Skateboarding

and
Religion
Paul O’Connor
 Skateboarding and Religion

“Paul O’Connor’s Skateboarding and Religion is an exhilarating book; it is simul-

taneously a challenge to all mainstream ideas about religion and religious experi-
ence, and a rich and nuanced study of the religious dimensions of skateboarding.
O’Connor interrogates the origin myths of the sport, sketches portraits of the
saints and mystics of the skateboarding world, profiles a diverse group of skaters
from different geographical and religious contexts and offers a sophisticated
reading of the aesthetics and symbolism used by skateboarders. The sacred spaces
of the sport, the impulse for pilgrims to visit and engage with these sites, and the
ritual dimensions of their activities are chronicled, and the text is enriched by
images that make the phenomena discussed comprehensible for the reader. This
original and joyous study is a major contribution to the study of contemporary
religious and spiritual trends.”
—Carole M. Cusack, Professor of Religious Studies,
University of Sydney, Australia

“Through a sociologist’s nuanced analysis and a skateboarder’s commitment to

the daring, Paul O’Connor makes clear the often surprising religiosity that
underpins skateboarding’s culture, industry, and even the act itself. This ground-
breaking book will convince even the most stubbornly secular reader that skate-
boarding is something especially sacred in the modern world.”
—Christian N. Kerr, Writer and Editor at Jenkem Magazine

“At once insightful, questioning and provocative, Paul O’Connor’s Skateboarding

and Religion takes two seemingly disconnected phenomena and shows how they
are intrinsically inter-related. This massively original study will be of interest to
anyone concerned with the sociology of skateboarding and other youthful prac-
tices. Very highly recommended.”
—Iain Borden, Professor of Architecture and Urban Culture,
University College London, UK
“In Skateboarding and Religion Paul O’Connor provides a valuable expansion of
the sport-religion relationship bound to impact multiple interdisciplinary audi-
ences. Most works on sport and religion focus on team and commercial sports.
O’Connor’s work is unique in offering a much-needed analysis of religion in the
neglected area of lifestyle sports. From the perspective of sporting subcultures,
he crafts an innovative framework for understanding religion across multiple
denominational, informal, commercial, geographical, and artistic practices.”
—Daniel A. Grano, Professor of Communication Studies,
University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA

“A seductive synthesis of radically different genres, O’Connor’s alchemy fuses

the sociology of lifestyle sports with religious studies. This bold foray into the
academic unknown requires a leap of faith which counters the notion of skate-
boarding as a culture of destructive iconoclasts. O’Connor’s fresh accounting of
this oft demonized subculture argues that the everyday lives of skaters disturbs
the sacred profane dualism of classic notions of religion, and instead should be
understood as a ‘lifestyle religion’. In this view, a shared ethos of progression,
sacrifice, and most critically, ritual practice establishes a ‘communitas’ that helps
skaters make sense of themselves in a neo-liberal, fractured world. Hell yeah.”
—Gregory Snyder, Associate Professor of Sociology,
City University of New York, USA

“O’Connor provides a theoretically rich and empirically grounded analysis of

how people use skateboarding to meet many of the needs religion attends to:
ritual practices, community, and spirituality. Arguing that skateboarding’s rise in
popularity is, in part, a response to the human conditions of late modernity,
O’Connor contends that this response is effectively a ‘lifestyle religion’. Not only
does Skateboarding and Religion contribute to the research on lifestyle sports, but
importantly, extends the field of religion and popular culture.”
—Becky Beal, Professor of Kinesiology, California State University, USA
 Paul O’Connor

Skateboarding and
Religion
Paul O’Connor
Lingnan University
Tuen Mun, Hong Kong

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For the Pious
 Acknowledgements

I originally hatched the plan to write a book about religion and skate-
boarding at the age of 14. In the 30 years since that time, the seed of that
nascent idea has been tended and nurtured by more people than I can
possibly recall. I have learnt from skateboarders and academics alike, I
have observed, and I have discussed with the help of so many.
One early exploration in this topic was previously published as an arti-
cle on sacred places in skateboarding. Chapter 7 is derived in part from
an article published in Sport in Society (2017) copyright Taylor & Francis,
available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17430437.2
017.1390567.
The book also draws on research funded by a faculty seed grant from
Lingnan University, and a Social Sciences faculty research grant on eth-
nicity and gender in Hong Kong skateboarding.
My first thanks must go to my academic skateboard peers: chiefly
Professor Iain Borden who has always generously encouraged and sup-
ported my work and has become a terrific friend along the way. Iain’s
work is a touchstone for all skateboard academia, and I am humbled and
honoured to have had his help throughout. Professor Brian Glenney has
also been an enthusiastic supporter and inspiration as well as cherished
friend. I recall fondly thrashing out ideas for this text as we skated in the
summer of 2018 through the streets of London. Valuable encouragement
and expert advice have come from Dr Sander Hölsgens, another trusted
vii
viii Acknowledgements

friend and exemplary colleague. We spoke at length throughout this proj-

ect, either while skateboarding in Hong Kong or chatting over Skype.
I am also grateful to my academic peers at Lingnan University where
the bulk of this manuscript was written. My colleagues Roman David,
Annie Chan, David Phillips, Ray Forrest, Chen Hon Fai, and Stefan
Kühner have all been generous with their time and support. Special
thanks go to Peter Baehr whose intellectual rigour has always inspired
me, Grace Wong whose care and attention to detail have been tremen-
dously valuable, and Esra Burak Ho who more than any other provided
a sympathetic ear to both my frustration and elation throughout the
project. I must also thank Gordon Mathews and Joseph Bosco in
Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where my research
agenda on skateboarding initially began.
My enduring thanks go to the production staff at Palgrave. I am
indebted to Sharla Plant for taking a chance on what, to many publishers,
appeared a bizarre academic exercise in suturing skateboarding and reli-
gion together. Her support and polished expertise has been deeply appre-
ciated. Similarly the production guidance I have received from Poppy
Hull has been impeccable, with clear guidance and sensitivity for my
demands about the exceptionalism of publishing work on skateboarding.
The bulk of what is addressed in the following pages is a direct result
of conversations and contributions from the following people; their help
has been instrumental in piecing this ambitious work together and I am
deeply grateful to them all: Ajiem, Anthony Tafuro, Barry Peak, Becky
Beal, Candy Jacobs, Chris Bird Culotta, Chris Giamarino, Chris Grosso,
Chris Lawton, Chris Magee, Chris Sedition, Christian Cooper, Christian
Greiffenhagen, Clara Fok, Clifton Evers, Dani Abulhawa, David
Thornton, David Chu Kin Tung, Depth Leviathan Dweller, Dinia
Sahana, Gavin Farley, Glen Wood, Gregory Snyder, Guru Khalsa, Haadii,
J. Grant Brittain, Jake Johnson, James Callahan, Jeff Grosso, Jud Heald,
Kristin Ebeling, Kyle Beachy, Lantian D., Luke Cianciotto, Marc McKee,
Marcus Hartopp, Matt Huddleson, Mike Hill, Neftalie Williams, Patrik
Wallner, Ryan Allan, Scott Laderman, Shari White, Shaun Hover, Sonal
Chandra, Sophie Friedel, Tara Jespen, Ted Barrow, Thom Callan, Tim
Ruck, Yusef Alahmad, and Zered Bassett.
 Acknowledgements ix

Special thanks to Hong Kong’s superb skateboarding scene, which is

vibrant, welcoming, and loving. I have been fortunate to have had the
help and friendship of so many skateboarders in Hong Kong and have
always been grateful to have this second family. To mention just a few
who have helped out along the way, Alex Abagian, Calvin Tong, Chris
Bradley, Chun Chai, Dani Bautista, Kit Lau, Margielyn Didal, Mat
Morgan, Mike Gallogly, Mouse Shingyang Tong, Neris Magar, Owen Yu,
Piet Guilfoyle, Tat Tat, Ting, Tristan Modena, and many more. Especially
important in the Hong Kong input of writing this book was support
from Anthony Claravall, Brian Siswojo, and Warren Stuart.
Too many wonderful conversations along the way, but in addition to
the names mentioned, I must express thanks to Tim Sedo who impor-
tantly asked ‘so what?,’ to Carole Cusack who generously provided feed-
back on my writing, to Daniel Grano for his superb comments on the
manuscript, and to James Jarvis who was always able to provide thought-
ful inspiration.
Lastly it is my family who require the most thanks and who know most
about the marathon process of writing this book. Hours spent watching
H-Street videos with Mark Russell helped form the foundation for this
book decades ago. I am grateful to my sister Mickey for indirectly intro-
ducing me to Powell Peralta. I must also thank my parents Mike and Di
for always supporting my passion for skateboarding, and for somehow
always knowing just how important it was to me. My three wonderful
sons Sennen, Perec, and Liran have provided love and inspiration
throughout. Hanging out with these lively and fascinating children has
been a welcome distraction throughout the project. Lastly, my wife Sarah
has been a valuable sounding board whilst writing and I am dearly grate-
ful for her support and skateboard knowledge. My love and thanks
to you all.

O’Connor, P. (2017). Handrails, Steps and Curbs: Sacred Places and

Secular Pilgrimage in Skateboarding. Sport in Society, 21(11),
1651–1668. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2017.1390567
 Contents

1 Introduction  1

2 Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports 21

Part I Observation  45

3 Origin Myth 47

4 Skate Gods 67

5 Iconography 91

Part II Performance 121

6 Video Journeys123

xi
xii Contents

7 Pilgrimage Spots147

8 Ritualised Play179

Part III Organisation 209

9 A Vehicle for Faith211

10 DIY Religion237

11 Self–help263

12 Conclusion287

Index299
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Shiva the Destroyer, James Callahan 22

Fig. 3.1 Haadii at Tok Guru wall in Kota Bharu. (Photo: Mohd Azim
Nong)48
Fig. 3.2 Decorated griptape depicting a creative fusion of Pusheen and
Satanism. (Author’s photo) 53
Fig. 3.3 Christian Hosoi performs a Christ Air. (Photo: J. Grant
Brittain)57
Fig. 5.1 Exalt the New God, Alien Workshop, Artist Mike Hill
(from 2010)97
Fig. 5.2 Devil Board, Natas: 101, Artist Mark McKee (from 1991) 99
Fig. 5.3 Crucifried, Jeff Grosso: Anti Hero, Artist Christian Cooper
(from 2017)102
Fig. 5.4 Jesus, Gabriel Rodriguez: 101 by Marc McKee (from 1991) 113
Fig. 5.5 Blue Board Ysuef Alahmad reproducing Ayat 23:29 116
Fig. 7.1 Bayer Leaps stairs photo Nina Freedman 148
Fig. 8.1 Chris Bradley provides some urban carnival for office workers 195
Fig. 9.1 Thrasher Skategoat tattoo. (Photo by Author) 221
Fig. 9.2 Skatesheep Untitled logo courtesy of Jud Heald 222
Fig. 9.3 Tauhid by Dinia Sahana (from 2018) 231
Fig. 10.1 Barrier Kult member ritually skating a Jersey Barrier. (Photo:
Anthony Tafuro) 241
Fig. 10.2 Patch for Cardinal Sins Skate Cult members 247
Fig. 10.3 The Skate Gods, James Callahan 253

xiii
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Polythetic notion of religion 34

Table 11.1 Skateboarding and self-help literature 279

xv
 1
Introduction

Several years ago, I attended the funeral of one of my skateboarding

friends. Along with other middle-aged skateboarders we would gather on
weekends at a local skatepark. There he would chat about newly released
skateboard videos, music, and very often shoes. He enjoyed documenting
his tricks on video and was comically self-deprecating about his ability on
his board. Like me he was originally from the UK, but he had also lived
in Japan for many years where he met his wife and worked as a teacher
before coming to Hong Kong. He was in his forties and his death was
sudden and unexpected. His funeral was a Daoist ceremony where I sat
with fellow skateboarders and we sombrely paid our respects while monks
chanted for more than two hours. As we arrived, we lit incense and
approached an altar where a photo of our departed friend was on display.
Alongside his picture were two of his skateboards and some cans of his
favourite Japanese beer. Many local skateboarders came to pay their
respects along with his school pupils and friends of both him and his
wife. Some days later I learned from his wife that after the cremation she
had scattered his ashes in the garden area overlooking the local skatepark.
Skateboarding was an important part of his life and this was signified in
the ritualised way his death was commemorated.

© The Author(s) 2020 1

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_1
2 P. O’Connor

With hardly anyone noticing, skateboarding has become one of the

most religious sports in the world. In this book I present skateboarding as
a religion, as a central and meaningful motif in the lives of countless indi-
viduals who have committed years and sometimes decades to this
demanding, difficult, and sometimes dangerous pastime. Skateboarding
often contributes to the well-being, health, creativity, sociality, and even
livelihood of its practitioners. In recent years the phrase ‘skateboard cul-
ture’ has emerged largely without contestation and is seen to denote the
lifeworld of the activity. Skateboarding is recognised as having its own
lifestyle, practices, and history that unite millions across the globe.
Skateboarding is now a distinct element of our broader global popular
culture, influential in street fashion, and debuting as an Olympic sport in
2020. Skateboarding is also in flux, celebrated and contested by both
those inside and outside the subculture. This book, like other recent
tomes (Atencio, Beal, Wright, & ZáNean, 2018; Borden, 2019; Butz &
Peters, 2018; Snyder, 2017), is an attempt to make sense of the impact of
these changes and to understand skateboarding as a meaningful part of
people’s lives. This is a timely sociological task because skateboarding,
despite its increasingly mainstream and commercial success, has long
been a heterodox activity drawing in and including a host of disparate
practices and individuals.
It is also significant that skateboarding has a preoccupation with reli-
gion. A cursory survey of skateboard magazines reveals board art (termed
graphics) with religious imagery both holy and satanic. The same maga-
zines interview professional skateboarders who at times use evocative
spiritual language to talk about their exploits. These professionals are
often regarded as legends by devoted fans who study and recall their tricks
like scripture. Skateboard photographs and videos capture banal urban
spaces and elevate some locations to the status of hallowed ground where
history has unfolded, and myth can be sought. These sites are visited by
both local and globetrotting pilgrims sometimes purely to gaze at a mar-
ble ledge or handrail in an office plaza, and on other occasions to perform
their own acts of skateboarding worship, devotion, or penance through
arcane physical feats that they find meaningful.
Beyond these elements skateboarding has developed distinct connec-
tions to organised religion, either in the confessional religious status of
 1 Introduction 3

some famous skateboarders or in the union between religious organisa-

tions and skateboarding facilities. Churches, youth clubs, and even the
famous non-governmental organisation (NGO) Skateistan, fuse a combi-
nation of skateboarding and organised religion. Less obvious are the vari-
ous philanthropic endeavours that seek to enrich lives through
skateboarding, such as the A-Skate Foundation, Board Rescue, Skate for
Change, and the Tony Hawk Foundation. Devout Muslim skateboarders
in Malaysia skate before they break their fast during the holy month of
Ramadan, observe modesty laws by covering their arms in the heat, and
adopt a militant attitude that fuses the discipline of skateboarding with
the orthopraxy of their faith.
Some religious elements are incontestable, from professional skate-
boarder Paul Rodriguez saying prayers before performing tricks in the
globetrotting Street League Skateboarding competitions to the religious
iconography associated with the skateboards of professional, or pro,
skater Jamie Thomas. However, there is little discussion on how skate-
boarding is actually part of the spiritual lives of skateboarders.
Skateboarding is often connected to organised religion, but like other
sports, it can be a religious activity in itself including holy people, sacred
places, and ritual processes. Some skateboarders have as a result sought to
create skateboard cults or religions that can be likened to the consciously
fictive new religious movements of the Church of All Worlds, Discordianism,
and Jediism (Cusack, 2010). This text addresses such movements and
frames them in the broader topic of skateboarding and religion. I argue
that nascent forms of religious identification can and do act as a form of
resistance to the increasing institutional control being exerted over skate-
boarding. I also see skateboarding as a kin to religion in that it is plural,
sui generis, and difficult to define (Glenney & Mull, 2018).
Yet to many the association between religion and skateboarding is not
just unpopular but also controversial. One of my informants told me he
ardently believes in the separation of ‘Church and Skate.’ Within the
culture of skateboarding many are suspicious of religion as a force seeking
to co-opt or control the activity. Others are hostile because they see reli-
gion as representing forms of institutionalisation and regulation that
drove them away from mainstream sport and attracted them to skate-
boarding in the first place. For those outside of the culture looking in, the
4 P. O’Connor

notion of skateboarding and religion may equally seem absurd, knowing

little more of the activity than a rebellious and sometimes illegal youth
culture. Skateboarding is loud, dirty, and physically demanding; arguing
that it is religious is, perhaps, a futile endeavour.
In the introduction to Tait Colberg’s book The Skateboarding Art, he
confesses that he has little patience with those who describe skateboard-
ing as transcendental or mystical. He justifies this by claiming that the
embodied process of skateboarding is too brutal, concrete, and painful to
equate with ‘delusions of disembodied spiritual soaring’ (Colberg, 2012,
p. 15). To an extent I agree, and to many people skateboarding is any-
thing but religious, philosophical, and spiritual. But this point trivialises
the embodied experiences that people engage in for transcendental pur-
poses. Take religious flagellation as an example, a recognised rite of afflic-
tion. The Magdarame in the Philippines perform voluntary crucifixions
to commemorate Christ, and the practice of Tatbir, hitting oneself with
a knife, is performed by some Shia Muslims to remember Husayn’s mar-
tyrdom on the Day of Ashura. More contemporary practices of piercing
and tattooing, and even forms of cosmetic surgery have been associated
with embodied forms of transcendence and modern primitivism.
Skateboarding involves pain and all skateboarders fall. Yet some skate-
boarders find an attraction to the pain they encounter describing it as
‘life-affirming’ and ‘addictive’ (The Nine Club, 2017). A point also sus-
tained in the realm of sports is that pain and violence can be understood
as a catharsis and part of a broader spiritual struggle (Bain-Selbo, 2012).
Of even greater consequence to the study of religion and sport is the way
that skateboarding destabilises the binaries of the sacred and the profane,
frequently recasting them in hybrid and dynamic ways.
There are countless instances where the relevance of religion in skate-
boarding can be both refuted and asserted. The aim of this book is not
simply to provide examples of religious relevance in skateboard culture;
these are numerous. The task of this text is threefold: to highlight how
religion is observable in skateboarding, how it is performed, and how it is
organised. In the process I offer the reader an alternative insight to
­skateboard culture at the end of the second decade of the twenty-first
century. I also provide an additional narrative to complement discussions
of both religion and popular culture, and religion and sport. Skateboarding
 1 Introduction 5

as both a communal and ritual activity need not be recognised as a reli-

gion in order for it to function as religion. This is not a simple and prosaic
point; it connects to the more central question of the role and identity of
religion in the modern world. I recognise skateboarding as religion in the
lives of many of my participants even while they do not acknowledge it
themselves. This does not discredit my thesis though; as Bourdieu notes,
‘it is because subjects do not, strictly speaking, know what they are doing
that what they do has more meaning than they know’ (1977, p. 79). At
the same time, I address conscious and distinct examples in which reli-
gion is invoked and used by skateboarders with intention and purpose.

