Look at this. No, really, take a good, hard look.
Dime's glory is the friends we made along the way, hello Kento, a reverse RVCA, a shoe that looks like a football, 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.
On a pedestal 30 feet in the air
Rank: 1
Mood: 🌋💆
Much ink has been spilled in outlets endemic and dominating, along with countless YouTube video recaps uploaded and Instagram Stories posted, following each iteration of the Dime Glory Challenge over its decade-long existence.
It's an event that rightly deserves the attention. Its blend of abject absurdity and inside jokes, skateboarding serving as their connective thread, is refreshing in an often self-serious industry. Glory Challenge is also an appointment destination for that industry. The biggest names in the sport take part. Thrasher sponsors the event. This year, it took place at IGA Stadium, which hosts the Canadian Open and was once home to the Montreal Expos. The event's success has spawned numerous loving imitators.
Cole Nowicki
That last part is fascinating in its own right, considering the Glory Challenge itself is built on inscrutable homages, whether to Xenu or Joe Valdez. The veneration of the also-ran or late-stage veteran is a Glory Challenge staple. Ryan Sheckler was given that spotlight this year and delivered, doing legitimately awesome Ryan Sheckler things you've probably seen by now. That is where the event excels, in reminding you why you once loved (or loathed, but now love) some skater and why you love skateboarding, quirks and all — the quirks, especially, as Quartersnacks put it well yesterday.
The Glory Challenge is not so much a contest than it is a funhouse distillation of what a session with the Dime crew would be. A friend’s wife once made an astute observation that any time he returns from a skate trip, he comes back talking different and in a way that makes no sense. As pods of skaters, those jokes we tell, the slang we use, and the lore we conjure up can all work to be greater than the sum of their parts — it is the reason our friends are our friends — and oftentimes, it can feel impenetrable to outsiders...
The Glory Challenge is Dime’s hallucinatory answer to what the greatest session ever was — told in a post-skate-trip foreign language that can still be understood by everyone from a non-skater, to an O.G. who was there for those Love Park or Pier 7 days you hear about.
It's about those treks you've made with your friends, whether in reminiscence or physically going with them to Montreal, as Sam Korman did in 2022.
Despite its size and success, that remains at the event's core: a veneration of Hanging Out With Your Buds. The "glory" of Glory Challenge is found in magnifying this seemingly simple thing and placing it on a pedestal 30 feet in the air.
Hello, Kento
Rank: 1
Mood: 👩💻
In most cases, it's wrong to whinge about having too much of something. Abundance is a blessing, no? Chock-full, stockpiled, to the brim — all good states of being. For the most part. After a bountiful harvest, if you don't preserve or distribute your crop wisely and widely, it'll go to spoil. All that time and effort that went into its production, a waste.
That's what living in the age of "content" feels like. Estimates suggest that millions of hours of video are uploaded to the internet and its social platforms each day. Most of which will never be seen, left to rot on the vine. In skateboarding, there are new full-lengths, individual projects, Instagram-specific edits, and social-friendly cutdowns of all the previous, shared each day of the week. It's an insurmountable amount of — to use the diluted catch-all for cultural production — content. No one can be expected to keep up. The process of upload-and-churn is rapid and unforgiving. There is a whole world of phenomenal skateboarding and skateboarders out there, buried under the timeline, forgotten by the algorithm.
I guess what I'm trying to piece together is some sort of explanation or excuse for not knowing who Kento Urano was before watching his FTC Part, published by Thrasher last week.
Did Urano appear out of nowhere, a supernova streaking fully-formed across the sky? His tens of thousands of Instagram followers would suggest otherwise, but how does someone go about doing tricks like the one below without already being on the radar? That's the old-school Saari phenomenon, where a generational talent simply appears.
It feels especially anachronistic in the age of our self-administered panopticon, where uploading every facet of life online is life. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see Urano now, and I hope to see more. His name should be at the tip of everyone's tongue, his video part on repeat, his mythos marinating in the way that marketers love. But how do you make sure everyone gets to witness and understand before the eye of the algorithm moves on, this bounty forgotten, left to spoil in the sun?
A reverse RVCA
Rank: $75
Mood: 💀🥊
Barely a teenager, I examined the clothing racks at the skate shop with what was likely an exaggerated studiousness. This moment, of course, was an exercise in taste. An opportunity to show the person behind the counter that I knew my shit. I selected a t-shirt with a piece of fabric sewn to the body that featured an illustration by Ed Templeton. I was unfamiliar with the brand, RVCA, but I knew Templeton, so it was an easy choice.
