Skateboaring Culture

1. How can an understanding of the complexities of culture help us make sense of the day-to-day world which we live? Give an example from your life to illustrate your answer.

The information that has been provided about the subcultures of Hip Hop and Punk shows there are many differences between Hip Hop and Punk and several contributing factors that shape these subcultures but ultimately each one’s existence serves a similar purpose: a form of escape and expression. Prior to research, I was an outsider looking in on the two subcultures. Assumed no similarity at all, but I learned, when you take a deeper look and explore the pages they are different books carrying the same message.

Hip Hop was birthed in the neighborhood, where young people gathered in parks, on playgrounds, and neighborhood street corners, to verbalize poetry over spontaneous sounds and adopted melodies. Hip Hop was not just the music; it was also a way for the young to show their skills in break dancing, gymnastic dance style that was valued, and athleticism over choreographed fluidity. Hip hop was also fashion such as: hats, jackets, gold chains, and name-brand sneakers. Hip Hop was a form of graffiti, to a new way of expression that engaged spray paint on the subway walls as the canvas. In addition, today’s hip hop have changed as where the DJ was once is now the producer as the key music maker, and the park is now a studio.

The later half of the Homelander Generation, also known as “Generation Y,” is known for having little to no identity. Popular culture says that history repeats itself and that I belong to a generation where an overall style does not exist. From music to clothing everyone is desperately trying to reach into the past. The 60s, 70s, and 80s all have defining styles prevalent to that specific decade, for example disco. As a result to addressing the uniqueness of California and its culture in the 1990s Bay Area patrons began a move toward rap, hard-hitting beats, baggy clothing and defined dance styles. California was home to the newest cohesive generational movement. It was home to the development of the Hyphy Movement and the defining aspects of a craze that in itself was crazy. In areas that include San Francisco, Oakland, Fairfield and Hayward transformed. The Hyphy Movement demanded acknowledgment of the Bay Area’s diverse and particularly its interesting take on the California Dream.

The norms of skateboarding are more masculinity, participant control and the de- emphasizing of competition. Participant control is that there is not any referee, no penalties or set plays. With the lack of formality, it allowed them to show who they really are. De-emphasizing of competition means to reduce the need of competing against others.

Gidget, a 1959 film about a young girl who falls in love with surfing, helped establish a prominent foundation for surfing in California. To some, the film may simply be a feel-good story about surfing and American teen culture. To others, it’s about breaking stereotypical gender roles and their associated societal norms. The film released soon after World War II and the subsequent baby boom. This was a time with gave Americans a fresh new look on life, and a time when many young adults and teens had plenty of leisure time. “Gidget also marked the end of an era and the start of a new one.” Surfing and Gidget play a monumental role in shaping this new era by defying gender roles and leaving a lasting imprint on society.

The poverty that was spreading throughout the country accompanied by the search for recognition and the need to express oneself served like an ideal predisposition to the emergence of the group that would challenge the society. The addition of the factor of drought that enabled the use of swimming pools for the skateboarding and the growing popularity of the countersport among the youth have also highly contributed to the creation of what later developed into an ideology. The historical factors provided external opportunities for the development of the sports direction. At the same time, the social issues created the internal motivation for the youth to be special, to stand out from the society and to express their identities through the respective

taken place in recreational Centre in the inner city of Edmonton, Canada (p.337). The goal of this paper was to explore the different ways the youth adopt hip hop “as a means to contest their subjection

In order to successfully understand the inexplicable surfer’s lifestyle as a counter-culture to main society, we must first have a greater knowledge of the ingredients that make this culture so different in the views of the social norm. A counter-culture as described by Professor Chad Smith in the second week of class is, “When subcultures specially stand in direct opposition to the dominant culture of the society in which they are located, rejecting it’s most important values and norms and endorsing their opposites.” As surfers began to express themselves more and more freely throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, the surfing sub-culture that was portrayed by the media, with retrospect to Gidget and Beach Part, began to diminish in the eyes of

An exclusive club that was started by a group of delinquents and a piece of oak with wheels screwed on, later became the phenomenon that is now known as skateboarding. Wanting to show this evolution, Stacy Peralta directed, Dogtown and Z-Boys, a documentary that captures the history and the iconic moments of skateboarding. The trend of skateboarding was rapidly losing interest in the 70’s until a group of rebellious surfers, commonly known as the Z-Boys, decided to transfer their unique lifestyle and individuality into the dying world of skateboarding. The Z-Boys liberated the declining sport of skateboarding by pushing the boundaries of where they could skateboard and by changing the culture of skating. They went to the extreme to find the perfect terrain to emulate surfing.

Rap music, also known as hip-hop, is a popular art form. Having risen from humble origins on the streets of New York City during the mid-1970s, hip-hop has since become a multifaceted cultural force. Indeed, observers say, hip-hop is more than just music. The culture that has blossomed around rap music in recent decades has influenced fashion, dance, television, film and—perhaps what has become the most controversially—the attitudes of American youth. For many rappers and rap fans during it’s early time, hip-hop provided an accurate, honest depiction of city life that had been considered conspicuously absent from other media sources, such as television. With a growing number of rap artists within this period, using hip-hop as a platform to call for social progress and impart positive messages to listeners, the genre entered a so-called Golden Age

There’s always more significant to an object than we think. All it takes is the right individual to see the value of an object. An object changes throughout time; not only physical but spiritually. What has no meaning today, could have some meaning in the future. For example, a pair of shoes one hundred years ago had no significance to anyone. Fast forward today, a pair of shoes has significance to many people. There are still some people that think shoes have no meaning and are worthless. They’re wrong, shoes have meaning and impact lives. Shoes can be important to an individual for a variety reasons. Whether it brought friendship or it was worn by a historic figure. That brings me to my object: Micheal Jordan’s 6th signature shoe. Also known by many as “Jordan 6’s”. These pair of sneakers have a lot of history. It all begins with the

(Yochim) Some pro skateboarders would define skateboarding as a cult; something the power hungry ceos behind desks can not begin to understand. (Mortimer) Skateboarders themselves claim to be nonconformists. They claim when they do conform it is by their own choice. They see non conformity in

Have you ever thought of an iceberg to be more than a sheet of rock floating in an artic sea? According to the theory of cultural icebergs’, icebergs have much more meaning in the analysis of humans and their own cultural values and beliefs. Culture can be defined by what it is not; meaning one culture sees another cultures culture by the differences in the two. A cultural iceberg takes all of the things that makes up a certain culture and organizes them into two separate categories the surface culture (or folk culture), which is the top section of the theoretical iceberg, is defined by cultural values that are easily noticeable and seen in the everyday life of a particular culture. The other section,

Ideologies against conformity to civilization was very common across skateboarders and is put best in a letter to the editor when a subscriber wrote in to Thrasher magazine The idea that society seemed so structured and almost preordained went against the beliefs of many skaters whom felt like life was more than just “joining the elites,” but rather to live in a free manner that provides the most self-gratification. Skateboarding proved to be just the activity for many skaters that allowed them the sense of liberty from social shackles while delivering self-pleasure as well. It allowed them to escape from the realities of the world or any hardships they may have encountered through their lives. Dan Cates commented in Sidewalk Surfer Magazine, For these reasons, skateboarders generally were rebellious in regards to law enforcement and social norms as they could not find their happiness living a life in the structure that society determined acceptable.