Religion: A Working Definition

Before religion is explored in more depth, it is of chief importance to
provide a brief working definition. For the purpose of this study I adopt
a polythetic approach to religion, meaning that I recognise a number of
salient features to be indicative of religion, but none to be essential. While
belief in a god may be a key tenet of Christianity, it is absent in Buddhism.
Similarly, most religions are characterised by a founder or prophet, yet
this is untrue of Hinduism. Contingent in my polythetic approach is the
understanding that religion is a cultural system, in itself a subset of cul-
ture. Influential in this understanding is the cultural definition of religion
applied by Clifford Geertz (1973, p. 90) which I adopt as a framework. I
believe that religion cannot and does not exist outside of culture, that it
is a human way to process, understand, and communicate spirit, tran-
scendence, and community. This does not exclude spirituality, but instead
underscores that some choose to express a spiritual understanding
through the cultural field of skateboarding. This discussion builds on
work related to religion and popular culture. I propose that skateboard-
ing can be understood as a lifestyle religion, borrowing from both Belinda
Wheaton’s (2004, 2013) notion of ‘lifestyle sports’ and Conrad Ostwalt’s
(2012, p. 212) identification of ‘lifestyle Christianity.’ This recognises the
powerful sense of communitas derived from and facilitated by the hetero-
dox activity. Communitas is a sense of communal joy where the individ-
ual is ‘gifted with an immediate and genuine sense of the other, the plural
6 P. O’Connor

of beings’ (Turner, 2012, p. 6). I turn to the topic of religion in more

depth in the following chapter; I must proceed here by foregrounding an
understanding of skateboarding and what it has become in recent years.

 kateboarding: A Wooden Plank with Four

S
Wheels
Describing skateboarding is problematic. Various attempts at a definition
have acknowledged some ambiguity. Is it a sport, a subculture, an art
form, or a political act? Brian Glenney and Steve Mull tackle this quan-
dary and assert that skateboarding is both a mystery and a paradox
(2018). Over the last two decades skateboarding has transformed, multi-
plied, and fragmented in an astounding variety of ways. It has become big
business with the industry variously estimated to be worth US$5 billion,
while commanding the interests of a powerful youth demographic worth
hundreds of billions of dollars for sports drinks, computer games, and
fashion brands (Borden, 2019). Skateboarding has also changed our cit-
ies, with thousands of skateparks being constructed since the turn of the
century and transforming the recreation of young people and families
throughout the world (Atencio et al., 2018; Howell, 2008). This book
represents some of the transformations taking place and connects them
back to the putative origins of skateboarding enshrined in do-it-yourself
(DIY) experimentation.
Myth has it that Californian surfers in the late 1950s began to affix
wheels to small planks of wood to ride along the beach front when there
was no surf. They quickly saw a commercial edge to this activity and
began manufacturing boards. In truth, various experimentations with
boards were conducted throughout the USA and Europe from at least the
late 1890s before skateboarding arrived in mass appeal in the early 1960s
(Borden, 2019; Emery, 2015; The New York Times, 1893). The simplic-
ity of the wooden board with two metal axles and four small wheels belies
the fact that in just over 60 years a robust industry and culture have
emerged surrounding it. This simple toy has influenced fashion, altered
youth culture, entered the Olympics, and changed the world.
 1 Introduction 7

In skateboarding the simplicity of the object appears to translate into

its versatility. Skateboarding is not a game with rules and an objective.
You do not play skateboarding, you do skateboarding. However, it has
emerged as an increasingly organised sport with elaborate international
competitions. Still, unlike many sports there is no discrete objective and
while there is much to achieve and conform to, skateboarders privilege
freedom, individuality, and creativity (Beal, 1995; Beal & Weidman,
2003; Wheaton & Beal, 2003). I believe that the simplicity and versatil-
ity of the skateboard ensure that it is not a closed-off system with one
singular purpose. If anything essential resonates about skateboarding it is
that its origins as a democratic DIY exercise in creativity continue to be
distinct in its contemporary performance. I cannot answer why the foot-
ball or tennis racket has not been treated with same ingenuity, but I can
attest to the fact that skateboarding’s origins resonate in its practice. To be
explicit on this point, skateboarding emerged as experimentation and this
is precisely what it continues to be, while trailing six decades of history
along with it.
However, in its global growth in popularity there are many more claims
about what skateboarding is. There are numerous voices bemoaning the
sportification of skateboarding, arguing that skateboard coaching, skate-
board celebrities, and corporate endorsements go against the core of
skateboard culture (Wharton, 2015). In opposition, a tide of skateboard-
ers have welcomed the inclusion of skateboarding in the Olympics as a
further step in the path to the legitimation of their sport, and a way to
increase public participation, enhance facilities, and improve remunera-
tion and healthcare for athletes (Lombard, 2010).
Professor of architectural history Iain Borden (2001) wrote the first
academic monograph on skateboarding applying a spatial analysis
through the critical theory of Henri Lefebvre. Borden’s work is intellectu-
ally highbrow and meticulously referenced. He has repeatedly confirmed
that skateboarding is notoriously difficult to write about, and simply ‘not
amenable to words’ (Gilligan, 2014, p. 11). Over 20 years of academic
study has enabled Borden to eloquently express the diversity of skate-
boarding. In a revised text Skateboarding and the City (2019) he high-
lights that skateboarding is plural, malleable, and open-ended. Borden
8 P. O’Connor

explores the subcultural world of skateboarding, which includes all ages,

various ethnicities, religions, classes, genders, sexualities, geographies,
and disabilities. Another seminal skateboard academic Becky Beal, in her
most recent book with colleagues (Atencio et al., 2018), also charts trans-
formations in skateboarding. She recognises how the subculture she ini-
tially studied 25 years ago is now understood by many as a healthy
positive family activity promoted and encouraged by parents, local gov-
ernment, and corporations.
In recent years a collection of excellent work in the field of lifestyle and
action sports has been instrumental in exploring how a group of activities
such as skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, BMX, and parkour all
exhibit numerous similarities in their unstructured practice, their ethics of
individuality and creativity, and often their middle-class, white, and male
practitioners. Belinda Wheaton’s work has promoted the term lifestyle
sports, arguing that these activities form part of the lifestyle and identity
of the practitioners. This typology frames these sports as historically recent
activities, distinct in requiring considerable commitment in time and
resources, whilst also being subcultural and consumerist. Skateboarding,
like other lifestyle sports, deviates from this typology in various ways.
Most distinctly skateboarders largely reject the white middle-­class label,
pointing to countless examples of multi-ethnic professional skateboarders
back into the 1970s. Indeed, Yochim’s (2010) study commits to the notion
of the whiteness of skateboarding while Snyder (2017) advocates an
understanding that is fundamentally multi-ethnic. The difference in these
studies is in part due to the timing of the research, but is also much more
contingent in the location the research takes place: for Yochim it is
Michigan and for Snyder Los Angeles. Seeing skateboarding as a nomi-
nally white activity resonates with my childhood in the rural confines of
the English county of Devon, but finds less purchase for my own experi-
ences living, working, and skateboarding in Hong Kong for the last 18 years.
As skateboards are comparatively inexpensive and riding them requires
little more beyond concrete and tarmac, skateboarders have always
emerged from all types of class backgrounds. Top skateboarders like Paul
Rodriguez and Riley Hawk hail from wealthy backgrounds and have
made it to the top of the professional ranks. Yet others like 2018 Asian
Games gold medallist Margielyn Didal from the Philippines ascend in
 1 Introduction 9

the sport from the most humble of positions. Didal, for example, grew
up in a large family in the shantytown district of Cebu. As a female,
Asian, gay, skateboarder, she comes from a marginal position and yet has
become a national role model to millions. On the issue of gender,
Wheaton and her peers have been correct. Male skateboarders have dom-
inated since the 1980s and it has only been in the last decade that consid-
erable changes have emerged in the gender dynamics of skateboarding.
Along with these changes have come greater recognition of the historic,
exclusive, heteronormative, and misogynistic norms of the skateboarding
subculture. Skateboarding is increasingly promoted as an inclusive cul-
ture open not just to those who are committed white heterosexual males,
but to a plethora of varying gender, ethnic, and sexual identities. The
popular ascent of skateboarding to a politically correct inclusive activity
is perhaps a little misleading. Skateboarding is also exclusive, values the
quest of proving oneself, and continues to attract those who feel outside
of the mainstream, whatever their political persuasion. One frontier that
remains largely overlooked and ambiguous is that of religion. Religious
skateboarders are frequently criticised, as are some religious athletes
(Feezell, 2013), and are treated with suspicion and in turn marginalised
by the industry.

Skateboarding as a Culture
My definition of skateboarding is one that is similarly inclusive of the
varying perspectives shared by skateboarders and academics. I recognise
that skateboarding is a sport, that it is also a lifestyle, a subculture, a phi-
losophy, and an art form. As a qualitative ethnographer and sociologist I
find it simplest to define and explain skateboarding as a culture. In prac-
tising skateboarding one embodies a particular way of viewing the world
and engaging with it. Skateboarding becomes a part of human software,
a field of communication, understanding, and symbolism. It is no longer
helpful to discuss skateboarding simply as a subculture because, as Butz
(2018, p. 89) notes, subculture denotes a separation from mainstream
society, and this division has been mostly eroded in skateboarding. Snyder
(2017) also highlights that the skateboard industry challenges many of
10 P. O’Connor

the assumptions of early subcultural theory through what he identifies as

the prominence of the subcultural career in skateboard culture.
Skateboarding is now a global culture and it is recognised and understood
as a legitimate pastime (even with certain constraints), a career, and an
Olympic sport. It is not class-, culture-, or ethnic-specific and is increas-
ingly becoming more inclusive of gender and sexual orientation. Yet at
the same time skateboarding has also become infused with new populist
notions of social justice, championing the rhetoric of inclusion while
actively seeking to exclude by purging racist, misogynistic, and homo-
phobic attitudes both past and present.
There is now significant popular acknowledgement of skateboarding as
a culture with its own history and practices. The success of the heritage
campaign Long Live Southbank (Blayney, 2014; Borden, 2015), the
preservation and reconstruction of the Bro Bowl (Pratt, 2015;
Skateboarding Heritage Foundation, 2016), and the listed status of the
Rom skatepark in London (Brown, 2014), all point to the recognition of
skateboarding’s cultural rights. As Gilchrist and Wheaton (2017, pp. 4–5)
highlight, skateboarding is now so widely understood as prosocial that
the veneer of subversion and antisocial behaviour has largely been
removed. In short, social changes and transformations in skateboarding
over the last 20 years have seen skateboarding grow from a subculture to
a culture. As we shall see, the growth in acknowledgement of ethnic, reli-
gious, and social diversity, particularly in Western multicultural nations,
has also contributed to a social climate sensitive to alternative identities
and has in part facilitated the recognition of skateboarding as a lifestyle.
In turn, skateboarders have become self-aware of the cultural elements of
their pastime, and many have sought methods to preserve them.
The notion of the culture of skateboarding is so well recognised by
skateboarders, it is even used reflexively and sometimes derisively in dis-
cussions. For example, an increasingly common refrain is ‘for the culture’
and is used to encourage and motivate skateboarders in their efforts to
perform tricks, document their activities, and to host and participate in
events. While this phrase emerges from hip-hop it has been adopted in
skateboard culture as a reflexive trope recognising the heritage and life-
world of skateboarding.
 1 Introduction 11

Skateboard culture is influenced at its core by the skateboard industry,

which manufactures and sells skateboards, clothing, and media. Boards
and clothes employ designs, motifs, and artwork, which are both branded
and replete with symbolism that resonate the values and aesthetics of
skateboarders. Skateboard graphics have a long history of being subver-
sive and satirical, emphasising in various ways the fact that skateboarders
enjoy a different lifestyle to the mainstream. Skateboard companies have
teams of professional skateboarders who are chiefly involved in promot-
ing the brand by performing innovative tricks for documentation in
magazines and videos, and/or participating in competitions. Skateboarders
particularly scrutinise the activities of professional skateboarders, follow-
ing their changing sponsors, and the media they are included in. Videos
in particular are regarded as important landmarks for companies and
their skateboarders, demonstrating new levels of progression and innova-
tion while communicating the values and aesthetics of skateboarding to
the broader community. Skateboarders are not uncritical of this content
and negotiate the value and contribution of professionals in various forms
of approval and commercial endorsement. As Snyder highlights, profes-
sional skateboarding can be a precarious entrepreneurial activity requir-
ing skateboarders to push the boundaries of their physical capabilities
while remaining free from injury. Beyond these feats professional skate-
boarding is also a popularity contest where culturally appropriate behav-
iour is policed and negotiated within the industry and outside of it by
skateboard consumers. As Yochim (2010, p. 88) notes, ‘skateboarders
frequently communicate to instruct one another in skateboarding’s core
principles and values’ and hold enormous power as consumers to decide
the fate of companies and their riders. Complicating this matter further
is the focus on videos and photographs documenting skateboarding in
new or iconic locations. These locations, termed ‘spots,’ are typically
banal and functional urban apparatus, sets of steps, handrails, and all
manner of street architecture. Despite the mainstream popularity of
skateboarding and its Olympic inclusion it is paradoxical that celebrity
millionaire athletes still have to fight for the legitimacy to use public
space to document their tricks, frequently being criminalised in their
activities, chased out of public and private spaces, and fined in the process.
12 P. O’Connor

Skateboarders, as I address them in this book, largely conform to the

practices of street and park, or transition skateboarding. Various other
forms of skateboarding exist and are somewhat marginalised by these
dominant practices. Longboarding, downhill racing, street luge, freestyle,
motorised boards, Mega Ramp skateboarding, fingerboarding, and palm-
boarding all represent various forms of skateboarding evolution and par-
ticularisation. It may be more apt to see skateboarding as a discursive
process where what is understood and accepted as skateboarding is nego-
tiated by various groups of skateboarders. This connects to Yochim’s
(2010, p. 4) argument that skateboarding is a corresponding culture,
negotiated in discussion with the community and the media it produces.
Yochim’s notion is also useful because it recognises that despite the main-
stream popularity and sportification of skateboarding, there remains a
strong identification that the practice is both rebellious and marginal. In
short, skateboarders believe they have an alternative lifestyle, that they see
the world differently, and that they are only truly understood by other
skateboarders. This leads Yochim to assert that skateboarding is both
inside and outside of mainstream culture, that in various ways it rejects
the values, institutions, and beliefs of mainstream society (2010, p. 28).
Skateboarding can be understood as heterodox, containing practices and
beliefs at odds with conventional ways of life, yet subsumed within them
and tolerated, even celebrated as a legitimate form of deviance. This het-
erodox conclusion indicates once more that skateboarders may be in
opposition to the idea of religion and its characteristics of mainstream
conformity and institutionalisation. The tendency to be suspicious of
religion is distinct, but the fact that skateboarding can be understood as
a culture also provides a rich context in which new notions and expres-
sions of religious identification can emerge.

The Study
This work is qualitative and interpretive. It draws heavily from ethno-
graphic research I have conducted with a variety of skateboarders in
Hong Kong, and 65 qualitative interviews performed with an interna-
tional cohort of individuals both in person and online via Skype between
 1 Introduction 13

2015 and 2019. Of these 65 audio-recorded and transcribed interviews,

15 were women aged 18–50 and 50 were men aged 20–55. The cohort
included a mix of ethnicities, sexual orientations, and two individuals
with physical disabilities. In addition to these semi-structured interviews,
I spoke more informally with dozens of skateboarders in my multisite
fieldwork and liberally spread the knowledge of my research focus in
order to recruit and involve more participants.
The research began with a focus on the experiences of middle-aged
skateboarders. During interviews I was surprised by how much religious
language was used by my informants and I began to explore these themes
in greater detail. I have supplemented my research with fieldwork visits to
North America, Europe, and throughout East and South East Asia. I have
spoken to professional skateboarders, skateboard artists, videographers,
numerous academics in the niche world of skateboard academia, and also
sociologists of religion. Much of my data came from informal discussions
on skateboarding, at skate parks, or skateboarding events where I would
reveal my research to people and solicit participation. I would follow
these discussions by taking notes, and at other times record a brief inter-
view on my phone. Unlike other research projects with a distinct focus, I
was interested in capturing a range of religious, spiritual, and emotional
reflections on skateboarding. I found many individuals with fascinating
stories by chance, and I was directed to others by a host of sympathetic
friends and colleagues along the way. Social media provided me with
depth of access to this topic unimaginable a decade ago. I have been able
to follow and analyse social media content to contrast with my interviews
and fieldwork. On several occasions I was able to interview people I had
initially found online, either hosting blogs or posting religious content
on their social media accounts. As such this is also a work that corre-
sponds richly with skateboard media, which, as scholars have highlighted
(Borden, 2019; Snyder, 2017; Yochim, 2010), is a central element of the
culture of skateboarding. This media is essential in understanding skate-
boarders as it communicates so much of their shared knowledge, aesthet-
ics, and values. Indeed, when skateboarders talk, they are often talking
amidst media, referencing tricks, locations, and significant events that
have been captured and shared. Snyder argues that the community does
not exist in a ‘physical space’ but is more rightly understood as facilitated
by ‘media’ (2017, p. 54).
14 P. O’Connor

In combination with these elements this book has also been a personal
meditation for many years. I began skateboarding at the age of 11, and
while I stopped for a few years in my late teens, I began skateboarding
again at the age of 20 and have continued ever since. My academic stud-
ies, research, and raising a family have slowed down my skateboarding,
but not dampened my passion for it. At the same time my academic
interests in religion extend back to my teens. I recall being passionate
about skateboarding when I was 14, spending as much as possible of my
spare time on my board, and even sleeping with it, but also retreating to
study the Bhagavad Gita and political Islam in my bedroom. It took me
many years to learn that this was a peculiar mix of interests for a teenager.
Skateboarding enabled me to develop the skills and endurance required
to be an academic, and skateboarding continues to provide a release from
both the bureaucracy and pomp of the academy (not to downplay the
significant amount of pomp in skateboarding).
So, this book is partly an academic treatise and partly a personal exor-
cism: an attempt to make sense of an activity that has been an important
preoccupation in my life. It is a product of a fortuitous combination of a
lifetime of skateboarding and an equally long preoccupation with the
sociology of religion. I have always been curious about how religious
practice informs peoples’ everyday lives, and I came to understand that
skateboarding has been one of the most meaningful activities in my own
life. Skateboarding has provided me with a physical and spiritual outlet,
ritual processes, text, and community. I am obviously not alone. In the
ethnographic research I performed with middle-aged skateboarders I was
privy to touching accounts of how skateboarding had become deeply
meaningful, if not central, in the biographies and narratives of so many
lives. It is this depth of feeling that I hope to be able to explore in
this book.

The Book
The book is organised around three themes: observation, performance,
and organisation. I lay forth the groundwork for this structure in the fol-
lowing chapter, crafting it from my polythetic and cultural understand-
 1 Introduction 15

ing of religion. These perspectives provide different examples of how

skateboarding and religion intersect. I have already stated that skate-
boarding has a preoccupation with religion. This is arguably superficial; it
is notable in skateboard graphics, or the likening of professionals to saints
and gurus. In the first part of the book (Chaps. 3, 4 and 5) I focus on
some of these manifestations, simple observations of how religion appears
in skateboard culture. My discussions revolve around the origin myth of
how California has emerged as a holy land in skateboarding, how some
professionals have earned the moniker of Skate Gods, and how religious
iconography has been used in skateboard graphics. In these observations
I lay the groundwork that there is an attraction and fascination with reli-
gion in skateboard culture and that it does extend beyond tokenism. I
also use the frame of observation to highlight that our religious under-
standing of a phenomenon includes some fundamental clauses. In this
first part of the book I take the premise that, for an activity to be under-
stood as religious, we must address the ways in which it engages with
religion, be that in myth, veneration, or iconography. In this first part I
propose that skateboarding can be understood as a lifestyle religion on
the basis that such a concept would provide space for religious identifica-
tion and symbolism even if in a very shallow or superficial way.
In the second part of the book (Chaps. 6, 7 and 8) I look at how reli-
gion is performed. This borrows from John Lyden’s (2003) approach to
religion and film in which he proposes that film in some circumstances
acts as religion. In performance I turn my scrutiny to examples which can
be seen as nascent forms of religious expression, or activities fecund for
religious imagination. Similarly, through the perspective of performance
I etch out examples in which skateboarding acts as a religion, providing
communion, transcendence, and ritual. These are my observations and
while I argue that they are religious in content, it does not mean that they
are understood in this way by the people involved in these activities. The
first of these chapters looks at the idea of journey as expressed in two
skateboard videos. These provide a narrative about the meaning and pur-
pose of skateboarding and show some historic consistency about the
worldview of skateboarding as it is expressed through skateboard media.
My focus in this chapter is to highlight how media is instrumental in
building communitas. I then present the notion of pilgrimage as a vibrant
16 P. O’Connor

example of how skateboarders engage with an emerging spirituality

attached to place. This connects with the practice by which skateboarders
see mundane functional architecture as infused with a special energy.
Stairs and handrails are venerated for the activities that have been per-
formed on them much like a football stadium is regarded as hallowed
ground by sports fans. The final chapter addressing performance looks at
the rich and varied ways skateboarders engage in ritual practice. This
relates to how skateboarders prepare for tricks, mark rites of passage, per-
form sacrifice, and engage in festivity. I argue more broadly that skate-
boarding is in itself an urban ritual of play, subtly critiquing the status
quo and infusing the city with magic. These chapters on performance
build to suggest that skateboarding in some instances can be seen to be
religious, only devoid of name and formal structure. It is here that the
notion of lifestyle religion becomes helpful once more giving generous
room not to theology and dogma, but ritual process, lived religion, and
community.
The final part of the book (Chaps. 9, 10 and 11) looks at how skate-
boarding and religion are organised, addressing more formal and estab-
lished bonds with organised religion, invented religion, spirituality, and
philanthropy. In organisation I present some very different examples of
how skateboarding and religion have been fused together, and indeed
how skateboarding can be conceived as a lifestyle religion. The first chap-
ter in this part explores skateboard ministry, a Christian evangelical prac-
tice which seeks to bring Christ to skateboarders. I show how skateboard
ministry is a large and well-connected movement including churches,
skateparks, NGOs, and skateboard companies. Through interviews with
skateboard ministers we learn of some Christian attitudes towards skate-
board culture and the obstacles for Christian skateboarders in the skate-
board industry. I conclude this exploration by looking at forms of Islamic
skateboard dawah and show that for many religious people, s­ kateboarding
is a vehicle for faith. Chapter 10 is an enquiry into DIY skateboard reli-
gions and observes examples in which skateboarders have consciously
made efforts to curate a skateboard religion or cult. The chapter includes
an exploration of the Barrier Kult, but also addresses individual expres-
sions of skateboard religiosity. The final chapter takes on the issue of
skateboarding as self-help and looks at some manifestations in which
 1 Introduction 17

skateboarding has become part of a new age movement of well-being and

spirituality. I connect this theme to skateboard charities and NGOs
involved in philanthropy, and while acknowledging the tremendous good
that these groups do, I ask if they are ultimately just self-help for skate-
boarding, projecting a moral code, and promoting skateboarding falla-
ciously as a tool for peace, healing, and social change.
In the concluding chapter of the book I review and summarise the
arguments I have made relating to observation, performance, and organ-
isation. I suggest that nascent forms of religious expression can be under-
stood as part of a broader cultural politics invested in maintaining and
preserving values which some see as inherent in skateboarding. While I
see no dramatic change in the way religion is regarded with suspicion
within the skateboard industry, I do see continuing efforts to sacralise
parts of skateboarding culture, be this the legacy of professionals, the ven-
eration of iconic spots, or through philanthropic movements that reify the
inclusive ethics of skateboard culture. I also argue that these elements
must be addressed in the cultural politics of other lifestyle sports, and that
they are in no way separate from the broader transformations of religious
life in the twenty-first century. I explore once more the features of lifestyle
religion and propose how they can be explored beyond skateboarding.

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 2
Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle
Sports

In 2013, artist James Callahan was commissioned to produce a painting

of the Hindu deity Shiva the destroyer. The brief was to depict Shiva
skateboarding. The customer wanted to display the finished work in their
home above their skateboard mini ramp. Shiva was selected because the
customer wanted to draw on their own Hindu heritage and also fuse this
spiritual orientation with skateboarding. The art that Callahan produced
(Fig. 2.1) was inspired by the diverse ways in which Shiva had been rep-
resented in Indian culture, as a god, a comic book hero, and a popular
culture icon. Callahan, a skateboarder himself, immersed himself in the
project in which he was given free reign. The finished painting depicts
Shiva deep in the cosmos skateboarding in a giant canyon, grinding the
edge with his rear truck (axle). The picture helps to orient the way in
which religion is discussed throughout the rest of this text. In part it
relates to existing traditions; more frequently though we see that religion
is a part of an individualised and creative expression. We see people
invoking religious sentiments in combination with the things they find
meaningful. We see people seeking out religion in their own lifestyles,
our focus being skateboarding.

