Hi-8, intercut with their twirling Tri-Ferg logo, and a distinct UK sensibility in humour and music direction, you'd recognize a Palace video at twenty yards away.
That is, until this week, when Palace released via Thrasher (another former collaborator), More Highly Defined, a new edit filmed in HD with a stripped-back editing style that makes it feel more like a competently filmed Supreme offering than anything in the Palace oeuvre. In addition to being anchored by a superb PRO-making part from Jahmir Brown, More Highly Defined features incredible skateboarding from Charlie Birch, Rory Milanes, Kyle Wilson, and what might be Shawn Powers' best footage to date.
But even with such great skating, it's hard to ignore such a drastic shift in tone for the brand, and it wouldn't be a surprise if More Highly Defined is a dig at this bare-bones style itself. No name cards, little b-roll, just a loose timeline of top-shelf skating set to music with no greater feeling or purpose than that — this could be mistaken for 70% of the videos on Thrasher if it weren't for the skaters on screen.
Because even if the team remains a brand's animating force, the balance remains tricky. Skaters come and go, but an aesthetic will always be how a brand differentiates itself. How much can you mess with that formula before the results start to sour? Alternatively, if you don't try new things, eventually the brand becomes sclerotic and incapable of growth.
Consider Crailtap's Girl and Chocolate skateboards. They've had established visual identities since the '90s, and their rosters have been glacially slow to evolve over those years, so you'd imagine they understand the connection fans have to the work of longtime collaborative artists like Evan Hecox and the skaters that have stuck around on their teams. But if you don't change, you'll stagnate. This comes to bear in stale board graphics and how they've historically struggled to bring new riders into the fold, keeping talent in flow-purgatory for years or failing to court big names, like what appeared to be Girl's recent dalliance with French superstar Vincent Milou before he was announced as Element's new PRO.
Yet, like with Palace, maybe things can change? This week, Chocolate announced UK up-and-comer Dougie George to the team in a genuinely exciting move.
So, perhaps we should be heartened that these companies are trying new things with their brands, or, at the very least, are trying at all. Because that's all we want, isn't it? Wait, what's that? You're telling me George has been flow for Chocolate since at least September 2022? Ah, well.
What's that smell?
Rank: 1
Mood: 👃🤏
Specifically, it's notes of curbside violets, tobacco, sweat, paraffin wax, and metal. Generally, it's another special Simple Magic collaboration, this time with the entertainment and culture newsletter Dirt.
Starting this past Monday and going into June, we'll be publishing a series of works called "Sensuous Skateboarding," which take a look, whiff, listen, taste, and feel of skateboarding’s effect on the senses. I wrote the first piece (which can be read below on Dirt if it didn't wind up in your mailbox earlier in the week), and we've got some excellent contributor pieces coming down the pike.
Cole Nowicki
On top of that, no collab is complete without a special edition item to purchase, hold, and cherish. That comes courtesy of Pearfat Parfum, who whipped up a lovely scent that captures the olfactory essence of skateboarding, whose notes were noted above. And, of course, it is called Nosegrab. It'll go live on the Pearfat website on June 9.
That's fun. It also smells quite nice, so there you go. I'm currently workshopping some taglines:
The ideal scent for your session™
A sessional scent™
The fragrance that grabs you™
For the curbs and the club™
Something(s) to consider:
Mahmoud Khalil
Josiah Neufeld
Good thing about a gross thing:
Max Read
More good thing(s):
Thomas Barker
Ben Komins
One more good thing:
Luke O’Neil
Until next week… go Oilers and Knicks, the only ethical and orange teams to root for.
Laser Quit Smoking Massage
NEWEST PRESS
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My new collection of essays is available now. I think you might like it. The Edmonton Journal thinks it's a "local book set to make a mark in 2024." The CBC called it "quirky yet insightful." lol.
Book cover by Hiller Goodspeed.
Right, Down + Circle
ECW PRESS
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I wrote a book about the history and cultural impact of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that you can find at your local bookshop or order online now. I think you might like this one, too.
Here’s what Michael Christie, Giller Prize-nominated author of the novels Greenwood and If I Fall, If I Die, had to say about the thing.
“With incisive and heartfelt writing, Cole Nowicki unlocks the source code of the massively influential cultural phenomenon that is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and finds wonderful Easter-eggs of meaning within. Even non-skaters will be wowed by this examination of youth, community, risk, and authenticity and gain a new appreciation of skateboarding’s massive influence upon our larger culture. This is my new favorite book about skateboarding, which isn’t really about skateboarding — it’s about everything.”
Photo via The Palomino.