I made small talk with the clerk who said they'd just got RVCA into the shop and it was selling well, likening it to the next coming of Volcom. Two decades and change later, the companies would find themselves in similar positions. Both are owned by the brand management mega-conglomerate Authentic Brands Group (ABG), and both were licensed to Liberated Brands, which had its license pulled in February, resulting in the latter's bankruptcy and leading to the closure of all brick-and-mortar Volcom shops and the loss of over a thousand jobs.
The North American "wholesale licenses" for each have since moved on to different licensors, and the brands themselves limp on, shadows of their former selves. The photos below are from a recent collaboration between RVCA and Muhammad Ali, whose intellectual property, name, and likeness are also owned by ABG.
Look at this. No, really, take a good, hard look. That's real, I promise you. There is no lower effort than this. Also, consider what this collaboration means: RVCA, owned by ABG, likely had to pay ABG to license the Ali quote. That's some bizarre self-sucking in line with the ghoulish private equity funding fueling ABG. It's an ignominious, but not unexpected, present for a brand that was once home to some of skateboarding's best.
Even before its sale to Billabong in 2010 for an estimated $30 million USD, RVCA began to branch out from its purview of skateboarding, surfing, and art, following co-founder Pat Tenore's interest in combat sports. RVCA sponsored several high-profile MMA fighters, even funding a training facility, a curious move for what was ostensibly a skateboarding brand at the time.
Eventually, its original leadership team would depart. Conan Hayes, former pro-surfer and Tenore's fellow co-founder, took an equity buyout in 2010, resurfacing a decade later when news broke that he was a major figure in a QAnon-fueled scheme to interfere with the 2020 presidential election in the United States. Following ABG's acquisition of Boardriders, Billabong's parent company, in 2023, Tenore was laid off among hundreds of others.
In 2024, Tenore debuted his new venture, creatively titled Tenōre. They produce minimalist-bro "everyday" "technical" items in the vein of Municipal and Kit&Ace before them. Uninspired, but not worse than whatever RVCA is up to now.
With this brand, Tenore also appears to be doing a reverse RVCA, having first sponsored combat sports athletes like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu stars Kade and Ty Ruotolo, MMA fighters Aaron Pico, Nate Diaz, and Payton Talbot, before announcing the addition of Tom Schaar to Tenōre's "tribe of advocates" last week.
Does it say anything about the state of things that this is the direction Tenore chose to go in? Forgoing highlighting "core" skateboarding, surfing, and art in favour of flavourless athleisure wear, MMA, and over-priced sweatpants? Is that the "counterculture" fashion brands see promise in now? Perhaps more pressingly, in our endlessly flattened, monetized world, is a counterculture even possible now, in the way we once understood it?
Muhammad Ali, whose urgent countercultural political activism made him a towering historical figure, sold his name for $50 million in 2006. In 2025, well, you've seen the shorts.
🚨Update🚨: I originally identified the font used on the RVCA shorts as Arial. Keen-eyed readers on Bluesky would confirm it as Franklin Gothic condensed.
Collab palette cleanser
Rank: 20-yard line
Mood: 🏈
In stark contrast to the above, which has the potential to be the worst brand collab in history, Limosine Skateboards and Nike SB have taken the novel approach of doing something good. You see, the new Limo Dunk looks like a football, which is funny because that's the wrong sport. It's also smart because the NFL season started yesterday, and it opens up interesting activations, like this promo featuring a marching band getting into the formation of the Limo logo.
Plus, it even allows for shops to have some fun in their individual promotional work, like Menu here in Vancouver, who let 'sletter friend Carter Spinks art direct the hell out of some photos.
Photos: Carter Spinks, featuring Cameron Fiorillo via Menu Skate Shop on Instagram.
Then, of course, Limo put out a promo video featuring some excellent skating, as they always do. That should be the ideal, expected outcome of any brand collaboration: each party uses their resources to tush push1 the product into the endzone.
Something to consider: This otter experiencing the open road.
Via Twitter.
Good thing: He does not deserve a shoe or colorway at this point, but by god, I will still listen to Gino talk about it.
Village Psychic
Another good thing:
Nicholas David
Good pod round-up:
Posted by
Templeton
I forgot to link out to this one last week. Always a treat to be on with the gang.
A good thing about some wild business dealings:
Until next week… autumn approaches. Sweater weather nears. The crunching of leaves can be heard off in the distance. Soon, we will wear scarves. Prepare accordingly.
1 Yes, the tush push. A thing that I am familiar with and have deployed accurately in this instance to display my knowledge of sport.
Laser Quit Smoking Massage
NEWEST PRESS
--------------------------------
My new collection of essays is available now. I think you might like it. The Edmonton Journal called it a "local book set to make a mark in 2024." The CBC said it's "quirky yet insightful." lol.
Book cover by Hiller Goodspeed.
Right, Down + Circle
ECW PRESS
--------------------------------
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.
Photo via The Palomino.