© The Author(s) 2020 21

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_2
22 P. O’Connor

Fig. 2.1 Shiva the Destroyer, James Callahan

The previous chapter touched briefly on the issue of religion and fore-
grounded an understanding of lifestyle sports. It is here that I unpack
these elements in more detail providing a definition of religion and pro-
posing a concept of lifestyle religion. While I see this book as essentially
an academic work on skateboarding, it is also a contribution to the litera-
ture on the sociology of religion, and the study of lifestyle sports. This
chapter lays the groundwork for theoretical arguments that build through-
out the rest of the book. I observe increasing religious ­identification in
 2 Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports 23

skateboarding and I understand this to be a product of the growth in

popularity of the sport. In part this sacralisation of skateboarding emerges
from veterans who seek to emphasise the meaning of their one-time sub-
culture in the face of increased institutionalisation and sportification.
However, the popularity of skateboarding has also made it an attractive
vehicle for outreach from religious organisations and philanthropic
NGOs. Skateboarding and religion is a topic with several tentacles. To
render this in conversation with existing debates, I have explored a web
of fascinating research that discusses religion with reference to sport and
popular culture. While I recognise that many of my readers will be famil-
iar with skateboarding, they may well be less conversant with these
broader fields of study. Likewise, readers who come from a religious or
sports perspective will find this chapter helpful in orienting this study in
a field of existing work.
Firstly, I will begin by elaborating on the definition of religion I pro-
vided in the opening chapter. This polythetic perspective is explored
alongside a variety of foundational texts on the study of religion, and
more contemporary accounts of religion and spirituality in the modern
world. In clarifying my definition of religion as polythetic and culturally
premised, I return to the three modes of analysis used to discuss skate-
boarding and religion throughout the book. These encompass observa-
tion, performance, and organisation. Secondly, I touch briefly on the
vast and established study of sport and religion and highlight from the
outset that lifestyle sports such as skateboarding, surfing, and snow-
boarding include a very different orientation to other forms of sport and
thus need to be addressed from a somewhat different approach. Debate
on sport and religion has focused almost exclusively on competitive
mediated commercial sport and in most cases team sports. Here I find
work on religion and popular culture more accessible to the commercial-
ism, symbolism, and performance of lifestyle sports. Building on the
research of Wheaton (2004, 2013), I argue that more work must be done
to understand and chart the way in which lifestyle sports are increasingly
a focus of Christian ministry (Abraham, 2017) and the need for research-
ers to explore the religious and spiritual worlds of lifestyle sports practi-
tioners. Thirdly, I propose lifestyle religion as a frame by which to
recognise and understand religion in skateboarding. I foreground the
24 P. O’Connor

notion that c­ommunity and individualism are two primary concerns

regarding modern society and the transformations of religious life.
Importantly, it is these two components that skateboard culture fuses.
Skateboarding, like other lifestyle sports, is an individual activity that
builds communities around its practice. I conclude the chapter by argu-
ing that skateboarding and religion is not only a curious topic of investi-
gation, but one that is of growing relevance and tied directly to the growth
in popularity of the sport itself.

Defining Religion
Alike skateboarding, the term religion has proven to be a problematic and
contested word. No agreed definition exists and yet religion is one of the
most powerful and enduring elements of human experience and culture.
It is commonly regarded as sui generis, unique and unlike other human
phenomena. Yet, despite this quality, definitions have repeatedly fallen
short in either clarity or efficacy. One very important reason for the con-
tested notion of religion relates to the Western bias of the term which has
emerged privileging the notion of Christianity as an archetype or blue-
print for all other belief systems to be verified against. I have already
identified a definition of religion that is polythetic. In the following sec-
tions I refer to several different approaches and unpack how the poly-
thetic approach is applied in order to capture and analyse the religious
data of this study.

Anthropological Approaches

Many of the belief systems of pre-industrial peoples encountered and

colonised by Western nations from the fifteenth century onwards were so
alien to Europeans that they were not initially recognised as religious. As
Mary Douglas highlights, ‘where religion is concerned there is no theory
comparing dogmas that does not take its own position for dogma’ (2003,
p. xii). Anthropology has a special role here, providing rich exploration of
the diversity of religious life around the globe. One of the earliest and
 2 Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports 25

simplest academic definitions of religion comes from anthropologist

Edward B. Tylor’s writing in the nineteenth century. He asserts that reli-
gion is the ‘belief in spiritual beings’ (1871, p. 384). This is a broad cat-
egorisation that addresses animist practices. Melford E. Spiro goes further
and suggests that ‘religion is an institution consisting of culturally pat-
terned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings’
(Livingstone, 2005, p. 5). This definition even has room to accommodate
ghosts and characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe but does not
attend to various traditions regarded as religious such as Buddhism
and Daoism.
Anthropologists investigate the role of religion in a culture, its func-
tion and performance. They are not necessarily interested in the meta-
physics of belief and theology. Mary Douglas (1984, 2003) has provided
powerful contributions in recognising the role of religion in social order
and the importance of the body as a natural symbol in such a worldview.
Bronislaw Malinowski has been influential in exposing the function of
myth (2013), Victor Turner in deconstructing pilgrimage (1977). One of
the most influential anthropological perspectives on religion comes from
Clifford Geertz, who argues that religion is a cultural system. He under-
stands religion as a set of symbols that generates affect which in turn
builds an understanding of the order of the world and stimulates a recog-
nition of truth or reality (1973). Famously, his definition is explicit in
highlighting five constitutive elements, clarifying that religion is

(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and
long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating concep-
tions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions
with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem
uniquely realistic. (Geertz, 1973, p. 90)

This cultural definition is appealing and reaches beyond functionalism

to address the emotional content of religion. He addresses both the sym-
bolism inherent in religion and the fact that a worldview extends from
religion regarding the order of the universe. However, Geertz is a particu-
larist and in his exegesis of religion he stops short of exploring worldviews
or mythology in depth (Munson, 1986). He also appears to dismiss the
26 P. O’Connor

idea of religion in popular culture through an example of sport. Geertz

argues that ‘a man can indeed be said to be “religious” about golf,’ thus
being both committed and passionate, but golf could only be seen to be
religious if it were ‘symbolic of some transcendent truth’ (1973, p. 98).
Here I disagree and recognise that religion need not always involve tran-
scendent experience, or faith; for some people it is simply order and func-
tion. Or alternatively it could be argued that golf, or any other activity, is
symbolic of some transcendent truth. Geertz emphasises the ritual ele-
ment of religion and sees that ritual is most importantly believed to be
significant. One could similarly argue that golfing contains rituals that, to
golfers, strike at the heart of all that is meaningful in the cosmos.
Nevertheless, Geertz’s definition is powerful, especially if it can be ren-
dered more malleable. I shall return to this issue later.

Sociological Approaches

While anthropologists are interested in the role of religion in human

culture, sociologists have traditionally been focal on the social world of
religion in modern industrial society. The sociological perspective is thus
ripe for the exploration of skateboarding, itself a product of the contem-
porary city. The forefathers of sociology, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, all
have distinct conceptions of religion. Marx (2009) sees religion as infan-
tile, and a distraction to class struggle. Weber (1995) famously proposes
that ascetic, self-denying Protestantism was a catalyst for the capitalist
world system. The sociological perspective of Durkheim is typically sim-
plified to the notion of society worshipping itself, and recognises a divi-
sion between the sacred and the profane. This division is popular with
some sports sociologists who see sport as a portal to move from the pro-
fane world and enter sacred space and time (Higgs, 1995; Novak, 1993;
Prebish, 1993). This binary treatment of religion in sports is one that has
recently been critiqued by some scholars (Grano, 2017; McCloud, 2003)
and is further challenged in this text. As Lynch (2007, p. 136) argues,
‘this binary is unhelpful because it creates a false distinction between
mundane everyday life, and the realm of the transcendent mediated
through specific spaces, rituals and personnel.’ However, the relevance of
 2 Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports 27

religion as a model for society is still compelling and a longstanding con-

tribution from sociology to our understanding of religion. As Mark
Cladis writes in the introduction to Durkhiem’s classic book The
Elementary Forms of Religion, ‘[r]eligion, then, is a set of beliefs and prac-
tices by which society represents itself to itself … divinity and society are
one’ (Durkheim, 2001, p. xx). Thus, a society that is patriarchal will
manifest a religious system in which men hold the dominant power.
Moreover, in most nations of the world, members of the establishment
are also members or followers of the dominant religion in that society.
Thus, society and religion act as mirrors sharing values which affirm the
order and hierarchy of each system. This functional definition continues
to be influential today, but at the same time is prosaic. Arguably it is self-
evident that religion would mirror or mimic the social and cultural con-
text in which it is practised. If religion were to be stripped of social
symbolism, it may simply be so alien to humans that it would be incom-
prehensible and void of meaning. So, in any cultural setting religion in
some ways mirrors or represents elements of the social hierarchy, and, in
turn, can be seen to legitimise them. This sociological perspective com-
plements the worldview notion provided by Geertz and the symbolism of
Douglas. However, all these conceptions marginalise or overlook the
emotional power and force of religion.

Religious Studies

In the field of religious studies there has also been considerable effort to
devise a working definition that captures a more precise understanding of
religion. Significant contributions have fashioned new understandings of
the transcendent notions of sacred, holy, and god(s). Recognising that
much of religious experience is ineffable has seen concerted work devise
a new language by which to describe the experience. Rudolf Otto (1959,
pp. 16–17) argues that the ineffable can still be known and can be
expressed rationally. His focus has been on explaining the experience of
the holy beyond the confines of Christianity, recognising the experience
as universal in all religion. He presents the term numinous to describe the
powerful force individuals feel as an expansive experience that is ‘­objective
28 P. O’Connor

and outside the self ’ (1959, p. 24). Livingstone (2005, p. 43) elaborates
on Otto’s idea of the numinous, seeing the experience of it as ‘positively
attractive, fascinating, and even intoxicating.’ For Otto, enmeshed with
this idea of the numinous is the fact that those who experience it also feel
dependence and self-deprecation, even fear and awe. He classifies this
experience of the numinous as mysterium tremendum, an awesome mys-
tery, and mysterium fascinans, a fascinating mystery. As both theologian
and historian of religion, Otto provides varied examples in which such
religious experience is manifest in religion. Directly influenced by his
work, Mircea Eliade (1959, 1963) developed further notions of holy,
myth, and ritual, describing the numinous as hierophany, becoming man-
ifest in both objects and places, hence in sacred religious artefacts and
sacred spaces. Religious studies, like skateboarding, have accordingly
developed a specialised language to deal with its sui generis nature. The
previous phrases are ones that I call upon occasionally throughout the
text. I especially adopt the term numinous as it moves beyond notions of
god and monotheism, more readily associated with the term holy. Such
caution and reflexivity about religious terms are a hallmark of contempo-
rary debate, where religion is often discussed in terms of spirituality,
energy, and individualism. Thus, discussions on religion and religious
experience do not exist in a vacuum. As they have developed, the role of
religion in our societies has also been in flux. I refer to Eliade throughout
the text and have found his ideas helpful as have many sociologists; how-
ever, I do not adopt his assumptions that the sacred and profane are onto-
logically separate spaces.

Contemporary Challenges

While traditional and pre-industrial communities have historically posed

a challenge to Western definitions of religion, a contemporary complaint
can be found in the need to address new forms of religious practice. These
are related to social change, spiritual activities, new-age beliefs, and the
increasing diversity of religion in modern urban multicultural and secular
communities familiar with global media and the norms of individualism
and mass consumption. A litany of work on religion and popular culture
 2 Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports 29

has sought to revise definitions of religion. Contrary to popular sociologi-

cal thought towards the end of the twenty-first century, religion is not
disappearing in the secular societies of the West (Berger, 1990); it is sim-
ply transforming. This process has seen a rise since the 1970s in alterna-
tive spiritual practices in the West such as Yoga, Tai Chi, aromatherapy,
meditation, and the Alexander Technique, which some have suggested
constitute a form of spiritual revolution. In fact, traditional religion in
the UK and the USA has not been eclipsed by such new practices, but
there is evidence that a steady transformation is at play (Heelas,
Woodhead, Seal, Szerszynski, & Tusting, 2005). Part of this transforma-
tion is an increased interest in personal choice rather than institution-
alised religion. This personal religious organisation, or ‘religious
individualism’ (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 2008), is
often termed spirituality and equated with self-cultivation rather than
engagement in a religious community. While it is simple to think that
religions have a spiritual component, it may also be fair to consider that
religion is not an intrinsic part of spirituality. Stuart Rose (2001) helps
qualify the ambiguity surrounding the term ‘spirituality’ in research with
various representatives of multiple faiths. He finds consensus on the
notion that

[s]pirituality can be experienced in the wonder of nature, in joy in the arts,

in humanism, football, the funeral of Princes Diana, mutual tolerance for
all living things, in acts of complete selflessness, and in service. Overall,
membership of, or belief in, a particular religion was not thought to be a
prerequisite for the experience of the spiritual. (Rose, 2001, p. 202)

His research identified three criteria that appear to be central in the

notion of a spiritual life: the experience of an ongoing reverential rela-
tionship, some maintained effort or commitment, and some form of
love, altruism, or benevolent kindness. With such open criteria, the
development of spirituality removed from traditional religious forms
becomes an obvious consideration. If people can experience the spiritual,
or numinous, in broadly different contexts, there is no reason to suggest
that religion is not malleable enough to also take on all manner of cul-
tural forms. For example, there is increasing openness in deriving ­religious
30 P. O’Connor

significance from popular entertainment such as film, music, and

television.

Popular Culture

Terry Ray Clark (2012) suggests that religion continues to be of central

importance in the products of our contemporary popular culture. While
comic books, horror movies, and Coca-Cola might not be regarded as
religion, they too have religious implications, motifs, and lessons for us,
and these are perhaps a powerful part of their mass appeal. For Clark,
religion ‘refers to those practices of any society that are attentive to what
is believed to be a sacred, unique, or extraordinary element or quality of
human experience’ (2012, p. 3). Such a definition dispenses with institu-
tionalised creeds, texts, and sacred buildings, and provides a stronger
focus on a broad subjective notion of belief. In Clark’s discussion there is
great sympathy for the sacred and the mundane as fluid concepts used
differently throughout history, across cultures, and of course by individu-
als. Similarly John C. Lyden (2003) argues that film can operate as reli-
gion by employing the theoretical perspective of Geertz. He makes the
case that film can be religion through both the ritual and the emotional
content it contains and seeks to evoke. Yet his work, which is richly theo-
retical and beautifully explored, stops short of developing a method that
can be operationalised to explore his arguments. While he does address
the need for more qualitative research on film-going rituals, this could
also be the area to test the empirics necessary to ground his argument.
Further exploration of religion and popular culture is performed by
Conrad Ostwalt (2012), who seeks examples of religious (typically
Christian) motifs in literature, architecture, film, and communities. His
focus is on the dualism of the sacred and secular, which are at times
opposed and more frequently enmeshed. If we take Durkhiem’s argu-
ment as instructive, religion not only replicates society but also its institu-
tions and organisations, thus becoming worldly and practical. Ostwalt
sees religion becoming more secular as it concedes to scientific reason and
modern bureaucracy, while secular life becomes increasingly religious,
enchanted with popular culture myth and symbolism as points of shared
 2 Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports 31

meaning. Ostwalt (2012, pp. 218–223) shows how the interplay between
the sacred and the secular is a central motif in American life. He argues
that individualism and freedom are understood as virtues in the USA,
and lifestyles that reproduce these values take on new forms of sacralisa-
tion. He refers to religious motorcycle groups and argues that the motor-
cycle is itself a freedom machine that signals power and independence.
He also recognises that risky activities like motorcycle riding and snake
handling are powerful ways to build community bonds. In the confusion
surrounding the boundaries of religion in contemporary society, Ostwalt
(2012, pp. 244–245) highlights the importance of community as both a
motivation for religion and an acceptance of the secular. While providing
a rich discussion on religious transformation, Ostwalt focuses almost
exclusively on Christianity’s interplay with popular culture and seculari-
sation. What is absent in Ostwalt’s working is the relevance of new forms
of religious imagination that take popular culture as inspiration.

Invented Religions

Entirely new forms of religion born out of film or literature have been
termed ‘invented religions’ by Carole Cusack. She explores Discordianism,
The Church of all Worlds, and Jediism amongst other invented religions.
These new groupings reject the need to make a myth surrounding their
origin as a path to legitimisation. Instead they revel in the play and cre-
ativity of their faith. In acknowledging that their religion is human they
made many adherents see that they are only being honest and recognise
that all religions are in some form the product of human creation.
Addressing the validity of these invented religions, Cusack adopts a defi-
nition of religion that is non-essentialist, and thus sees religion as poly-
thetic, being contingent to no single necessary feature while sharing
‘family’ features which identify it as alike others (2010, p. 20). This is
influenced by the work of Robert McDermott (1970), who uses
Wittgenstein’s language games to circumvent the problematic essential-
ism of a definition. Wittgenstein showed how words could have multiple
meanings that can be mutually exclusive; similarly, so can religion.
McDermott states that ‘a range of things called religious may have no
32 P. O’Connor

common essence in the strict sense of the term, but they may have family
resemblances or all of these religious particulars as part of the religion
family’ (1970, p. 392). This is an appealing approach to religion for those
who are comfortable with plurality and hybridity, but frustrating to
essentialists who wish for clear boundaries and divisions.
I have great sympathy for Cusack’s definition, yet it is challenged by
the powerful arguments made by Teemu Taira (2010, 2013). Influenced
by Zygmunt Bauman’s prolific work (2003, 2005, 2006, 2012), he pro-
poses a notion of ‘liquid religion,’ unsettled by the processes of moder-
nity, and like other once concrete notions (family, gender, culture,
nationality) he argues that religion has become an amorphous untethered
classification. As a result of these transformations, religion is seen as a
discursive category, where what matters is not how to define a religion,
but what is recognised as religion. Taira (2013) argues that religion has
become a resource for establishing and accessing rights. In reference to
the example of a British man excluded from a job centre because of his
refusal to lower his hood, Taira shows how the claiming of religious iden-
tity (in this case Jediism) provides individuals and communities with
leverage. Thus religion, for Taira also, has no essential meaning. More
importantly, definitions of religion are based on power and not reason. In
critique of Cusack’s invented religions, Taira argues that there is no need
to define them as different to other religions as this panders to the need
for religion to be legitimised and ultimately negotiated in terms of access
rights. Refraining from defining religion corresponds with Taira’s thesis
on ‘liquid religion,’ asserting that as a free-floating category what is
important is how it is discussed rather than what it is. However, in refer-
ence to the work of Heelas et al. (2005), despite significant change in the
spiritual landscape of the West, religion continues to be an important
focus on how many people organise their lives. Taira’s argument begins to
close off the cultural importance of religion as community, a field of com-
munication and sharing between people. His focus on power is signifi-
cant but begins to eclipse other meaningful elements of religion. Religion
as a social fact is important for our social needs of communitas, to experi-
ence the spiritual in company, to feel equality, to communicate and be
understood. Cusack’s notion of invented religion is thus helpful because
it acknowledges a post-rational embracing of a recognised fiction,
 2 Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports 33

­ isregarding seemingly inauthentic origins while prioritising the authen-

d
tic numinous. Moreover, this polythetic notion of religion corresponds
with my intellectual disposition to challenge essentialism and work with
the messiness of hybridity.

Observation, Performance, Organisation

I adopt a polythetic definition that recognises religion as a sociological

process that, in turn, mirrors our cultural practices and institutions. For
these reasons the label of religion, despite Taira’s compelling argument,
remains important for the negotiation of recognition and rights in spite
of its increasing liquidity. One challenge posed by the polythetic approach
is that it is inherently nebulous, a wonderful tool for dealing with plural-
ity, but potentially problematic in clarifying what exactly the data on
religion should be. In response, I set forth a schema that structures the
analysis within this book. Here the definition provided by Geertz (1973)
is helpful to return to as it delineates culture, experience, and structure. I
reformulate his five points into the categories of observation, perfor-
mance, and organisation. My purpose in doing so is to provide modes of
analysis that represent religion in categories that can overlap or be consid-
ered mutually exclusive. I want to be able to address religious symbolism
as a religious component, one of a family of ideas, while not constraining
it exclusively within an essentialist rubric that ties it to the ritual process,
or an institution. Thus, I adopt Geertz’s notion that religion includes
symbolism, and moods and motivations (points 1 & 2). Accordingly, I
believe a fundamental way for us to observe religion is to see how symbol-
ism is used and the moods it creates. Secondly, I take Geertz’s points (4
and 5) that religion appears as a realistic fact that gives way to the numi-
nous, as an affirmation that people see truth in religion and that it affects
them emotionally and viscerally. I understand this to also mean that reli-
gion is something that is not just experienced but performed or practised.
Thirdly, Geertz’s definition speaks of an ‘order of existence’ (point 3),
which I understand as encompassing both a worldview or cosmology and
the bureaucratic features of institutional (secular) organisation. Thus, I
commit to a pluralistic definition of religion, but I order these three
34 P. O’Connor

Table 2.1 Polythetic notion of religion

Mode of Geertz’s
analysis definition Family of ideas
Observation Points 1 and 2 Symbolism, Language, Myth, the Numinous,
Artefacts
Performance Points 4 and 5 Ritual, Worship, Factual Motivations,
Pilgrimage, Communitas
Organisation Point 3 Worldview, Institutions, Ideology, Collective
Action

c­ riteria as modes of analysis, or ‘family characteristics’ of religion as it

manifests in skateboard culture (Table 2.1).

Sport and Religion

Conceptually, this book contributes to the sociology of religion, pursuing
a largely new theme in the connection between religion and a particular
type of sport. Religion and spirituality are, however, established areas of
academic enquiry into sport. The most simple examples tend to trace and
map similarities between religious phenomena—rituals, saints,
churches—and corresponding elements of sports—rules, athletes, stadi-
ums (Magdalinski & Chandler, 2002). The more ambitious explorations,
as this text strives to portray, move beyond these binary comparisons and
seek to explain other processes. However, research has tended to focus
almost exclusively on traditional sports and also has a bias towards insti-
tutionalised religion (Baker, 2007; Hoffman, 1992; Parry, Watson, &
Nesti, 2010). Little work has been done in the field of lifestyle sports and
religion. I propose that this is in part because these sports tend to be his-
torically new, and that as a result they are still maturing in establishing
their cultural politics. The contribution that this work offers is to extend
some arguments about the porous boundary between the profane and
sacred that research on religion and popular culture has identified and to
show how they are relevant to sport, unsettling the binaries that have
dominated much scholarship. Some academics have, however, begun to
foreground the notion of religion in connection to some lifestyle sports,
recognising that they can be regarded as having their own ethics and
 2 Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports 35

r­ ituals that permeate daily life in a similar manner to religion (Atkinson,

2008, p. 419).
Surfing, arguably more than any other lifestyle sport, has a distinct and
authentic spiritual association (B. Taylor, 2007). This is best expressed in
roots that reach back to around 500 CE and ritualised pantheism in
Hawaii (Ford & Brown, 2006, p. 30), where surfing was an elite and
aristocratic pursuit (Weyland, 2002, p. 12). Like many religions, surfing
is regarded as having a homeland, a mythology, and distinct ritual prac-
tices. Laderman (2014, p. 14) shows how the influence of Christian mis-
sionaries in Hawaii in the nineteenth century contributed to the rapid
decline of indigenous surfing. Riding waves became Americanised, and
in the process aligned with new forms of spiritual practice such as the
‘Soul Surfer’ movement of the 1960s (Booth, 1994). Some surfers sought
self-realisation and practised yoga as part of the lifestyle (Evers, 2010,
p. 27), echoing many of the new-age subjective spiritual practices of the
present. The spiritual association with surfing is suggested by Ford and
Brown (2006, p. 15) to now be entwined with its closeness to nature, and
a bodily aesthetic of freedom demonstrated in liberated attitudes to cloth-
ing and exposed skin. Taylor (2007) sees media as being instrumental in
developing a broader spiritual identification, communicating the ethics
of surf culture, and curating forms of pilgrimage to iconic beaches made
sacred by surfing prophets. These associations are being extended through
social media and in turn highlight new forms of spiritual practice. Indeed,
networked technology and new media provide an important form of
human presentation and outreach to express identity, emotion, and com-
munity (Duffy, 2017; Humphreys, 2018; Lupton, 2016; Miller, 2011;
Miller & Sinanan, 2017). For example, ‘paddle outs’ are a collective ritual
that surfers perform as a memorial for their dead brethren (Thorpe, 2014,
p. 100). The impact of such activities should not be underestimated, as
Thorpe details that one YouTube video of the Andy Irons paddle out has
been viewed over 100,000 times. Thus, these activities are not only per-
formed, they are recorded, memorialised, and revisited. Mirroring many
of the comments I have gathered with regard to skateboarding, some
surfers are concerned with the commercialisation of their lifestyle into a
competitive sport and see it as a sign of ‘spiritual pollution’ (Evers, 2010,
p. 28), while others see the ‘defiling act’ of such commodification as
36 P. O’Connor

­ ltimately unable to ‘obviate’ surfing’s ‘spiritual power’ (B. Taylor, 2007,

u
p. 925). A further development is the way in which surfing has been
promoted as a force of good, tackling not spiritual but environmental
pollution. A wide variety of surfing NGOs have chosen to adopt a socially
responsible attitude towards places where surfing is performed (Thorpe &
Rinehart, 2013), seeking to protect communities, empower women
(A. Taylor, 2016), and protect wildlife and the physical environment.
Some works have approached spirituality and religion in lifestyle sports
with considerable scepticism. There are important questions such as ‘why
can’t surfing be a religion?’ (Melekian in Taylor, 2007, p. 924) and con-
cerns that spirituality is simply mistaken psychological exhilaration or,
worse, absurd and self-absorbed. Yet, at the same time, there is an acknowl-
edgement that participants earnestly feel religious significance in their
sports and feel spiritually enhanced by participating in them (Allman,
Mittelstaedt, Martin, & Goldenberg, 2009, p. 241; Higgs & Braswell,
2004, p. 195; Poulson, 2016, p. 34). Wheaton highlights that one of the
defining attributes of lifestyle sports is the identification of the ‘buzz’ of
participation, and the danger that through negotiation can elicit feelings
of transcendence (2013, p. 29). Indeed, a common feature of work that
has looked at a tie between religion and lifestyle sports (Abraham, 2017;
Friedel, 2015; B. Taylor, 2007; Watson & Parker, 2014) is the identifica-
tion of Csikszentmihalyi’s (1975, 1997) notion of flow. The experience of
flow is achieved when one is performing an activity in which one is totally
engaged. In flow, temporal states are disrupted and sensations are height-
ened, providing intense focus and feelings of elation and even transcen-
dence. The association of the ‘highs’ of lifestyle sports has accordingly
been marketed as exhilarating, extreme, and edgy. In Steven Kotler’s West
of Jesus (2006), the author provides a biographical journey into the heart
of surfing and spirituality, a treatise on death, and the psychology of flow.
Bringing both play and flow together is Stephen Lyng’s (1990, 2005)
concept of edgework, or voluntary risk-taking. Developed initially in ref-
erence to skydiving, edgework recognises that people who are involved in
risky sports are actually deeply focused and draw on years of trained expe-
rience to negotiate their exhilarating feats. A clear connection can be
made between the notions of flow and edgework and the experience of
religious awe and terror: for example, the Mysterium Tremendum and
 2 Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports 37

Mysterium Fascinans that Otto (1959) describes, and the fear and trem-
bling touched upon by Kierkegaard (1968). Edgework corresponds with
what Sophie Friedel (2015) describes as part of the ‘gifts’ of skateboard-
ing, where practitioners pursue the experience of ‘stoke,’ which is analo-
gous to the feeling of flow. Alternatively, edgework can also be read as a
political practice, a commentary on society and its alienation. Ferrell
(2005) argues that the edgework of skateboarding a handrail may well be
the only possible adventure left in a society that controls and commodi-
fies every experience. In edgework, people enact a form of anarchy, reject-
ing the conventions of everyday life and transcending in mind, body, and
politics. This leads us to identify that the bond between religion and
lifestyle sports can also be connected to social change.
Our discussion must similarly address the popular interest in spiritual-
ity as an alternative to traditional religions (Rose, 2001; Tacey, 2004).
Research in the sociology of religion has identified a weakening and
transformation in religious practice in Europe and North America. These
changes have noted a ‘decline in some forms of the sacred and the rise of
others’ (Heelas et al., 2005, p. 2). Charles Taylor speaks of a ‘massive
subjective turn of modern culture, a new form of inwardness, in which
we come to think of ourselves as beings with inner depths’ (1991, p. 26).
Influenced by Taylor’s argument, Heelas et al. (2005, p. 3) describe a turn
away from proscribed social roles to a ‘subjective life’ where we are reflex-
ive, concerned with our own experiences and feelings. They note in the
UK a growing tendency for individuals to search for the sacred in activi-
ties and pastimes that are disconnected from traditional, national, cul-
tural, and religious institutions. New forms of spirituality have been
developed in New-Age philosophies such as healing, Tai Chi, and Yoga.
It is the physical elements of these practices which can be seen as analo-
gous to skateboarding. Indeed, the bond between sport and religion rests
on the fact that the body is a primary symbol in religion and the principle
tool of ritual (Douglas, 1984). In terms of sport, the primacy of the body
may also be understood as a reason for its apparent anti-intellectualism.
Bodily knowledge is difficult to translate into language, but this in no
way trivialises its importance (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 166).
Skateboarders speak in nuanced terms about a religious connection to
skateboarding itself. A number of male youths in the research of Emily
38 P. O’Connor

Chivers Yochim (2010, pp. 93–94) declare forms of spiritual engagement

with skateboarding. One informant states that ‘some people do medita-
tion, some people do yoga, I skateboard,’ while others explain it as ‘orgas-
mic,’ ‘almost like meditation,’ and ‘super relaxing.’ Two of my women
informants compared skateboarding to yoga in terms of it being a physi-
cal activity that is both exercise and spiritual. In a different approach,
sociologist Gregory Snyder (2017, p. 197) speaks of skateboarders as hav-
ing a ‘quasi-spiritual’ relationship with the banal urban spaces they use.
Thus, framing the topic of skateboarding and religion allows us to explore
both these nascent expressions of spiritual identification and more dis-
tinct forms of organisation and integration with established world
religions.

Skateboarding as a Lifestyle Religion

The fact that skateboarding and religion have become connected suggests
something intriguing about our contemporary moment. This may be a
concern about the individualism of modern societies and the erosion of
communal practices of politics, religion, and more broadly social capital.
As Robert Putnam (2000) has famously observed, there has been a sharp
decline in the communal affiliations of American public life, typified in
the falling number of bowling leagues and the rise in the number of
people ‘bowling alone.’ For Charles Taylor (1991), this is part of a larger
concern with modernity and the rise in notions of personal morality and
authenticity. He argues that we are now reliant on our own feelings and
the need to be true to ourselves rather than committed to an external
notion of authority. The consequence of this effect is fragmentation and
atomism in modern society which entrench division. Taylor sees that in
the American context a preference for judicial review creates the setting
of a win or lose outcome that only further entrenches fragmentation and
removes opportunity for debate. These arguments relate broadly to the
work of sociologists who have seen modernity unsettle trust, intimacy,
and identity (Beck, 2013; Anthony Giddens, 1991, 2002), and who
­recognise modern society as insecure, unmoored, and liquid (Bauman,
2004, 2005, 2012). These are processes long at work as evidenced in
 2 Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports 39

Marx and Engels (1985, p. 83) Communist Manifesto, where they declare
that ‘all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.’
Individualism is both a cause and effect of modernity, and one that
religion problematically explores. While we may seek greater intimacy
and community, it is apparent that the majority of us stay committed to
our individualism. This has been argued as part of the draw towards new
age and alternative spiritual practices which are often highly subjective in
contrast to traditional institutionalised religion which imposes a reality of
a life dictated to us (Heelas et al., 2005). What we see with forms of com-
munal association that have grown is that they continue to emphasise
subjective well-being and individuality (Bellah et al., 2008, p. xxiii). No
better example of this exists than the prominence of social media, which,
while clearly social to a degree, has been manufactured to play on our
impulses and self-interests, and may well be better termed narcissistic
media. In short, we are facing a paradox, the need for community pre-
mised on individualism.
This, however, is precisely what skateboarding is—a communal activity
and an individualised one. As Yochim (2010, p. 179) states in the closing
paragraph of her book, ‘you do it together, and everyone just does it their
own way.’ Recognising this flexibility and with it an ability to accommo-
date all sorts of people, Borden argues that ‘diversity is not a weakness for
skateboarding, but conversely its very strength’ (2019, p. 3). Indeed, its
capacity to be both a valorised individual pursuit and a culture with its own
community makes skateboarding an exemplarily modern pursuit.
Skateboarding has risen to be a celebrated activity because it is seen to rem-
edy some of the maladies of modern life. Bellah et al., (2008, p. xxiv-xxv)
argues that it is desperately difficult for individuals seeking to be civically
engaged to transcend the confines of their class and ethnic communities;
yet in skateboarding this is quite evidently not the case. Ritual elements in
skateboarding are able to unsettle social hierarchies and facilitate commu-
nitas. Consciously or not, people are finding solace in skateboarding
because of the community and inclusion it offers. It therefore seems only
natural that it has emerged, and I argue that it will continue to develop
along with other lifestyle sports, as a lifestyle ­religion, an activity from
which individuals can derive communitas, spirituality, and religious signifi-
cance—structured not around a dogma, but a way of life.
40 P. O’Connor

I propose a concept of lifestyle religion that can be rendered in refer-

ence to the earlier arguments. Building on Wheaton’s (2013) concept of
lifestyle sports, we can recognise the importance of new forms of physical
expression that are subcultural, consumptive, and individualised.
Similarly, Ostwalt’s (2012) work identifies a trend in secular activities
becoming recognised as sacred, echoing the fact that religion is more
palatable when presented in accessible popular tropes. Conversely, the
mundane features of everyday life become more meaningful when
enchanted with sacred representation. Heelas et al. (2005) complement
these arguments promoting an emphasis on feelings and subjective expe-
rience provided by Charles Taylor (1991), demonstrating how religious
experience can relate to new-age practices, and in the case of Cusack’s
(2010) work, entirely fictional and invented beliefs. Accordingly, lifestyle
religion can encompass new articulations of world religion such as ‘life-
style Christianity,’ drawing on and appropriating popular culture motifs
as channels to demonstrate a reimagining of faith that is as youthful,
heterodox, individualised, and consumptive as Ostwalt (2012, p. 202)
suggests. With our polythetic definition of religion, lifestyle religion is a
malleable concept that has room to accommodate spiritual expressions of
flow, ritual practice without theology, sacred symbolism, and indeed sec-
ular humanism itself. I propose that skateboarding can demonstrate a
form of lifestyle religion precisely because it is able to generate the feel-
ings, community, and optics of religion while being free of orthodox
strictures and dogma. This is significant because contemporary culture in
the global north is marked by concerns about the weakening of human
bonds and the absence of community (Ostwalt, 2012, p. 206), and activ-
ities such as skateboarding, motorbike gangs, yoga groups, cosplay meet-
ups, film clubs, and veganism provide access, community, and belonging.
The exploration of how this can be observed, how it is practised and
organised, is the task of the remainder of this book.

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Part I
Observation
 3
Origin Myth

Haadii is a skateboarder and a former student of the Islamic school in the

Malaysian city of Kota Bharu. He has been skateboarding for 16 years
and at the time of our conversation was working on finishing a video
documenting the tie between skateboarding and his faith. Haadii is also
a conscientious Muslim and enjoys visiting Kota Bharu because of its rich
heritage and strong Islamic culture. A part of the Kelantan district, the
city is governed by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). This is a reli-
giously conservative part of the country where the state government
employs morality police to ensure people dress modestly and refrain from
immoral acts. Even though the city has a population of nearly 400,000
people, it has not had a cinema since 1990. One reason for this is that
Kelantan district has strict rules for cinemas that require them to show
films with bright lighting in the theatre and to shut down entirely during
the month of Ramadan. Cinemas in Kota Bharu are not profitable. One
eye-catching feature of the city is the vibrant urban art near the street
Jalan Dato Pati. Numerous walls are adorned with paintings featuring
scenes from across the Islamic world. Some of the murals depict the
struggles of Palestinians in the Middle East, showing scenes of war with
tanks, flags, and helicopters. Others feature the Dome of the Rock

© The Author(s) 2020 47

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_3
48 P. O’Connor

mosque in Jerusalem, women preforming the Dabke Arab folk dance,

regional foods, and the Malaysian martial art Melayu Silat.
Haadii does not idolise any skateboarder, preferring to see all as
equals. Yet, he holds one local religious leader, Tok Guru, in high
esteem. Tok Guru, whose full name is Nik Abdul Aziz, died in 2015
and is regarded as the spiritual leader of PAS. He is known throughout
Malaysia for his hard-line conservative views. Fusing his two passions,
Haadii asked his friend Ajiem, a renowned Malaysian skateboard pho-
tographer, to document him performing a trick at the famous Tok Guru
wall which features a commemorative mural. The photograph (Fig. 3.1)
is evocative and includes a quote from Tok Guru. The text on the wall
behind Haadii translates as a motivation for good work and piety stat-
ing that ‘while the reward is not visible, we keep that money in the
afterlife.’ I read this image as an illustration of how some Malay skate-
boarders take pride in their dedication and commitment to skateboard-
ing, and see it as a metaphor for spiritual struggle and piety. What is
even more fascinating is that Haadii, like skateboarders all across the

Fig. 3.1 Haadii at Tok Guru wall in Kota Bharu. (Photo: Mohd Azim Nong)
 3 Origin Myth 49

globe, has a recognition and understanding that skateboarding emerges

from a wholly different context. The craft that he has given Islamic
meaning to began on the beach sidewalks of California some 60 years
ago. Just like Haadii’s faith of Islam, skateboarding has an origin myth
and it has become one that is universally recognised by skateboarders
across the globe. Haadii confesses that he does not know much about
the history of skateboarding but he is certain that the sport is tied to
California and emerges from surfing. California resonates in the actions
and dress of Haadii as he flips his skateboard in the streets of Malaysia’s
conservative Eastern province. He wears Vans Era Pro shoes, jeans, and
a light floral shirt.
Mircea Eliade states that ‘every myth shows how a reality came into
existence’ (1959, p. 97). For skateboarders that reality is tied to California
and as such this place recurs throughout the following chapters as an
important focus. It represents a putative homeland to skateboarding and
also a quasi-holy land, a territory full of sacred sites and cultural heroes.
In this chapter I provide an example of how skateboarding and religion
interact in terms of an origin myth. This is not solely focused on how the
Californian narrative emerged, but also upon how skateboard media, and
academic enquiry into skateboarding has reified a cultural world from
which skateboarding is seen to emerge. Firstly, every text on skateboard-
ing speaks of a history of skateboarding originating from California and
in the process contributes to the myth-building process. Take, for exam-
ple, the most important and authoritative scholarly works by Borden
(2001, 2019), Beal (2013), Yochim (2010), Butz (2012), and Snyder
(2017). In one recent work it is San Francisco that is pinpointed as the
skate capital of the world (Atencio, Beal, Wright, & ZáNean, 2018,
p. 34). Of more popular relevance are the cultural products of skate-
boarding—magazines, videos, and the proliferation of sources available
on blogs and social media—which continue to orient to California in
both overt and tacit ways. These represent the values, aesthetics, and lan-
guage of skateboarding which are again connected to this legacy.
Skateboarding has not only a native land, but an origin myth, a dense
and evolving historiography that has been documented through the writ-
ten word, photography, art, and video. It also, like religion, possesses an
elaborate language that is at once functional and esoteric. These all
50 P. O’Connor

c­ ombine to signal a cultural movement with values and ethics that influ-
ence skateboarders globally from the past to the present.
This chapter serves a dual purpose: I not only observe an origin myth,
but I also introduce the fundamentals of skateboarding necessary to navi-
gate the rest of this text. I unpack the vernacular of skateboarding for
readers uninitiated in this cultural world. I also reproduce the origin
myth and show how it has been intellectually challenged, and emotion-
ally embraced. In sum, this first chapter applying the trope of observation
looks at how skateboarding and religion interact in the fundamentals of
the activity. It observes what skateboarding is, how it is communicated,
and where it comes from. Relating this chapter back to Geertz’s (1973,
p. 90) definition of religion, our mode of analysis focuses on his first and
second points, that religion can operate as a system of symbols that estab-
lish powerful motivations and moods amongst people. It also connects to
the family of ideas that includes symbolism, language, and myth. As a
feature of lifestyle religion, contemporary myth appears both sacred and
plausible providing a necessary narrative to those without religion, and
similarly providing context to a heterodox identity to the faithful like
Haadii who are committed to more traditional beliefs.

The Myth
Far removed from Malaysia, California is the holy land of skateboarding.
While much significance in the world of skateboarding is found entirely
beyond this singular state in the USA, it is beyond question the place
most closely associated with skateboarding both past and present. All
cultures, like nations and religions, have some narrative that forms an
origin story. Skateboarding’s origin story has been contested (C. B.
Snyder, 2015; The New York Times, 1893), yet it is almost universally
associated with California. Arguably the history became widely recog-
nised in popular culture following the commercial and critical success of
Stacy Peralta’s documentary Dogtown and Z Boys (Peralta, 2001). The
film provides a narrative of the origins of street skateboarding through
the creative and rebellious activities of 1970s Californian youth who
sought out empty backyard pools as places to develop new styles of
 3 Origin Myth 51

s­kateboarding. Following this early history, Yochim (2010) argues that

skateboarding represents a mythic quality about the American maverick,
typified as adventurous, entrepreneurial, and male. For many people the
association with California as the primary home of skateboarding is
matched not only in its popularity in the state, but also with the imagin-
ing of California as a place of freedom, creativity, and openness. In
exploring a mythology of skateboard history Butz (2012, p. 53) identifies
that almost all academic and non-academic sources on skateboarding’s
origins make reference to surfing and its cultural influence. He explores
the fusion of surfing’s exotic Polynesian origins with Southern Californian
beaches and urban sprawl, highlighting the enduring connection that
skateboarding has to the region. Professional skateboarder Rodney
Mullen relays accounts of early visits to California to participate in com-
petitions during this era. He refers to California as a ‘Skateboard Mecca’
(Mullen & Mortimer, 2004, p. 49) and curates a shrine of unremarkable
items such as bus tickets and other artefacts he brings back from his
sojourns (2004, p. 54). It is clear from Mullen’s account that there is an
essence in California that provides a foundation to an understanding and
recognition of skateboarding.
Most religions have some form of an origin story, a narrative that is
often steeped in mystery and revelation. A recognised beginning is an
integral part of both religion and culture, both old and new. This process
of fleshing out a history has been shown to be part of how religions, eth-
nicities, and nations are constructed (Cusack, 2013; Eriksen, 2010;
Hutchinson & Smith, 1996; Woodhead, 2011). Most famously Hugh
Trevor-Roper in The Invention of Tradition (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1994)
describes how the history of Scottish clan tartan has been revised to fit the
needs of a national identity. Thus, while an origin story may be assumed,
or widely known, it need not be true or uncontested. Glenney and Mull
evocatively argue that ‘skateboarding is a mystery: We do not really know
when it began or where it is going, or even what it is’ (2018, p. 1). This is
intellectually correct; however, the wide recognition of the Californian
origin serves an important symbolic function. The Californian myth
facilitates a worldview, an order of reality in which skateboarders can look
towards a genesis and an orientation. In the work of Eliade this is referred
to as an axis mundi, effectively the centre of the world. More importantly,
52 P. O’Connor

within the symbol of this centre is the notion of creation and thus an
‘archetype of every creative human gesture’ (Eliade, 1959, p. 45). Relating
this concept to the religion of Islam, Mecca, and specifically the Ka’ba in
the Grand Mosque is the axis mundi for Muslims. It is to this feature that
Muslims orient their prayers five times a day. It is to Mecca that Muslims
are obliged to make a pilgrimage once in their lifetime, fulfilling both a
religious obligation and mirroring the actions of the prophet Muhammad.
So potent is the example of Mecca as an axis mundi that it is used as a
noun for places of great importance to which people flock. California is
thus an undisputed Mecca for skateboarding. This axis or point to which
attention is focused also comes to represent an image of the world or
imago mundi (1959, p. 42). For Eliade this goes even further, we come to
understand such sites as schemas for what is sacred and also as models for
existence (1959, p. 64). Using Eliade’s argument we can suggest that
California is not only a homeland and the centre of the world of skate-
boarding, but also a parable about the values and worldview of skate-
boarders. A first step in comprehending the validity of such an argument
rests in providing a rudimentary overview of skateboarding, its materials,
manoeuvres, and language.

The Basics
Skateboarding involves some basic technology. Most typically a board
is roughly 8 inches wide and 32 inches long. This is usually made of
Canadian hardwood maple, of which seven thin layers of plywood are
pressed, glued, and shaped together. These are then decorated with art-
work, referred to as graphics. These graphics tend to include the logo
and brand name of the board company, and the name of the profes-
sional skateboarder whose model it is. These are sold individually at
skateshops, retailing for around US$40. Boards are covered on their top
side with griptape, effectively sticky black sandpaper, which provides
foot grip. The terms board and deck are what skateboarders use to refer
to the wooden part of their skateboard, and are terms used interchange-
ably to refer to the whole of the skateboard. Mounted on the under-
neath of the board by screwed bolts, are two stainless-steel axles which
 3 Origin Myth 53

have rubber bushings placed between the hangar and its base plate to
provide manoeuvrability. These axles are referred to as trucks. Hard
rubber urethane wheels with precision bearings are placed on the axles
and screwed into place. These are the basic components of a skateboard
and it is a technology that has changed little over the last 60 years.
Skateboards are typically assembled by their owners; this is both a cre-
ative and consumerist process where skateboarders choose the brands
and paraphernalia that they deem as most cool, authentic, stylish, effi-
cacious, and durable. Even the placement of the griptape on the board
can be regarded as a form of self-­expression, with skateboarders some-
times making patterns or decorating their griptape with artwork and
slogans. Figure 3.2 shows the decorated griptape of one Hong Kong
skateboarder in his early twenties on which the cartoon cat character
Pusheen is depicted saying ‘Hail Satan.’ Setting a board up is at once an
example of consumption, identity expression, individuality, humour,
and DIY self-reliance.

Fig. 3.2 Decorated griptape depicting a creative fusion of Pusheen and Satanism.
(Author’s photo)
54 P. O’Connor

The practice of skateboarding encompasses everything that takes place

once an individual mounts their board. While typically boards are stood
on, they are also sat upon and used in various ways by people with differ-
ing physical abilities, young and old. The skateboard is ridden with its
users propelling themselves along. The standard approach to movement
is called kicking or pushing, one foot remains constantly on the board
while the second foot propels the board by pushing repetitively on the
ground. Once the desired speed has been achieved the second (pushing)
foot is then placed on the board. Balance is an integral part of skateboard-
ing and is contingent in the basic acquisition of competence in moving
on the board. From these fundamentals, skateboarders have developed a
variety of novel physical feats that combine the board, physical articula-
tion, and movement. These are manoeuvres that are simply referred to as
tricks. One basic trick, and the building block of many others, is the ollie.
This is a seemingly paradoxical technique in which the skateboard is pro-
pelled into the air with all four wheels simultaneously leaving the ground.
This is achieved by the skateboarder explosively banging their rear foot on
the back, or tail, of the board while dragging their front foot up the board
towards the tip, or nose. The back foot uses the springiness of the wooden
board to rise into the air, while the front foot aids the lift and levels the
board out flat. The griptape provides additional grip and control for ollies
and the many numerous derivations of this technique. Despite the fact
that the ollie is regarded as a basic trick, it must be underlined that it still
takes considerable practice and determination to achieve, let alone mas-
ter. For many who skateboard, the process of practising and perfecting
new tricks on their board is both a passion and compulsion. As a result, a
rich diversity of skateboarding tricks has emerged along with specialised
practices. The skateboarding that most people encounter travelling
around their home towns and cities is referred to as street skateboarding
and involves the performance of tricks in urban spaces. Transition skate-
boarding refers to ramp, bowl, or half-pipe skateboarding and has increas-
ingly become part of skatepark skateboarding which often includes
impressively powerful and high aerial tricks. Downhill luge, longboard-
ing, megaramp, and freestyle skateboarding are further derivatives.
It should already be apparent that skateboarding has its own lexicon.
The language of skateboarding reveals in its richness the embodied
 3 Origin Myth 55

s­ ensibility of the activity. A sophisticated vernacular is used to describe

a technical variety of tricks which enable skateboarders to communicate
and imagine physical performances. Most young skateboarders are
experts in recognising the degrees of rotational turns and can quickly
compute a 180°, 270°, 360°, or 540° spin whilst also being attentive to
the orientation of the skateboarder and the direction of the spin.
Sociologist Gregory Snyder (2017, pp. 90–91) provides an astute
unpacking of the way skateboarders communicate tricks. He recognises
that skateboarding terminology is remarkably efficient in describing the
ways in which skateboarders move both their bodies and their boards.
This terminology is even explicit in describing the orientation of skate-
boarders to their boards. For example, let us analyse the term switch
frontside flip to 5.0. Firstly, switch means that the skateboarder is riding
his/her board in his/her unnatural stance. Skateboarders normally have
a preferred way of standing on their board. Left foot front, right foot
back is called regular, while the opposite is called goofy. When a skate-
boarder switches stance they are riding switch. This is the skateboarding
equivalent of handedness—writing with your left hand when you are
right-handed. Switch should not be confused with riding backwards,
which is called fakie. When one ollies fakie they are not changing their
stance, just their direction. Immediately it should be apparent that one
cannot ride their board switch fakie; this is an oxymoron. Frontside
refers to the way the trick and the skateboarder move, and without
elaboration refers to a 180° turn. Turning frontside involves a turn
where you rotate exposing the chest of your body: for a regular-­stance
rider, an anticlockwise turn, for a goofy rider, a clockwise turn. Flip
means that the board has been kicked in mid-ollie to spin on its hori-
zontal axis in a 360° rotation. The final part of the trick to 5.0 refers to
a second trick following the first switch frontside flip. A 5.0 is a trick in
which the back truck of the board lands on an object and slides, or
grinds, along it on the axle. Clearly the brief phrase switch frontside flip
to 5.0 communicates a great deal of information succinctly. Trick termi-
nology in terms of the semiotics of language can be regarded as simply
referential, describing action and information. Accompanying these
terms is phraseology that describes the feeling and efficacy of tricks.
Gnarly refers to something that is rough, difficult, or scary. When a
56 P. O’Connor

grind is performed on rough concrete the associated feeling of cumber-

some friction is a p ­ erfect descriptor of the term gnarly. Buttery is
another term used to describe the feeling of sliding your board or grind-
ing your trucks on a very smooth surface such as marble. Suffice to say
that this scarcely scratches the surface of the extensive repertoire of
tricks and their terminology.
Of further significance is the way in which skateboarding has devel-
oped internationally and acquired local terms for tricks and manoeuvres.
Writing on the emergence of skateboarding in China in the early 1990s,
Tim Sedo (2010) recognises that skateboarders developed their own lan-
guage for tricks. Cut off from the wider world of skateboard media and
its corresponding culture, Chinese skateboarders naturally devised their
own ways of communicating the complicated physical specificity of
skateboarding tricks. In a similar way the students at the world-famous
Skateistan NGO programme in Afghanistan have also learnt to skate-
board without exposure to skateboard media. As a result they have devel-
oped their own associations about skateboarding style, in particular
valorising safety equipment (Fitzpatrick, 2012).
Trick names have increasingly become functional, but many reveal a
connection to the people who first created them. The ollie, for exam-
ple, was first performed by Alan ‘Ollie’ Gelfund, on transition. It was
later brought to flat ground by Rodney Mullen and was quickly adopted
as part of street skateboarding. The Stalefish, which involves grabbing
the board with your back hand, behind your legs and between your
feet, refers to the unappetising food at the skate camp Tony Hawk
attended when he invented the grab. A more evocative example for the
purposes of our study is the trick termed the Christ Air (see Fig. 3.3).
This spectacular manoeuvre pioneered by Christian Hosoi involves
launching out of a vert ramp and extending both arms (board in one
hand) in the symbol of a crucified Christ. Hopefully this will provide
those unfamiliar with skateboarding an insight into the compounded
nature of the culture. The technology, practice, and language are all
tightly entwined. As we shall see time and time again, the simplicity of
the skateboard betrays the complex meaning it has been imbued with.
Throughout the rest of the text I shall explain new terminology as it is
introduced.
 3 Origin Myth 57

Fig. 3.3 Christian Hosoi performs a Christ Air. (Photo: J. Grant Brittain)

Genesis
Two competing narratives exist that serve to chart the origins of skate-
boarding. There is the surfing origin that is tied to the West Coast of the
USA and specifically California. Alternatively, there is the East Coast nar-
rative that emerges from DIY experimentation and technology. Both ori-
gin stories serve to tie skateboarding to a holy land, be that the Mecca of
California, the Medina of Florida, or the Jerusalem of New York.
California reigns supreme as the location most strongly associated with
skateboarding both past and present. It is towards California that the
58 P. O’Connor

global skateboard industry looks, as this is the home of the skateboard

industry and remains a place where its most influential companies reside.
Tightly bonded to this Californian homeland is the connection between
skateboarding and surfing. The surf narrative is most popularly depicted
in the 2001 Stacy Peralta film Dogtown and Z Boys. Here we follow the
exploits of a group of surfers who created their own style in the spirit of
aggressive and innovative street skateboarding. But the bond between surf-
ing and skateboarding extends further back into the 1950s. Konstantin
Butz (2012) takes the challenge of skateboarding history in an erudite
fashion presenting three paradigms of its origins: from surf to skate, the
Dogtown era, and the post-1980s era. Here, Butz rightly links the fascina-
tion of the surfing narrative to a mythology of the spiritual origins of surf-
ing. Skateboarding’s association with surfing is often framed as a form of
authenticity, reaching to a distant, and spiritual, past. Unlike surfing,
which has sustained a spiritual association, skateboarding despite its surf-
ing connection has not been understood as a spiritual practice. Arguably,
the urban focus of skateboarding, retreating from the natural setting of the
waves and the beach, has framed the practice as spiritually barren. What is
established is that by the mid-1960s skateboarding had become a popular
preoccupation with its own magazine Skateboarder going to press for the
first time in 1964. Borden (2001, p. 29) clarifies that the first skateboard-
ers in the 1960s were typically surfers who used their boards when there
were no waves. So evident was the association between skateboarding and
surfing that it made its way into popular culture in the 1964 song Sidewalk
Surfin by Jan and Dean. But as both Borden (2019) and Yochim show
(2010), the boom of skateboard popularity in the 1960s came from the
innovations of childhood recreation. Scooters and roller skates were the
technical forbearers to skateboards, as was DIY experimentation.
In an attempt to find the origins of the modern skateboard, Bryan
Emery (2015) provides evidence of coaster toys such as the Buffalo Sled
dating back to 1910, and Nazis toying with early skateboard devices.
Emery also cites a New York Times article from 1893 that details the antics
of several young boys and girls who are coasting down a steep hill in
Brooklyn’s Lincoln Place on ‘little four-wheeled carts.’ The article goes on
to state that the ‘sport is exciting but it is extremely hazardous, and
­dangerous’ and requires police intervention (The New York Times, 1893).
 3 Origin Myth 59

The early coaster toys document that play and fun have always been at the
heart of skateboarding, and that associations of danger and lawlessness
accompanied even early experimentations in the sport.
I argue that the relevance of play is a point often obscured in skateboard
history. Play is too frequently seen as trivial and inconsequential. However,
Henri Lefebvre’s (1991, p. 118) argument that ‘toys and games are former
magical objects and rituals’ is an important point. Just as surfing has a spiri-
tual connection in its ritual Hawaiian history, skateboarding has its own
playful cosmology. Borden (2001, p. 97) acknowledges this in his analysis
of the embodied experience of skateboarding. The skateboard can thus be
understood as a ritual tool, a way of relating to the cosmos. In Cusack’s
(2013) research a focus on invented, intentionally and self-consciously fic-
tive religion is shown to also engage with the importance of joyful play.
Johan Huizinga’s (1949) influential exploration of play in human cultures
asserts that both fun and beauty tend to be dominant aspects of play. He
draws many connections between play and religion, noting that ‘the con-
cept of play merges quite naturally with that of holiness’ (1949, p. 25).
More generally we can identify two strains of ideology in the dominant
narrative of skateboarding history. Firstly, skateboarding is born out of
surfing; it takes the processes of moving and carving along the waves and
transposes them to concrete and asphalt. Secondly, this process was made
possible by technological innovation, and DIY creativity. Young children
with a curiosity to make their own thrilling vehicles with the tools avail-
able to them began to construct their own toy. In both narratives I trace
a spiritual component: one that is self-evident in the connection to surf-
ing as a sport embedded in both tradition and nature; the other, the less
evident an acknowledged ludic and playful pursuit of fun. A more potent
issue is the fact that skateboarding is open to adaptation and interpreta-
tion in a way that few other sports are. This is not simply a practical issue
but also a philosophical point; skateboarding origins reinforce the notion
of experimentation and play. The consequence is that skateboarding has
become a system of play open and accessible for practitioners to project
their own meaning upon. This can be framed in Bourdieu’s (1977, p. 82)
notion of habitus, in which a ‘system of dispositions … survives in the
present and tends to perpetuate itself.’ Thus, Haadii is able to see his
skateboarding as an act of piety because skateboarding perpetuates a
60 P. O’Connor

­ isposition of versatility. In acknowledging the origins of skateboarding

d
we can recognise that it is diverse enough to accommodate religious iden-
tification. Of even greater importance is the fact that we can recognise
that in skateboarding’s origins there is a signpost to its values and ethics.

The Capturing of History

Not all religious identification is innocent; in various ways religion can be
understood as a tool of power and a claim for rights. The writing of his-
tory, as de Certeau (1988) notes, is a social construction in itself and
origin myths have political and power implications (Foucault, 1978).
One way in which this power is exerted is through the control of a narra-
tive. Thus, I have found it particularly interesting to chart the variety of
ways in which the history of skateboarding has been reproduced and
enshrined. I see this as a response to the increased mainstream popularity
of skateboarding, and as attempts to consolidate, control, and reify the
culture of skateboarding. This reaches back to early work performed by
sports sociologist Becky Beal in which she identified the powerful claim
to participant control by skateboarders (Beal, 1995; Beal & Weidman,
2003). Simply put, skateboarders prioritise their control over skateboard-
ing, negotiating the development of the sport and culture, its meaning,
and its core values. Yochim (2010) articulates participant control as part
of the corresponding culture of skateboarding, and Lombard (2010) rec-
ognises that skateboarders have conceded significant control of parts of
their industry and culture in a trade for better conditions and remunera-
tion. I argue that as concessions have been made, efforts at participant
control have morphed. Non-skateboarders play skateboarding video
games, regular journalists report on celebrity skateboarders, and fashion
magazines provide editorials on skateboard fashion. No longer are skate-
boarders solely communicating within the culture, they are also commu-
nicating to those on the peripheries, or even outside of the culture.
Documentaries, philanthropic NGOs, and a variety of books are now
involved in communicating the history and the values of skateboarding.
Let me be clear in stating that skateboarding has an existing text ripe
for interpretation. Skateboard magazines and skateboard videos are the
 3 Origin Myth 61

fundamental authentic media sources of the culture. However, these

emerged as media to document the developments and progression of
skateboarding, not as mediums of interpretation and analysis. Early
skateboard media was inward-looking, it was subcultural, and it arose out
of a necessity that was both commercial and communal. Historically
skateboard videos were watched in skateshops and in homes; now they
are broadcast on cable channels, available to stream on Netflix, and
looped on vast high-definition screens in the athletic apparel stores of
Nike and Adidas.
One distinct method to capture and reproduce a narrative of skate-
boarding comes in book form. The publication of an ever-growing num-
ber of coffee table books has been a feature of the last 20 years: for
instance, Independent Truck company’s Built to Grind (Denike, 2004),
Vans shoe company 50th anniversary’s Off the Wall (Palladini, 2016), and
Globe footwear’s enormous 700-page Unemployable (Boulter, 2015);
skateboard art histories such as Disposable (Cliver, 2004), Agent
Provocateurs (Carayol, 2014), and Skate Board Art of Jim Phillips (Phillips,
2007); magazine anthologies such as Thrasher magazine’s Maximum Rad
(Thrasher Magazine, 2012) and The Big Brother Book (Cliver, 2016);
skateboard photography books such as Skate the World (Mehring, 2015),
Skateistan (Fitzpatrick, 2012), DIY/Underground Skateparks (Gilligan,
2014), and Long Live Southbank (Blayney, 2014); and a variety of skate-
board biographies such as Hawk: Occupation: Skateboarder (Hawk &
Mortimer, 2001), The Mutt (Mullen & Mortimer, 2004), The Impossible
(Louison, 2011), The Answer Is Never (Weyland, 2002), Nobody
(Thornton, 2016), Hosoi (Hosoi & Ahrens, 2012), and Jay Boy (Sherwood,
2017). There are also anthologies of skateboard websites such as Jenkem
Vol:1 and Vol:2 (Michna, 2016, 2018) and TF at 1: Ten Years of
Quartersnacks (Luckman, 2015). These are just some of the many varied
texts that attempt to capture skateboard history. A plethora of skateboard
documentaries also do the same from the critically acclaimed Dogtown
and Z Boys (Peralta, 2001) to The LA Boys (Kennedy, 2016). Most recently,
and perhaps most surprisingly, skateboarders have embraced a series of
podcasts including The Tim O’Connor Show, The Bunt, The Shelter Show,
Vent City, and arguably the most successful The Nine Club, which for
skateboarding academics is a remarkable resource of oral history. These
62 P. O’Connor

are all texts for lifestyle religion, mythologising the past and providing a
narrative through which community can be sustained.
My research has also led me to interrogate a collection of texts com-
missioned and published for young readers. These, I argue, have been the
first sources that children will encounter as they seek to find out more
about skateboarding. Books purchased by parents or borrowed from the
local library are undoubtedly much more accessible for young novices
than a skateboard magazine like Thrasher. Here in texts like Skateboarding:
Learn to Skate Like a Pro (Gifford, 2006), Skateboarding (Horsley, 2008),
Skateboarding Science (Becker, 2009), and No Limits: Skateboarding
(Morgan, 2005), a standard narrative in reproduced. This can be stream-
lined as the surfing skateboarding connection of the 1960s, Frank
Nasworthy’s urethane innovation of the 1970s, vert skateboarding and
skateparks of the 1980s, and street skateboarding of the 1990s. Reflecting
on these sources clarifies how well established the origin myth of skate-
boarding is.

Kota Bharu
In conclusion I return to Haadii and highlight that skateboarding can be
paralleled to his own religious tradition of Islam. Muslims across the
world turn to Mecca to perform their prayers. Mecca is the birthplace of
the religion of Islam, the home of the prophet Muhammad. It is also a
living location for Muslims and one to which they have an obligation to
visit once in their life in the form of a pilgrimage. Yet other cities are
important in Islam: Medina represents the place where Islam began as a
religious community and the Islamic calendar recognises the time
Muhammad fled from Mecca to Medina as the start of the religion. As
the religion of Islam spread, centres all over the world came to be signifi-
cant for Muslims, be it Jerusalem, Istanbul, or Córdoba. Skateboarding
also has this living relationship with California. Many turn their orienta-
tion to it daily, keeping up to date with new tricks performed at a set of
steps in Los Angeles or San Francisco. Others seek to visit California and
perform their own form of pilgrimage. But multiple other locations have
become important to the global world of skateboarding; New York,
 3 Origin Myth 63

Barcelona, Shenzhen, Tokyo, Malmö, and London are all considered

important nodes on the skateboarding map. Similarly, the spread of
skateboarding has become a rich cultural experiment in which skate-
boarders of numerous cultures and faiths remake skateboarding as a
meaningful activity in their own lives.
Haadii studied at an Islamic college and has learnt to read the Jawi
script, which reproduces Malay in the Arabic alphabet. He hopes to one
day become a hafiz, a person who has committed the entirety of the
Qur’an to memory. He describes skateboarding as part of his religious
life and sees the example of Tok Guru as instructive. Skateboarding for
Haadii is about serving god, about focusing on good works and com-
mitted struggle, not the distractions of money and self-interest. In the
conservative environment of Kota Bharu, Haadii is free to skateboard.
He takes seriously the need to respect people in his community, but as
a devout and observant Muslim he feels able and prepared to respond
to those who challenge his skateboarding as un-Islamic. Like many
skateboarders, he is involved in documenting and filming his tricks.
When I spoke with him he was continuing to work on a skateboard
video, but confessed that this project was also about religion and his
faith. Haadii refused to raise any professional skateboarder up as an
idol. Rather, he chose to celebrate each individual and their style in
skateboarding as a broader expression of the divine. This, to me, is one
of the ways in which Haadii is divergent from many skateboarders. The
celebrity side of skateboarding, the adulation heaped upon individuals
because of the things they can do on a wooden board with wheels, is
very much the engine to the skateboard industry. In our next chapter
we observe how some professional skateboarders have been imagined as
idols, sages, and quasi-gods and how some have fallen short of such
honorifics.

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 4
Skate Gods

The notion that skateboarding involves some individuals who are valo-
rised, canonised, or even deified is the very crux of this chapter. The
career of a professional skateboarder is not simply a way to create material
richness through endorsements, it is also a means to consolidate a legacy
and a slice of immortality. Iconic skateboarders are those who bear wit-
ness to seminal moments in skateboarding history. As Eliade states, ‘the
persons of the myth are not human beings; they are gods or culture
heroes’ (1959, p. 95). Skate gods are simply mortal beings who have con-
tributed to skateboarding in such profound ways that they are highly
revered. Thrasher magazine makes an idol each year by awarding the cov-
eted title of Skater of The Year (SOTY) to a professional skateboarder
who has excelled in his/her contributions to skateboarding. There is a
long tradition in sports of athletes admired as extraordinary and inspira-
tional figures. Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, David Beckham, and
Serena Williams have all been described as gifted individuals with unique
skill and ability; they have also become celebrities well known and recog-
nised to legions who have little appreciation for their sports. They have
been praised for their decorum, morals, and leadership. Indeed, of all my
topics in this book, it is this one that connects most readily to the body

© The Author(s) 2020 67

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_4
68 P. O’Connor

of work on religion and institutionalised sport. The gods I discuss in this

chapter are secondary to the ‘moods and motivations’ they elicit in skate-
boarders and their symbolic place in a system of skateboard history. I
propose that, in the case of lifestyle religion, we choose our own gods.
Throughout this chapter I address some key personalities that are
lauded and even praised by skateboarders. Some of them may be regarded
as prophets, guides, sages, superhuman, or even holy. Such deference is
sometimes apparent in the nicknames professional skateboarders are
awarded, Andrew Reynolds is ‘The Boss,’ Jamie Thomas ‘The Chief,’
Tony Hawk ‘Birdman,’ and Christian Hosoi ‘Christ.’ While interviewing
former professional skateboarder Salman Agah, Chris Roberts awards
him the title of ‘Switch God’ (The Nine Club, 2018). This sobriquet is a
recognition of Agah’s pioneering of ambipedal skateboarding, perform-
ing tricks with counter-intuitive foot positioning. In this realm Agah is
considered a luminary. At the age of 45, he is no longer at the heights of
professional skateboarding, and instead runs a pizza restaurant. However,
he declares that his business has been made successful through the con-
tinued patronage of skateboarders and the skateboard industry.
All of these various monikers establish a lineage of skateboarders, an
eclectic polytheistic universe where each of the personalities is praised for
whatever talents they bring, and are thus remembered for their contribu-
tions. Andrew Reynolds, for example, is largely regarded as owning the
frontside flip, Paul Rodriguez is also praised for his switch abilities, Tony
Alva for being the forefather of pool skating, Ray Barbee is inseparable
from the no-comply, a trick where the rider takes one foot off the board
while using the rear foot to pop the board into the air and catch the board
with both feet (@anthonypops, 2018), and Neen Williams is popularly
agreed to have the best heelflip, a move where the board is kicked by the
heel of the rider’s front foot into a horizontal flip rotation during an ollie
(Viceland, 2017).
Although dismissive of analogies between religion and skateboarding,
Tate Colberg describes his own Pantheon of skateboarding, an imaginary
‘hall of fame’ where the greatest skateboarders have achieved ‘immortality
in an historical sense’ (2012, p. 215). He includes Rodney Mullen, Mark
Gonzales, and Matt Hensley as the greatest street skateboarders of all
time, and Tony Hawk, Danny Way, and Bob Burnquist as the greatest
 4 Skate Gods 69

vert skaters. His typology, he confesses, is personal, and he acknowledges

that each skateboarder is likely to have their own personal favourites that
correspond to their taste and experience. More interesting is the way in
which Colberg describes the skateboarders as a ‘Holy Trinity.’ He states:
‘Mullen, Gonzales, and Hensley are the Galileo, Newton, and Einstein
(or Heisenberg) of street Skating,’ or ‘Leonardo, Michelangelo, and
Raphael,’ and again ‘Elvis, Beatles, and Rolling Stones’ (Colberg, 2012,
pp. 265–264). Colberg’s admiration for these skateboarders is glowing,
devotional, and informed with micro observations of their photographs,
manoeuvres, and even the music selection of their video parts. A similar
religious comparison is made by Christian Senrud (2018) in an article
that likens various skateboarders to saints. His selection includes Mark
Gonzales, Fred Gall, Tony Hawk, Heath Kirchart, John Cardiel, and Neil
Blender. Each is provided with a personalised treatment—Kirchart is
lauded for being quiet but focused, Cardiel for pushing harder than all
others. For arguably the world’s most famous skateboarder, Tony Hawk,
the passage begins thus:

Praise be to Saint Hawk by being nice to non-skaters and convincing them

that the Church of Skateboarding isn’t completely composed of degenerate
demons. (Senrud, 2018, p. 217)

At the time of writing, a thread on the Slap message board, an online

forum for skateboarding, is titled ‘If skateboarding were a religion’ (Slap
Magazine, 2018). Various posts liken professional skateboarders to
­religious figures. The vast majority of the comments are comical or satiri-
cal in intent. The posts on the forum and the writing by both Senrud and
Colberg all show a distinct Christian bias with religious terminology such
as trinity, saints, and various Biblical characters. They are also all superfi-
cial in that they rely on a simple set of comparisons, substituting
like for like.
Jeff Grosso’s popular YouTube series for Vans called Loveletters to
Skateboarding explores the meticulous attention paid to the achievements
of skateboarders. Grosso often goes into depth discussing the importance
of tucking your knee when you do a boneless (a trick where you plant a
foot and grab the board and spring into the air), and then lists skaters
70 P. O’Connor

who have historically done this with style and aplomb. In a similar way,
the YouTube series and podcast The Nine Club and the Viceland docu-
mentary series Epicly Later’d have built up an oral history of skateboard-
ing, recording the first-hand accounts of skateboard legends in meticulous
detail. These new forms of media build on a long tradition of skateboard-
ers documenting their achievements, and then scrutinising and fashion-
ing their legends. It is media and the DIY origins of skateboard media
(skateboarders documenting themselves and their friends) that deified so
many of the characters that I discuss in this chapter. A question that this
topic raises is: how will the new gods be formed? Does social media, with
its speedy reproduction and possibility for universal participation, fore-
ground the reality that legends may be shorter-lived and more quickly
forgotten? One only needs mention that Steve Caballero has been a pro-
fessional skateboarder with Powell since 1980, to highlight that several
skateboard legends have had remarkably long careers for athletes. This
extended time has afforded the consolidation of a legacy. Yet, in compari-
son, it is already evident that a younger generation is also making its own
gods. An example that needs little elaboration is that of Nyjah Huston,
with an imposing competition legacy and a litany of powerful sponsors
that have influenced the ‘sportification’ of skateboarding in the twenty-
first century.

Superhuman
My key interest here is to present a variety of examples of how skate-
boarders have become quasi-gods, or are at least imagined as exceptional.
The notion of superhuman is explored by Kotler (2014) in his work on
the rise of prodigious human abilities in sport. He speaks of professional
skateboarder Danny Way who performed a spectacular stunt jumping the
Great Wall of China in 2005. This achievement is portrayed as a superhu-
man feat. Danny’s challenge is not merely ascending the enormous jump
ramp that was constructed for the event, but also overcoming a fractured
ankle and G-Force beyond that experienced by astronauts during a shut-
tle takeoff (Kotler, 2014, p. 7). On top of all this, Danny Way had the
world watching, and the knowledge that a previous attempt at the stunt
 4 Skate Gods 71

on a BMX bike in 2002 resulted in the death of the 30-year-old rider

Wang Jiaxiong (Schweikher & Diamond, 2007). The story of the jump
dramatically builds up in a 2012 documentary called Waiting for
Lightning. As the narrative unfolds, Danny overcomes these challenges
and jumps the Great Wall not once but twice, performing a 360° rotation
on the second attempt. The emphasis that Kotler makes is that Danny
has the abilities and strength that position him as an elite; he is able to
summon a repertoire of physical skill and mental hardiness that few oth-
ers can. He is thus, in some way, a superman.
Fashioning Danny Way as some kind of superhero dovetails with
another key motif in this book: that the rise in popularity of sports such
as skateboarding is connected to other processes regarding identity, indi-
vidualism, and spiritual transformation. Comic book writer Grant
Morrison claims that ‘we live in the stories we tell ourselves. In a secular,
scientific rational culture lacking in any convincing spiritual leadership,
superhero stories speak loudly and bold’ (2011, p. xvii). It has been
argued that Superman is very much a Christ-like figure (Kozlovic, 2002),
and more broadly an archetype of classic hero mythology as popularised
by Joseph Campbell (2004). Waiting for Lightning shows that Danny
Way’s story can be articulated to fit quite neatly into Campbell’s hero
monomyth. As Kotler and Morrison foreground, the notion that skate-
boarders can be considered gods holds some merit. As an iteration of
religion and popular culture, skateboarding icons command a huge
amount of scrutiny and attention. Their every action is observed, anal-
ysed, rewound, and paused. Their sponsors, tricks, spot selection, and
even the hashtags of their Instagram posts are dissected for subtle nuanced
clues about industry developments and pending news. This is not just
male adulation; in my research with women skateboarders in Hong
Kong, numerous respondents praised Brazilian skateboarder Leticia
Bufoni for her style, her sponsors, her great body, and her hardiness. One
respondent refers to Leticia and Mariah Duran as goddesses, replicating
similar devotionals espoused by male skateboarders.
It is therefore apt to highlight the reverence they receive, but also
essential to contrast this with the more secular notion of celebrity.
Skateboarders are fundamentally athletes who market both their skill and
their personality. Gregory Snyder’s (2017) exploration of professional
72 P. O’Connor

skateboarding makes this fact distinctly clear. Being accomplished, or

even gifted on a skateboard is not enough to grant you access to profes-
sional status. Ultimately, skateboarding is a popularity contest that dic-
tates access in terms of subcultural cool and social capital. Thus, the
insights in this chapter correspond also to the cult of celebrity.
However, gods, superheroes, and celebrities are only some of the ways
in which these characters are understood. Here, I observe the various
ways that the idea of ‘skateboard gods’ can be conceived. Firstly, I discuss
Rodney Mullen, who is imagined as a philosopher-sage in skateboarding.
His contribution to both the industry and the culture is immense.
Arguably, his footprints are on the manoeuvres that most people recog-
nise and understand as the fundamentals of street skateboarding. He is
wholly an individual and, in many ways, set aside from his peers because
of his intellect, creativity, and skill. Secondly, Christian Hosoi and Jay
Adams represent a different form of reverence; both are key characters in
the evolution of skateboarding, and both have had a dramatic fall from
grace. Most spectacularly Hosoi has experienced a resurrection, becom-
ing both a born-again Christian and a veteran pro for Vans skateboard
shoes. Both Hosoi and Adams represent the prodigal son in skateboard-
ing. They are, like so many other celebrity athletes, flawed and yet idol-
ised at the same time. I also address how by the end of 2018 there was
considerable social media debate on the idol worship of professional
skateboarders. Controversy surrounding veteran skateboarder Jason
Jessee and Nazi paraphernalia, alongside allegations of predatory behav-
iour and child molestation by veteran vert skateboarder Neal Hendrix, a
member of World Skate, the Olympic organising committee for skate-
boarding, has challenged longstanding protectionist lauding of skate-
board idols. As a final part of this discussion I turn to the margins
observing the relevance of local heroes, race, gender, and nationhood.
There are many other skateboarders I touch upon who may be regarded
as gods, superhumans, and legends in their own right. Indeed, subse-
quent chapters return to this theme simply because it is potent. As I have
already suggested, many of the skateboarders I discuss are middle-aged,
and they have had time for their legacies to develop and unfold. There
are, however, many younger skateboarders who have the potential to
become ‘gods’ in their own right, such as Ryan Sheckler, Ishod Wair, and
 4 Skate Gods 73

Jamie Foy. Importantly, the new era of professional women skateboarders

provides room for new types of gods as I have already suggested. Indeed,
Leticia Bufoni, Nora Vasconcellos, Lacey Baker and Lizzie Armanto have
begun to forge an iconic status in skateboarding, while Jamie Reyes (Liao,
2018) and Elissa Steamer (The Berrics, 2018) appear to be having their
legacies consolidated. However, the personalities I discuss are secondary
to the ways in which they are imagined and positioned as icons, superhu-
mans, sages, and gods. These discussions touch on philosophy, redemp-
tion, hate, and ritual. My contribution is not to provide concise
biographies of the skateboarders I refer to—there are certainly vast
resources where readers can piece them together in much more detail.
Instead, I seek to highlight examples where these individuals are imag-
ined in terms that allow us to observe the relationship religion has with
skateboarding. Issues of spirituality and Christianity rub shoulders with
criminality, celebrity, popular culture, and the profane secular world.
Fundamentally, this is a treatment in myth and symbolism corresponding
to how religion can be observed in skateboarding, and how it can gener-
ate powerful feelings amongst skateboarders.

The Prophet, Rodney Mullen

Born in Florida in 1966, Rodney Mullen has had an exceptional career in
skateboarding. At the age of 14 he won the title of World Champion in
freestyle skateboarding, defeating Steve Rocco. The deposed Rocco went
on to become hugely influential in transformations of the skateboard
industry beginning in the late 1980s. Mullen dominated freestyle compe-
titions, developed a legion of skateboarding tricks that would become the
staple of street skateboarding, co-founded the World-Industries, A-Team,
Enjoi, and Almost skateboard companies, and developed new technolo-
gies for skateboard trucks and board pressings. He has achieved main-
stream notoriety in his inclusion in the Tony Hawk skateboard video
games from Activision, and collaborations with Vogue and Ted Talks.
While Tony Hawk has been the popular commercial face of skate-
boarding, Mullen has taken the uneasy role of the humble philosopher,
channelling an emotive and cerebral advocacy for the importance of
74 P. O’Connor

skateboarding. Mullen’s autobiography (Mullen & Mortimer, 2004)

describes the taut relationship he had with his father and an ongoing
curiosity about religion and spirituality. The book provides, at times, a
harrowing account of a tense family environment and the emotional and
physical outlet that skateboarding provided. There are several allusions to
religion throughout the text. Mullen states that ‘from the start I was a
skateboarding monk, relishing the solitude it afforded me’ (2004, p. 35).
At other points in the text he reflects on a shrine he made from artefacts
sourced from a skate trip to California. He devotes four pages to reflect-
ing on his spiritual wanderings, experimenting with Scientology,
Buddhism, Hare Krishna, Mormonism, and the Church of Satan. Yet
Mullen reconfirms his Christian faith, and it remains a subtle theme
throughout the book.
Mullen’s skateboarding and spiritual life speak of the same drive and
ambition, a curiosity, often solitary, of self-discovery and empowerment.
The fame and adulation that Mullen has received encompass an under-
standing of his talent, determination, and intellect. He represents an
ethos of skateboarding that resonates as authentic. Mullen is creative,
individual, and has prioritised his therapeutic need to skate through-
out his life.
Aside from his own soul-searching, Mullen has left an indelible philo-
sophical mark on skateboarding. This is at once palpable in his skate-
boarding, but also made explicit in his book and the numerous public
talks and interviews he has provided. Mullen has repeatedly advocated for
both the creativity and community that skateboarding provides. In one
TED Talk he argues that the creativity of skateboarding is basically a
challenge to the realms of possibility. What is done on a skateboard is
primarily about imagination. When an unknown teenager from another
part of the world learns an advanced trick that they have seen him do in
a video, he declares they did not learn the trick from the video, they only
learnt that it was possible (TEDx Talks, 2013).
Such talks are philosophical and inspirational, providing an expansive
notion to what a skateboard can mean to an individual. It is as if Mullen is
talking about faith and transcendence. In the writing of Bill Schaffer
(2016) these ethics are explored in contrast to the philosophical writings of
Spinoza and Deleuze. What is presented is a new form of philosophy
 4 Skate Gods 75

termed ‘Mullenology’ which seeks to further develop critical understand-

ing of Deleuze’s notion of cantering. Schaffer also recognises that Mullen is
engaged in presenting an ethics of skateboarding, exploring human poten-
tial in what the body can do, and the creativity afforded to a community
that shares their progress in pursuit of further innovation (2016, p. 21).
A less philosophical account on the influence of Rodney Mullen is
provided by Sean Wilsey in a searching autobiographical take on the
importance of skateboarding. The author talks of his adolescence when
he had a chance encounter with Mullen:

We sat and talked for a while. He gave me some advice and I practiced
while he watched. Then he signed a board that wasn’t even his own pro-
model. I left with the impression that he was a gentle and modest person.
He’d’ve fit right into a monastery. (Wilsey, 2014, p. 107)

The author goes on to talk about a challenging inoperable injury to

Mullen’s leg. Faced with a crippling problem caused by a build-up of scar
tissue, Mullen spent solitary evenings stretching his leg until he painfully
tore apart the scar tissue and was able to skate again. Wilsey concludes:
‘Rodney Mullen—self-torturing; flipping ballet moves alone in a gas sta-
tion at midnight—is as close to an authentic holy man as an American
can get’ (2014, p. 108).
While Kotler’s discussion of Danny Way likens him to a superman,
Rodney Mullen is more commonly presented as an ascetic holy man or
mystic. Physically talented, yet guided by an internal quest, a puzzle, that
few can comprehend. In my conversations with skateboarders who have
met Rodney, there are recurring motifs. He is frequently reported as
being profoundly intellectual, soft-spoken, and somewhat incomprehen-
sible in his brilliance. His legacy in skateboarding is remarkable, paving
the way through his own disciplined study and innovation for a variety of
tricks that now form a foundation of street skateboarding. Much has
been written about the cultural values of skateboarding, and commonly
the tropes of individualism and creativity are central (Wheaton, 2013;
Wheaton & Beal, 2003). In Rodney Mullen we can fashion an idol that
embodies these core values, an exemplar of creativity and individualism,
but so too an entrepreneur, a millionaire, and also an outsider.
76 P. O’Connor

However, even with such a legacy Mullen can be a contested figure.

Some might criticise his gentle manner, or regard his freestyle roots as an
aberration of skateboarding. In one critique in Wired magazine, a former
freestyle skateboarder takes issue with Mullen’s unbridled optimism about
skateboard culture. She argues that the meritocracy of skateboarding is
patriarchal and exclusive (Sierra, 2015). It is these very themes which
echo throughout this chapter, as many may note few women are cele-
brated as skateboarding icons. It is also this meritocracy that works as a
cultural centrifuge, being to those with the appropriate cultural capital a
force of powerful inclusion. So potent is this meritocracy that even skate-
boarders who have transgressed in appallingly violent, destructive, and
irresponsible ways are often forgiven and even idolised for their contribu-
tions to skateboarding. It is only in recent years that voices within skate-
board culture are critiquing veteran idols, and in some cases vilifying
them and pressuring sponsors to part ways with seasoned professionals.
These transformations are part of a broader cultural movement of social
justice in which parity and redress are pursued by de-platforming indi-
viduals. One must ask if the end of this protectionism is another signal of
skateboarding’s progression or demise. Indeed, while it signals sensitivity
and redress, it can also be destructive and exclusive. It reneges on the
celebrated promise that skateboarding is for everyone, and offers no path
to salvation.

 he Prodigal Sons, Christian Hosoi and Jay

T
Adams
Amongst all skateboarders, it is Christian Hosoi who has the most out-
landish and evocative connection to both religion and idolatry. His 2012
autobiography, titled Hosoi: My life as a Skateboarder Junkie Inmate Pastor,
is littered with the excesses of 1980s skateboard celebrity lifestyle, the
godlike adulation Hosoi receives from fans, his prolonged and distressing
fall from grace. This is all recast in triumph by Hosoi in his resurrection
as a born-again Christian. Again, his life story can be seen to fit with
Campbell’s hero’s journey, and echoes with evocative parallels to
Christianity. His name, his signature trick, his gifted ability to soar into
 4 Skate Gods 77

the heavens high above the ramp, and above all else his unshakeable faith
in himself, all give Hosoi a veneer of majesty few others have. Hosoi’s co-
author pens the introduction to his autobiography labouring the reli-
gious mythologising of his subject by describing Hosoi’s followers as
‘worshipful’ likening him to ‘some sort of fast-rolling messiah’ (Hosoi &
Ahrens, 2012, p. 3).
A brief overview of Hosoi’s well-known story sets the stage for our
discussion. Born in 1967 to parents with mixed Japanese and Hawaiian
ancestry, he is named Christian Rosha Hosoi (each of the names connect-
ing to a religious tradition in Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism).
Hosoi enjoys an unconventional childhood growing up in Los Angeles
and living for a brief time in Hawaii. His father Ivan, an artist, is influen-
tial, and clearly the first and most ardent of Hosoi’s fans. Strikingly
­permissive, Ivan is described on numerous occasions rolling and smoking
joints with his son. Hosoi’s use of cannabis begins at the age of 10, and
he first tries LSD at the age of 12. He quickly rises to be a skateboarding
prodigy, thanks in part to his father’s unwavering support. By the mid-
1980s Hosoi is making and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars,
living in a grand house, and bankrolling his friends. He has numerous
sponsors and mingles with celebrities, hanging out in night clubs with
the likes of Eddie Murphy, David Arquette, and Robert Rusler. Changes
in skateboarding no longer favour the vert ramp style that Hosoi is
famous for and the 1990s see him spiral into obscurity. He becomes
addicted to crystal methamphetamine and eventually is arrested in
January 2000 for smuggling US$60,000 (1.6lb) worth of the drug into
Hawaii. He serves four years and whilst inside prison becomes a born-
again Christian. On release he revives his skateboarding career, acquires
new sponsors, and becomes involved in a Christian ministry in LA.
Sports Sociologist Becky Beal (2013) is one of the few academics to
interrogate the interplay of religion, criminality, and celebrity in skate-
boarding. Discussing Hosoi’s career, she reviews articles about Hosoi’s
celebrity in the 1980s, his fall from grace, and resurrection. Drawing
from a 2006 documentary on Hosoi titled Rising Son: The Legend of
Skateboarder Christian Hosoi (Montaño, 2006), she explores the theme of
redemption. In analysing media sources Beal argues that while both
Hosoi and his father are shown to be morally flawed, skateboarding, as
78 P. O’Connor

both an industry and community, is represented as a source of redemp-

tion. Beal quotes Hosoi’s wife who received an outpouring of support
from the skateboarding community: ‘I was just shocked, the (skateboard
community) were there for Christian, they were there for me, whatever
he needed, they gave it to him’ (Beal, 2013, p. 103). Beal goes on to argue
that there is a correspondence in Hosoi’s redemption through skateboard-
ing. He is embraced by a family that never deserted him, that pressed him
to change his ways while immersed in drugs. The skateboard industry is
presented in Beal’s account as a patient forgiving entity, a force in itself.
She rightly notes that this has a functional purpose—it reflects and con-
solidates principles at the heart of the skateboarding community.
Skateboard companies supporting Hosoi can be understood as having a
vested interest; while it helps him with renewed sponsorships, his social
capital is enhanced, and the process communicates the solidarity of the
skateboarding community. I understand this dynamic as part of the con-
servative politics of skateboarding, as protectionism that is manifest in a
prefigurative politics (O’Connor, 2015). This is a politics that illuminates
the core principles of skateboarding by enacting them. This is how skate-
boarders emphasise that their sport is not simply a sport; they demonstrate
that it is also about helping kids in Afghanistan learn to skateboard, build-
ing local skateparks, supporting the local skateshop, celebrating iconic
skateboarders. The message we see in Hosoi’s redemption is that skate-
boarding protects and advocates for its own—that within skateboarding
there is forgiveness, family, and support. This sense of community parallels
that which religion has traditionally fostered, and that which it seeks to
both develop and maintain in the twenty-first century. As Ostwalt (2012)
argues, we are living in an era where religion becomes more secular, and,
conversely, where secular life takes on religious features. The redemption
of Hosoi in the skateboarding community underlines this dynamic.
Ironically, Hosoi finds Jesus, but is saved by skateboarding.
The narrative provided in Hosoi’s autobiography largely attributes his
redemption to his celebrity and faith in Jesus Christ. While he celebrates
the fact that the Red Hot Chilli Peppers performed with T-Shirts printed
with ‘Free Hosoi,’ he stops short of attributing his successes to skate-
boarding alone. He states that ‘skateboarding is awesome, but the best
things in my life have nothing to do with it. It’s all about my family and
 4 Skate Gods 79

spreading the love and joy of my faith’ (Hosoi & Ahrens, 2012, p. 271).
Here Hosoi transgresses the skateboarder code. Skateboarding is almost
dismissed out of hand and in its place family and religion take centre
stage. Perhaps this is a savvy move, as the reinvented Hosoi seeks to make
a name for himself beyond skateboarding in his role as a pastor in
Huntington Beach. Regardless, he can count on the loyalty of skate-
boarders who are reluctant to exile even the most transgressive of their
community, as our next example demonstrates.
The 2001 release of the Dogtown and Z Boys documentary serves as a
moment when the popular appeal of skateboarding came of age. The
growth of the X Games, the rising commercial appeal of skateboarding
and other lifestyle sports culminated in a documentary that served to
cement the important legacy of a handful of skateboarders. The charis-
matic and rebellious Jay Adams was already a legend within the world of
skateboarding, and the documentary revised his iconic status.
Born in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, in 1961, Adams came to personify
a rebellious and carefree style as the youngest member of the Zephyr
skateboard team. In opposition to a number of skateboard teams, the
Zephyr skaters eschewed a uniform and a repertoire of predictable orches-
trated moves and pursued innovative stylised skateboarding. Jay Adams
has come to be revered not simply because of his style and natural ability
on the board, but also for his dismissal of the celebrity and wealth that
skateboarding could provide. Following his death in 2014 at the age of
53, he received the Transworld Skateboarding Legend Award. In a short
video documentary Tony Hawk explains that Jay Adams

[w]as really the epicenter of the attitude of skateboarding which is fuck

everyone do it yourself. Do it cause it’s fun. Try anything and don’t care
about the success or the consequences of it you know. And then I think
that that still resonates and he really was the, you know, he was patient zero
of all of that movement. (Transworld Skateboarding, 2015)

These sentiments were echoed in a simple editorial by Transworld

Skateboarding magazine’s editor Jamie Owens following the death of
Adams. A full page depicts a recent photo of Adams skateboarding,
crouched low to the ground, hands out, feeling the transition of the pool
80 P. O’Connor

he skates. It is a picture evocative of his surfing style, and by selecting a

contemporary picture, rather than one of the many from his youth, there
is a nod to the lifelong commitment Adams had to skateboarding. The
brief text of the editorial reads thus (Owens, 2014):

The reason why we’re not a Little League sport.

The reason why there’s attitude.
The reason why we hop fences.
The reason why we’re creative.
The reason why there’s aggression.
The reason why style matters.
The reason why we’re reckless.
The reason why we don’t follow the rules.
The reason why we say, “Fuck You.”
The reason why we skate the way we do.
The reason why is Jay Adams. (Owens, 2014)

In just 70 words, Owen distinguishes Adams as an antecedent in much

that is considered essential and immutable in skateboarding culture.
Adams had the phrase ‘100% skateboarder’ tattooed on his back, and in
many people’s estimation this is an apt definition of the man and the
attitude he embodied. Adams is praised for never selling out, and for
shunning commercial opportunities to make considerable sums. Hosoi
declares that as a result he earned something more valuable—‘the undy-
ing respect of his friends, because most other people would have sung
that jingle and taken the cash’ (2012, p. 77). On skateboarding message
boards there is a similar, almost unchallengeable reverence for Adams.
Such admiration is particularly potent amongst middle-aged skateboard-
ers, those who had been influenced by Adam’s in their own youth. Often
recycled in posts on online forums is the quote from Adams saying ‘you
didn’t quit skateboarding because you got old. You got old because you
quit skateboarding.’ While many argue that he never actually said this,
the pure prioritisation of skateboarding is often idealised, as too is
Jay Adams.
What intrigues me about the example of Jay Adams is the willingness
of the skateboard community to dismiss the abuses and misdemeanours
of skateboarders because of their wider contributions to the culture.
 4 Skate Gods 81

Adams, although becoming a born-again Christian, struggled through

his life with substance abuse, and was incarcerated for physical assault.
Indeed, there are many professional skateboarders who have trodden a
similar path, and many that continue to be lauded. Thus, Adams is an
example here of a tarnished individual, supported and forgiven by a
­community to which he has been seen to contribute. Much from this
example dovetails with points made by Beal (2013) in her discussion on
the legacy of Christian Hosoi. While Hosoi has immersed himself in the
ministry of Christ, Adams had a chequered and erratic religious rebirth.
As Hosoi notes in his autobiography, Adams ‘isn’t always perfect in his
walk, but when going strong, it’s an amazing testimony to God’s power’
(2012, p. 289).
The most controversial of the numerous transgressions of Adams dates
back to 1982. After attending a Suicidal Tendencies gig in Los Angeles,
Adams and his friends stole a sandwich and hung out at a restaurant in
Santa Monica Boulevard. Their rowdy behaviour resulted in them getting
kicked out of the establishment. On the street Adams spotted a gay cou-
ple walking arm in arm and verbally abused them. One of the men
shouted back, and Adams responded with his fists. Allegedly Adams fled
after a few punches and kicks, while a crowd of others joined in and beat
the men. One of the couple, Dan Bradbury, was killed in the attack.
Adams was sentenced to felony assault and spent six months in prison.
The story as Adams tells it relinquishes him from the blame of murder,
but many are sceptical about his testimony. What has grown to be more
controversial is the inherent homophobia that is implicated in the event.
Although Adams has claimed that the attack was not motivated by the
couple’s homosexuality, it appears that it was a convenient target for an
already volatile and aggressive Adams. The way in which this story is
handled and approached is intriguing in seeking to understand the cult
of celebrity skateboarders, their position in the subculture, and
their legacies.
Following the death of Jay Adams, there was little mention of the mur-
der of Dan Bradbury. This point is explored in an article in which the
incident is framed as a hate crime (Smith, 2014). The issue the article
poses is that we should not lionise a skateboarder who was involved in the
murder of a homosexual man. In a broader scope this is a significant
82 P. O’Connor

point as skateboarding has been criticised for its hyper-masculinity and

its homophobia. It has only been in the years following the death of
Adams that the landscape has significantly changed with increasing num-
bers of women skateboarders turning professional, and Brian Anderson
coming out as gay in 2016.
The responses I have from my ethnographic work with skateboarders
indicate an intriguing tension in the way the legacy of Adams is under-
stood. Matt, one of my respondents in his early thirties, declared that he
understands that people adore Jay Adams, but only wishes that Adams
had been asked about the ‘deification’ that surrounds him while he was
alive. Recasting the popular Christian motif WWJD (what would Jesus
do), Matt reflects on online forums where people pose the rhetorical
question ‘what would Jay do?’

It’s like almost cross-referencing what would Jesus do? I feel like Jay would
be offended by that because he was religious and he was more into Jesus
than skateboarding in my opinion, and he would probably say something
like, I just skateboard, you know?

Many of my respondents felt that they did not idolise skateboarders,

they appreciated them, their style, their moves. But they in no way con-
fused the skateboarder to be more than their contribution to skateboard-
ing. Jordan in his early forties explained that hero worship and lauding
skateboarders was not important to him:

I think I see their flaws, you know, especially Jay Adams or Christian Hosoi.
And these are guys that are really good at this thing that they do, but they’re
also, sort of, horrible people in their ways, like in their relationships or
they’ve made awfully bad decisions, too. So, yes, I try to just focus on the
skills and not the person.

This was contrasted further by a woman skateboarder in her fifties,

who compared skateboarders to other popular culture celebrities. She,
herself homosexual, was able to balance the adoration awarded to Adams
with both forgiveness and a measure for the contributions of Jay Adams:
 4 Skate Gods 83

Well okay, the first thing is none of us are perfect, some of us are less perfect
than others, he possibly killed somebody or was involved in killing some-
body and I think it was a homophobic scene … but is it not the same in art
and music? Do we not forgive Michael Jackson for whatever he may or may
not have done because he was a genius? Do we not love the song by Rick
James ‘she’s a very funky girl’? Rick James was known to beat his girl-
friends, James Brown, same, wife beater. Now of course I would prefer to
think that the artists I love led a good life like Prince, I love Prince, he led
a good life. But they don’t always do, and here’s the thing, are we going to
look away from great art according to the character of the person or do they
leave behind their legacy which is, they put it all in their art. Or their skate-
boarding or their music and maybe it’s a shame that they weren’t able to be
together in their private lives. But are we going to say what they brought to
skateboarding art or music does not count because they were flawed peo-
ple? I’m not a very religious person but who are we to judge? Jay Adams
went to jail, he paid dearly for these stupid acts that he … I’m not going to
judge him, he paid but I wish that he didn’t do what he did. But what he
brought to skateboarding you can’t look away from it, he changed it forever.

Thus, in Jay Adams we have an example of a flawed idol. His legacy is

his contribution to skateboarding, and this is somewhat separated from
his drug abuse, criminality, and violent past. The cult of celebrity aids us
in understanding Adams, but so too does the subcultural conservatism of
skateboarding. Here there is a boundary construction in which Adams is
seen to be ‘one of us,’ and regardless of his transgressions, it is important
to keep both the culture and the community loyal and connected.
Considering Jay Adams as a god is therefore a flawed way to comprehend
the dynamics. Referring to the argument of Ostwalt (2012), we may pro-
pose that appreciation of Adams relates more broadly to the myth and
symbolism of skateboarding. He is seen to embody something essential of
the values and politics of the culture. Part of this translates to what
Ostwalt (2012, p. 211) has observed with regard to motorcycle culture
and the mystique surrounding it in popular culture. It is a celebration of
the anti-hero, the outlaw, and the maverick. Acknowledging Adams’ con-
tribution, his ethic, and his attitude is a powerful way to comprehend
part of skateboard culture, part of the mythology and lore that contrib-
utes to how skateboarders conceive of themselves as a collective.
84 P. O’Connor

New Heroes
Professional skateboarder Paul Rodriguez stands out as an icon of twenty-
first-century skateboarding. He received his eponymous name from his
actor and comedian father and is of Mexican heritage. Rodriguez is the
forerunner of a new generation of skateboarders that developed in the
early 2000s. He is clean-cut, middle-class, multicultural, commercial,
and athletic. Competitively, he has achieved broad success, winning four
X Games gold medals, the Street League title three times, and also one
Battle of the Berrics title. He is gifted on a skateboard, but is also level-
headed, ambitious, and business-savvy. He was one of the first profes-
sional skateboarders to recruit a manager (former snowboarder Circe
Wallace) and take on a commanding role in cultivating his skateboarding
career. His legacy might best be measured in the way he has pioneered the
legitimation of sponsorship from large sportswear companies. His rela-
tionship with Nike has been groundbreaking, as he was the first skate-
boarder to have a signature shoe with the company. In 2017 Rodriguez
became one of only five athletes to have more than ten Nike signature
shoe models released, placing him alongside Michael Jordan, LeBron
James, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Durant. More significantly he is the only
non-basketball athlete to have ten Nike signature shoes, and an elite
member of the 1% club of Nike-endorsed athletes to receive a signature
shoe (Nike, 2017). Rodriguez is also interesting because he has managed
to nurture a popular and commercially mainstream career whilst also
continuing to be recognised as authentic and receiving broad subcultural
support within the skateboarding community.
At a further tangent Rodriguez is relevant to our discussion because of
his conspicuous Christianity. In the high-profile Street League and X
Game competitions, he is often shown praying into his cap before he
attempts tricks. In one interview he is asked if his action of praying into
his cap is ‘TV time,’ a deliberate performance to showcase his sponsors as
he moves his cap with their logo over his face and whispers a prayer. He
responds that ‘personally, I don’t want to get too philosophical, but I
believe in a higher power, so I say prayers. And so, for me, and by the way,
I do this when I street skate as well. The more nervous I am, the more
intense that gets. It’s become an OCD.’ He confesses he covers his face to
 4 Skate Gods 85

not make it look too public and to try to have some personal time (The
Nine Club, 2016). In another interview he speaks about a tattoo of Jesus
that he has on his right forearm. He explains that he believes in Jesus and
has the tattoo as a reminder of his good works (AlliSports, 2012).
Rodriguez, like other American athletes, has invoked a muscular
Christianity as part of his sporting identity. It is public and confessional
but not burdened with moral overtones and evangelism. One could con-
trast American Football star Tim Tebow, who is notorious for his religios-
ity on the field (Feezell, 2013). Unlike Tebow, Rodriguez has largely been
able to avoid controversy and criticism about his religious commitment.
Unlike the other icons we have explored in this chapter, Rodriguez
represents skateboarding’s new trajectory—polished, commercial, and
athletic. It is void of the philosophical quest of Mullen, and untarnished
by the indulgences and misdemeanours of Hosoi and Adams. Unlike
these characters, Rodriguez has thoughtfully planned and managed his
career. He represents less the subcultural anti-hero of skateboarding’s
punk and DIY origins and much more the cultivated skateboard athlete
of the twenty-first century.

Gods as Folk Heroes

Imaging skateboarding as having a polytheistic cosmology or a pantheon
of various personalities with differing skills and attributes is appealing. In
part it provides a religious paradigm to contrast a legion of identities.
However, I would argue that the creation of gods in skateboarding has
less to do with the divinity of specific skateboarders, and more to do with
the divinity of the skateboarding community. This is demonstrated by
the fact that there is no ultimate skateboarding deity, all gods are acknowl-
edged, and thus it is a community of gods that matter. We see this in a
Thrasher (Callahan, 2013) feature on skate gods and in Tait Colberg’s
analogous comparison of skateboarders to artists, scientists, and musi-
cians. It is the ensemble that truly matters, not the individual. God-
making in skateboarding can be contrasted with Durkhiem’s argument
that religion is society worshipping itself. Indeed, the reverence awarded
to skateboarders is simply a reverence for skateboarding itself. This is
86 P. O’Connor

f­ urther demonstrated in the ways in which praise and respect are also cast
upon home town heroes.
Within every city, or small town, there are a collection of skateboarders
who are regarded as mythic characters. In my own childhood there was a
local skateboarder called Jay (Jason) Bates. He lived in the nearby city,
and skateboarders in our neighbouring town dreamed up imaginary sce-
narios in which he would be a triumphing hero. If a set of steps were too
daunting for us to jump down, we would claim that Jay Bates could do
it. If he were not tucked away in the rural English countryside of Mid-
Devon, we imagined Jay would certainly be riding for Powell Peralta. To
us, his skills and abilities were beyond our comprehension. Seeing him
skate was like staring at the sun. In my interviews with skateboarders,
young and old, this dynamic is replicated. Just about everyone mentions
a local skateboarder that they hold, or have held, in high esteem.
Professional skateboarders also tell these tales. Any number of guests on
The Nine Club, or interviewed on the blog The Chrome Ball Incident, refer
to friends they grew up with who they regard as ‘the best.’ In Gregory
Snyder’s (2017) book on professional skateboarding, his brother Aaron
talks of a gifted friend who was influential in his skateboarding career,
and one he regards as divinely talented and wise.
Veteran skateboarder and author David Thornton expands on the dis-
cussion of skateboarding’s local heroes:

These are the skaters that either never vied for glory at contests, or, for
whatever reason, didn’t get noticed on a national level. … These skaters
have been, on a smaller scale than the Zboys, glorified by stories told at
skate spots over the years. These are the dudes that, despite the lack of fan-
fare, ripped as hard as the pros and inspired their local scenes through
athleticism, creativity, and bravery. (Thornton, 2016, pp. 95–96)

He elaborates further on pools he has visited and ramps he has trav-

elled to far and wide, each location replete with stories about the achieve-
ments of its locals dating back decades. Thornton argues that individuals
are able to become legends through their subcultural ‘contributions to
local history’ (2016, p. 96). This discussion is evocative of the notion of
the Moroccan Marboutism described by Clifford Geertz (1968,
 4 Skate Gods 87

pp. 48–49). A cult of saints is attached to renowned holy men and their
tombs, attracting pilgrims drawn to these places, and the tales of the
mystics attached to them. Such tombs are further related to fraternities,
brotherhoods, and have a close connection to lineage. This, in part, mir-
rors the legitimacy of Hadiths, the saying of the prophet Muhammad in
Islam, where authority is assumed in connection to those who were able
to verify the given actions and sayings of the prophet. Similarly, in
Thornton’s description of local legends, there is often testimony that
claims a local ‘was the first to … ’; the veracity of such tales is often bol-
stered by reference to others who bore witness to the infamous event.
Thus, skateboarding, which has long been a mediated subculture, is still
deeply influenced by an oral history that creates and maintains legends
both locally and globally.
In an interesting twist, Thornton’s notion of the local hero comes to
rest with his own reflection on parenthood. He recognises the delicate
negotiation that must take place in adulthood, transforming skateboard-
ing from a necessary outlet of defiance, pushing the boundaries, to a
discipline of confidence and respect. He sees his role as a father as dual:
to campaign for a legitimate place for his son to skate, and also to impart
the codes of street skating between the ambiguous lines of the law. He
concludes that ‘society makes gods of our sports stars and celebrities. It is
our job as fathers to guide our children until they become old enough to
realize that an appropriate role model was right beside them all along’
(Thornton, 2016, p. 104).

Conclusion
I have argued throughout this chapter that the notion of skate gods is
evident in the way skateboarders discuss and revere notable personalities.
In observing various examples of this expression, we have foregrounded
some ways in which religion and skateboarding intersect. My argument
is that skate gods are not imagined to be real, but the sacred terms that
are attached to specific individuals serve to symbolise their place in skate-
board mythology. We observe Danny Way as a superman, Rodney Mullen
as a holy man, and Christian Hosoi as the prodigal son. We also observe
88 P. O’Connor

how skate gods have been a significant aspect in folklore, creating local
meaning and forming part of an oral history of skateboarding shared
within the community.
It is this final point, on the power of skateboarding as a community,
that unites the various themes explored throughout the chapter. Whatever
our initial impressions are of the phrase ‘skate gods,’ the people and the
experiences that it tends to relate to resonate with the notion of commu-
nitas. Mullen is celebrated for his contribution, Hosoi and Adams for-
given, and it is a skate community that creates a local hero. Placing this
discussion in the broader literature on skateboarding as a sport, religion,
and popular culture will be fruitful. Just as mainstream sport personalities
have been revered and made into secular gods, so too have professional
skateboarders. It is thus important for the academic study of sport to take
skateboarding more seriously as a cultural force with its own meanings
that extend to both religion and ritual. As an example of the role of reli-
gion in popular culture, there is much here that connects to the argu-
ments made by Conrad Ostwalt (2012), that as religion secularises,
similarly secular activities begin to take on more religious features and
elements. As a result, people derive not just meaning, but guidance and
community from popular cultural commodities that in some form
become sacralised.

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 5
Iconography

My first decent skateboard was the Variflex ‘Joker,’ the board I learnt to
ollie on. I saw it in the window of my local bike shop with the outrageous
price tag of £50 (US$70). The graphic on the bottom of the board was a
human skull with a court jester’s hat, framed by the outline of a playing
card. This corny graphic blew my 12-year-old brain. I returned almost
daily over the course of several weeks while I saved, begged, and borrowed
to supplement my slowly growing horde of cash. I was entranced by the
beauty of the board and excited by its menacing graphic. This board, like
countless others throughout the 1980s, played on a popular motif of
skulls and monsters. The artwork of Vernon Courtlandt Johnson (VCJ),
and his partnership with Powell Peralta skateboards, is often p ­ resented as
one of the best examples of this genre of board graphics. By the early
1990s the skateboard industry, and its visual culture, transformed with
Steve Rocco at the helm of World Industries. His companies released
boards with sophisticated graphics parodying both the skateboard indus-
try and the ills of contemporary society. Skulls became passé, but satirical
religious imagery became a regular feature of board art and is so right up
to the present day. In Sean Cliver’s book Disposable: A History of Skateboard
Art, these transformations are clear to see. Skateboard graphics appear to

© The Author(s) 2020 91

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_5
92 P. O’Connor

be preoccupied with death, devils, skeletons, and religious iconography. It

is easy to dismiss this association as trivial, inconsequential, and superfi-
cial, yet it is not.
Skateboard graphics are clear and distinct visual examples of religion
in skateboard culture. This topic connects explicitly to the theme of
observation. Corresponding with my polythetic notion of religion, and
our present theme of observation, the artwork and iconography of skate-
boarding can be interpreted in a variety of ways. They relate to the family
of ideas that includes symbolism, language, and can also be understood
as artefacts. The issue of symbolism and iconography is relevant beyond
the skateboard graphic. The cross insignia of independent trucks treads
a line between Nazi insignia and Papal sacrality. The countless logos of
skateboard companies, void of religious connections, end up invoking
devotion and even worship. Many skateboarders have tattooed their
bodies with the logos of the favourite skateboard brands mirroring
Geertz’s (1973, p. 90) claim that religion is a system of symbols that
elicit ‘long-lasting moods and motivations.’ These examples highlight
that skateboarding must be understood, at least in part, as a visual cul-
ture. But as we see in this chapter, the visual is also understood in an
embodied and tactile schema. Taking seriously the prominence of art in
skateboarding requires that I employ some of the techniques of art criti-
cism. Embracing the principles of scholarly work on visual culture, that
images must be understood not just in terms of their creators, but also
their consumers, I discuss iconography, allegory, and symbolism in
skateboard graphics (Gaiger, 2006; Morgan, 2005). Here I draw on the
history, contexts, and artists of numerous works as well as incorporating
the opinions of various collaborators in my ethnographic work. I argue
that, if we are to understand skateboarding—its values, its meanings, its
devotees—then we must turn to the art and iconography of skateboard-
ing and explore what it seeks to communicate, and also how it is received.
However, art might be too lofty a term to describe what skateboards are
adorned with.
A body of work on religion and popular culture informs this discus-
sion and details how the relevance of religion in the iconography of skate-
board graphics and logos is one of the most important ways to frame and
discuss the relevance of religion in skateboarding. The premise here is
 5 Iconography 93

that we should begin by taking skateboard graphics at more than face

value. For instance, my anecdote about the skull graphic shows an inter-
est in grisly art and its association with death, danger, taboo, and the
unknown. How might the skull be decoded by a teenage skateboarder?
Does it connect with the subversive association of skateboarding as an
alternative pastime and way of life? Is it evocative of the voluntary risk-
taking, or edgework (Lyng, 2005), of skateboarding that courts danger
for supposed freedom, empowerment, and control? Is the skull a message
suggesting that skateboarding is a macho ‘boys’ activity (Yochim, 2010)
and is coding a form of gendered boundary construction? Or do skulls
simply look edgy and cool?
Skateboard graphics communicate both skateboard culture and a com-
mentary on skateboarding’s place in the broader visual coding of mass
popular culture. The fact that skateboard art is made to be disposable is
an important part of the nihilism of skateboard philosophy. Skateboarders
young and old choose a board considering its shape, the company, the
professional whose name is on it, and of course the graphic. They dili-
gently and ritually set their boards up taking care over the placement of
the grip tape. Yet once the board is ridden, it is inevitably going to become
scratched, battered, worn, and eventually discarded. Skateboards, as all
skateboard collectors will reluctantly admit, are made to be ridden.
Skateboards, just like their human riders, are born to die. This is both a
pragmatic reflection and an immediate and accessible metaphor for the
art adorned on skateboards. The ephemeral quality of life does not detract
from either its meaning or beauty. Thus, it may be more correct to refer
to skateboard graphics not so much as art, which is to be preserved and
admired, but rather as decorative design that is disposable and superficial.
Douglas E. Cowan writes extensively on the way religion is represented
in horror movies (2008, 2012a). He suggests that part of what we must
turn our attention to is the ‘sociophobics,’ or social construction of fear,
that horror movies draw upon. Consistently, religion is part of this con-
struction of fear; it represents at once something that is meant to be
sacred and safe, and at the same time it is associated ritually and symboli-
cally with death. Cowan argues that we must take the relevance of reli-
gion in film seriously because films are important cultural products of
our era. Movies are mass-produced, involve considerable investment, and
94 P. O’Connor

are painstakingly and minutely crafted in intricate considered detail

(2008, p. 95). Terry Ray Clark argues that we should think carefully
about why and how ‘popular cultural practices and products, especially
those considered as forms of entertainment, are laden with religious ide-
ology’ (2012a, p. 1). He encourages readers to reflect on the way popular
culture interacts with both the sacred and profane. The message he clari-
fies is that the sacred and profane are empty conceptual categories that we
impart with meaning. The sacred could be a crucifix for a Catholic, a cow
for a Hindu, and a set of steps for a skateboarder. Conversely, it is not
difficult to imagine that a crucifix, cow, or steps could be considered pro-
fane, mundane, and meaningless.
Skateboard art thus requires careful consideration. It is religious and
the ways in which it is so are worthy of exploration. Some art clearly
draws on sociophobics; this is the art of pentagrams, skulls, and devils.
Perhaps the best example of this is the Natas Kaupas Devil Board for
skateboard company 101, which we shall discuss in more detail later.
Other representations of religion are subversive social commentary Skate
Switch for Jesus or Jeff Grosso’s Crucifried board for Anti Hero. A third
category can be reserved for devotional boards, ones that include reli-
gious symbolism as part of the faith of the rider. Examples of devotional
boards can be seen in Gabriel Rodriguez’s Jesus board also for 101, and
many of Jamie Thomas’ boards for Zero that have crucifixes or other
Christian imagery. These are the overt images of religion and there are
many more examples of diacritic religious symbolism. This is a term I
borrow from John Bowen (2012), who argues that a religious person may
signal their ethnic group, piety, or political affiliation through body pos-
ture, choice of headwear, or type of prayer uttered. For example, the Jake
Johnson’s Catharine (from 2015) board from Mother (later Quasi)
included reference to a biblical passage Romans 12:2 on the top of the
board. It drew a connection to religion in a subtle way. In conversation
with Johnson he revealed that this was in part a connection to the faith of
his mother whose image is reproduced on the board. However, the pas-
sage speaks of individuality and resistance to conformity. Thus, a biblical
passage is used not so much to invoke religion, but also to underline an
ethic that may be considered relevant to the rider, the board company, or
simply the act of skateboarding.
 5 Iconography 95

One thing is evident—Christianity and its associated sociophobics are

dominant above all other religions in skateboard art. Following the argu-
ment of Ostwalt (2012) this is typical of a culture with its roots in the
USA. The separation of Church and State in the USA has simply served
to heighten the way in which Christianity is popularly communicated.
Christianity has had to compete in the marketplace with all other cultural
products. Simply put, its absence in government has ultimately led to its
ubiquity in all forms of public life. Where the separation of Church and
State has been less absolute in Europe, Heelas, Woodhead, Seal,
Szerszynski, and Tusting (2005) argue, there has been a more noticeable
decline in commitment to Christianity. However, a number of skate-
board graphics over the last 30 years move beyond the Christian imagery
that is often so dominant. Some examples relate to a whole host of Daoist,
Rastafarian, and Hindu symbolism from Jef Hartsel’s various board
graphics to the esoteric extraterrestrial conspiracy artwork of Alien
Workshop. Professional skateboarders often have a say in their graphics,
and artists who work on skateboard designs are often skateboarders them-
selves. These are all reasons why the religious component of skateboard
art should be scrutinised. Why are there so many religious skate-
board graphics?
This link has been addressed in a 2003 Transworld Skateboarding edito-
rial titled ‘Cashing in on God.’ The magazine lists various companies and
professional skateboarders with notable religious graphics, questioning
why there is a need for such representations. The critique is levelled at the
way in which religion is used as a marketing gimmick, playing towards
both the sacred and the profane. ‘In the span of a year, Zero released
peaceful, positive graphics of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, a Christian cross,
and Bob Marley alongside images of Osama Bin Laden, skulls, blood,
knives, demons, pentagrams, and the phrase “Zero or Die”’ (Transworld
Skateboarding, 2003). The editorial asks if religion is being used simply
as ‘fashion’ and if young kids buying boards even care about religion.
While providing various commentaries from skateboard artists, profes-
sional skateboarders, and even skateboard shop owners, the editorial
assumes a critical position of the use of religious symbolism in skate-
boarding. This is remarkably similar to the distaste that football fans have
voiced about the overt religious posturing of former NFL quarterback
96 P. O’Connor

Tim Tebow (Feezell, 2013). When one questions the place of religion in
popular culture, one must consider what the objections are. They may
ultimately seek to reinforce the divisions between the sacred and the pro-
fane, and reserve religion for some separate space. Fundamentally, such
objections serve to dismiss the importance of religion at all levels of nearly
all of human culture. Anthropology and psychology have shown religion
to be a universal human concern albeit represented in distinctly dif-
ferent forms.
Skateboarding art shows us a religious sociophobic preoccupation that
is still significant even if regarded as a marketing gimmick. In some ways
the reliance on religious imagery, and particularly Christian symbols,
serves as a form of ‘Christotainment’ (Steinberg & Joe, 2018). However,
religious iconography in skateboarding is also social commentary, depict-
ing a pope with devil horns, or a nun burned at the stake, skateboard
graphics are often designed to provoke (Carayol, 2014). In using satire,
skateboard graphics reinforce skateboarders as an alternative heterodox
culture, interested not simply in rejecting convention, but more impor-
tantly in questioning the norms of society and striving to see the world
differently. Clark argues that ‘the purpose of satire is to provide an oppor-
tunity for an audience to begin thinking for itself, to think more critically
about a topic than it has done so before’ (2012b, p. 17). Such graphics
provide us with further resources to understand the suspicion of religion
in skateboarding.
Let us consider a 2010 Alien Workshop board by artist Mike Hill (see
Fig. 5.1). The graphic is very simple, depicting a television set with two
hands cupping it in praise and adoration. The text underneath reads ‘exalt
the new god.’ The graphic was originally released as a T-shirt design by
the company in 1995 and was subsequently resurrected as a board design
(Carayol, 2014, p. 180). If we consider what a teenage child might think
when purchasing a board or a T-shirt, we might be able to envision some
of the impact of skateboard graphics in the intellectual, spiritual, and
aesthetic repertoire of young people. Even if casually dismissed the board
has a blunt message, television is worshipped, but in its satirical nature it is
not judgemental. The graphic provides room for reflection on our notion
of what god, and indeed the sacred, might be. But in a much subtler way
the graphic informs skateboarders that their pastime is not simply a sport,
 5 Iconography 97

Fig. 5.1 Exalt the New God, Alien Workshop, Artist Mike Hill (from 2010)

but also critical social and self-reflection. If we apply comparative terms,

can we readily imagine a football, cricket bat, or rugby shirt with a similar
motif? This underlines the fact that skateboarding is so very difficult to
contain and define.
In the following sections I will build on the points I have addressed
thus far. Skateboard graphics are often religious, and this is not an issue
to dismiss. Popular culture can be an important arena for religious explo-
ration, and a space to deal with and encounter our sociophobics. I under-
line the fact that it is because these boards are ridden and destroyed they
carry additional layers of importance. What does it mean to ride with a
devil on your board, how does one feel about defacing a cross, the Virgin
Mary, or a pentagram? At their very best, skateboard graphics can be both
98 P. O’Connor

devotional and satirical, encouraging us to become uncomfortable, to

challenge our beliefs, and to reconfigure them. In this way skateboard
graphics are a synecdoche for skateboarding, an activity that demands
alternative ways of viewing the world and of considering what is possible.
In order to explore these ideas, I have selected four examples of board art
to discuss in depth, each connecting with and explained through a differ-
ent theme, sociophobics, satire, allegory, and devotion.

Natas Kaupas Devil Board

The 1991 Natas Devil Board is one of the most famous skateboard graph-
ics of all time. The fact such notoriety is attached to a board with such
deep religious symbolism serves to underline my point about the role of
religion in skateboard graphics. The board, however, is not famous simply
for its graphics alone, but also for the folklore that surrounds it and is
attached to a group of skateboarding icons.
Firstly, the board designed by artist Marc McKee depicts a cross-legged
Baphomet holding in his right hand a naked decapitated baby by its leg.
In his left hand he levitates the baby’s burning head. In the background
six religious figures, seemingly priests and a naked woman, are depicted
hanging from a wooden cross (Fig. 5.2). One of the figures is entirely
naked, penis on display, and adorned only with a papal mitre which has
‘Pope Hat’ scrawled on it. Several naked torsos are falling through the
background and skulls litter the land where a pentagram with the name
‘Natas’ is placed. A final touch is that the board graphic is printed upside
down, this serves to invert the cross and make a nod to the reverse spell-
ing of the rider’s name. McKee claims that the art is heavily influenced by
the cover art of the album Reign in Blood by the Metal band Slayer (The
Nine Club, 2018). The artwork was intended to be a commentary on
superstition, playing very much into the sociophobics argument of
Cowan (2008). Shortly after Natas accepted the graphic he received a
career-ending injury breaking his ankle. Carayol (2014) notes that the
injury assures some that the board graphic is cursed despite the fact that
Natas was not actually riding the board when he got injured.
 5 Iconography 99

Fig. 5.2 Devil Board, Natas: 101, Artist Mark McKee (from 1991)

Natas Kaupas is widely regarded as a skateboarding icon lauded for his

innovative approach to street skateboarding, pioneering moves largely in
isolation of other skateboarders, embracing alternative fashion and music,
brokering industry deals at the age of 16, and the first skateboarder to
launch a pro skateboard shoe. His magazine appearances and video parts
in the late 1980s developed a large fan base. His Lithuanian name was,
however, regarded with exotic curiosity, and superstition, by some. Many
parents objected to skateboards with the name Natas on them as they
believed the name was sinister, a backwards spelling of Satan (ON Video,
2003). His boards were banned for more than a decade by the Los Angeles
Unified School District (Carayol, 2014, p. 162).
100 P. O’Connor

Marc McKee reports that originally he designed the board for profes-
sional skateboarder Jason Lee, a rider for Blind, one of the companies
under Steve Rocco’s World Industries umbrella. McKee thought that the
devil graphic would appeal to Lee because he had requested a Bella Lugosi
Dracula graphic but had been denied this by Rocco. McKee reports that
Lee wanted something gothic, but probably not satanic. Blind team
Manager Mark Gonzales, in jest, warned Lee not to take the graphic as it
would beckon bad luck. Rocco then offered Lee $10,000 to accept the
artwork as a graphic for his pro model skateboard, to which Lee originally
agreed and then refused, returning the money to Rocco. In the end, Natas
stepped in to take the graphic for his own board, claiming it as a joke
because of the controversy surrounding his name.
The superstition that McKee sought to evoke in his artwork is indeed
valid in how the board has been received, not just by Jason Lee, but by
the skateboarding population. Professional skateboarder Chris Roberts,
in conversation about the board with McKee, says ‘it’s a crazy graphic.
My friend had one growing up and we didn’t want to touch it’ (The Nine
Club, 2018). This commentary highlights the important issue that skate-
board graphics exist on a board which is purchased with the chief aim of
being ridden. One of my middle-aged male informants claimed that they
liked the board, not just because of the graphic but also because of the
shape. They also felt that riding on the devil was a statement, like ‘danc-
ing with the devil,’ taunting those who dismiss and reject skateboarding
as an aberrant and dangerous pastime. This introduces an important dis-
ruption to the division between the profane and the sacred. Skateboarders
cherish their boards and yet they are transient objects used wholly in the
profane world. Boards are playful, symbolic, yet functional. Another
informant, a German woman in her early thirties, claimed that she would
not ride the board as it is too masculine and that she would not want
Satan ‘under her feet.’ A 22-year-old male skateboarder from the USA
was enthusiastic about the board graphic and immediately identified the
design as being McKee’s. While he found the board humorous and advo-
cated that such art serves an important subversive aspect in skateboard-
ing, he confirmed that he would never ride such a board.
His choice not to ride the devil board rested on the fact that it was too
controversial, and while he confessed that he is not religious, he does not
 5 Iconography 101

want to ‘stir the pot’ and deliberately offend people. He also confirmed
that he would never ride the board because of its shape and size. Of fur-
ther interest is the fact that two of my informants read the image of the
pope on a rope as a hanged Klu Klux Klan member. This in part may be
a confused reference to a Jim Thiebaud board from Real, which depicts a
hanging Klansman. Curiously the art for that board was composed by
Natas Kaupas working alongside Kevin Ancell (Carayol, 2014, p. 146).
So, it seems the Devil board is read in multiple ways by skateboarders,
not simply as a piece of art, but also a tactile physical object that they
would use, and as part of a world of interconnected skateboard graphics
in dialogue with each other. They consider the board in terms of its sym-
bolism, its controversy, its shape, and its size. The fact that the artwork is
to be ridden extends the sociophobics of the art. Is it more daring to ride
with the devil on your board? Additionally, skateboarders consider their
boards like one might consider an item of clothing, as a statement about
themselves which they identify with, and who they are. As a material
object the board can also be understood as an artefact, something to be
observed, held, and experienced.
A final point to make on the board is its connection to Steve Rocco’s
World Industries empire. Much has been written and discussed about the
marketing savvy of Rocco who in many ways instigated a new level of
interest in skateboard graphics. This unfolded in three main ways. Firstly,
his board companies employed controversial graphics often spoofing
existing copyrighted art and company logos. These graphics might be
thought-provoking, but their main goal was to be cool enough for teen-
agers to buy them. Secondly, he inflated the demand for board art by
releasing graphics every few months. Older established companies like
Powell Peralta, Vision, and Santa Cruz would keep the same graphics for
their professional riders for a year or more. Rocco’s quick turnover of
graphics was also compounded by the fact that his companies would
invariably receive cease and desist requests from the copyright holders the
art infringed upon. Lastly, the riders in Rocco’s companies also eschewed
the plastic rails previously used by vert riders to protect the underside of
their boards and, as famously depicted in the video Rubbish Heap, began
the practice of focusing boards. To focus a board is to deliberately snap it
in two, making it unrideable. All of these practices contributed to an
102 P. O’Connor

artistic environment in skateboarding where art was often provocative,

ripped off, on rotation, and ‘supposedly’ disposable. It is within this con-
text that the Natas devil graphic should also be read.

 rucifried 2017, Jeff Grosso, Anti Hero by

C
Christian Cooper
Christian Cooper’s artwork for the 2017 Jeff Grosso board Crucifried
from the company Anti Hero reaches back towards the Baroque religious
European art of the seventeenth to eighteenth century (Fig. 5.3). Cooper
deliberately wanted to utilise this genre of art to draw on its norms of

Fig. 5.3 Crucifried, Jeff Grosso: Anti Hero, Artist Christian Cooper (from 2017)
 5 Iconography 103

religious iconography and allegory. He also wanted to push the limits of

detail included in a skateboard graphic and react to the simple and often
‘mundane’ skateboard graphics that have increasingly become the norm.
My commentary on this board is largely a dialogue with the artist him-
self, who generously provided elaboration on each of the details included
on the board, and also with Jeff Grosso, who provided his own comments
on the board and his thoughts on religion. Much of what I include here
is paraphrased from Cooper’s own words describing his art. He claims
that ‘the religious component was almost a test to see if anyone was pay-
ing attention,’ but also reveals that Jeff Grosso initially requested to have
board art in which he appeared crucified.
Before discussing the board in more depth it is important to highlight
who Jeff Grosso is, and more precisely why a board depicting him as both
a sinner and a martyr holds currency for skateboarders. Typically crucifix-
ion scenes represent two notions: the passion of Christ’s suffering and his
ultimate resurrection. Both of these elements are evocative of Grosso’s
biography which includes lost years of alcohol and drug abuse, and a
recent resurrection as an irreverent prophet for skateboarding’s old guard.
In my research with middle-aged skateboarders, Jeff Grosso’s popular
YouTube series for Vans, Love Letters, is a consistent theme. Three of my
informants report owning or riding a Grosso board, and one cites Grosso’s
videos as a direct reason for why he started skateboarding again after a
ten-year break. Grosso’s popularity was discussed by 44-year-old Sarah,
who also regularly watches his videos.

There is that perception that he holds the soul, like the old-school soul of
skateboarding. I think most people respond to a strong opinion. So, people
like how he says it and means it and doesn’t seem sad and lost you know, so
that’s compelling. I think that he’s considered like a guard of a thing that is
important. But at this moment a little bit eclipsed by the story of like com-
petition money contest thing. … The stuff that Grosso is speaking to is the
true line of skateboarding I think.

In line with the other icons of skateboarding that I explored in Chap.

2, Jeff Grosso is similarly an esteemed character in skateboarding and one
who is valued because of his earnest adoration of skateboarding and his
104 P. O’Connor

disdain for the pitfalls of the contemporary skateboard industry. Grosso

discussed with me the context for the Crucifried board and referred to
one of his previous board graphics from 1987 with Santa Cruz skate-
boards. He asked the company artist Jim Phillips to produce art depicting
a battle between heaven and hell. This was a time in which Grosso was
becoming deeply involved in drugs and there was speculation surround-
ing his ability to succeed as a professional skateboarder. ‘It was like hey
look this is what’s going on with me guys.’ Thirty years later, the Crucifried
graphic does much the same thing. Following a drawn-out back injury
Grosso had become ‘strung out’ on pain medication, was recovering from
various surgeries, and was dealing with a painful divorce. Finally getting
back on his board and overcoming these challenges, the idea for the art-
work came through a discussion with a friend. It was initially going to be
a sort of resurrection, to say Grosso is back. But it was Grosso who
decided he should be crucified, providing a layered meaning not just of
resurrection, but also of the willingness to perish for skateboarding and
to stand up for what he believes in. Grosso elaborated on these issues at
length, highlighting that while he believes in a Godlike power, the notion
of organised religion is distasteful to him. Fundamentally he sees religion
as a form of social control, manipulated by many to elevate and empower
themselves at the judgement and expense of others. The board graphic
was thus critical of religion, and also critical of the skateboard industry
and how veteran skateboarders are selling out. He states:

I want the new kid coming to skateboarding for the first time to have the
exact same or at least a similar experience that I had. Because I felt ostra-
cised and I felt alone and the other stuff that was available to me, organised
sport, after school programmes, yada, yada, none of that fucking interested
me. Skateboarding filled the void, you know, and became my best friend
and it was my outlet. It was my way to get away from all of the bullshit at
school and at home. And we need that, you know, kids need that. They
need an alternative to the rest of the shit. I cannot understand why a bunch
of fucking weirdos and misfits and freaks and geeks that came to skate-
boarding in the first place because they were all those things I just said, now
have grown up and are going to sell skateboarding down the river and turn
it into the exact same thing that we all hated.
 5 Iconography 105

Grosso’s outspoken and opinionated videos have positioned him not

only as a voice of old school authenticity, but also as a target for criticism
and contempt. It is this dynamic that is represented in Christian Cooper’s
art. In my own imagining of the art, Grosso is a Jesus-like martyr, going
against convention and those who have sought to commodify, profit
from, and exploit what he might see as the pure faith of skateboarding.
Think of Jesus casting out the moneylenders from the temple, standing
up to the venality of the Pharisees. At the same time, I see the crucified
Grosso as penance for the excesses of his younger life, and his passion or
suffering of a world gone to ruin. In this second understanding I draw
considerable interest in the elements of popular culture in Cooper’s art-
work. The Death Star hangs ominously in the sky as the burning
International Space Station plummets to earth. Incorporated in these
images are characters from the films The Shining and Repo Man, and the
silver orb from the Phantasm film series.
Cooper’s interest in presenting a religiously inspired graphic is remark-
able for its connections to the arguments made by Cowan (2008, 2012a,
2012b) and (Cowan & Bromley, 2015) about the sociophobics of popu-
lar culture and their religious connections. Here, the artist has incorpo-
rated diacritic signals, many of which he acknowledges will be overlooked
by people who enjoy the art and buy the board. For instance, at the foot
of the crucified Grosso, four men are prostrated, as if they are performing
the Islamic ritualised prayer of Salah. The rug on which they perform
their prayer is adorned with the same pattern as the carpet from the
Outlook Hotel, from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Cooper revealed to
me that these elements were also connected to a link he had considered
between grave desecration, relevant to the site of the Outlook Hotel in
the film, and the opening up of Christ’s tomb. The element of grave des-
ecration is echoed in reference to the Phantasm films, where the bodies of
the dead are exhumed and sent to an alien world to toil as slaves. Thus
drawing on religious referents and Hollywood horror films, Cooper
pushes existential questions about our place in the Universe.
Significantly, Cooper employs reference to religion beyond Christianity
in this work. At the same time religious referents are enmeshed with pop
culture and skate culture icons. Gandhi is depicted with a Ray ‘Bones’
Rodriguez, Powell Peralta deck on his lap. To the right of him there are
106 P. O’Connor

poppies, which refer to Grosso’s one time heroin addiction. Gandhi is

said to represent both the idea of civil disobedience and the notion of
religious pluralism that he promoted as the ideal for Indian indepen-
dence. The artist claims that it is in part a commentary on how Hinduism
is rarely an element of the dialogue in a post 9/11 world where the gen-
eral feeling is one of religious warfare between Islam and the rest of the
world. The fact that Gandhi holds what the artist and, he claims, many
of his generation regard as ‘the first truly high-impact graphic’ is also a
layered association between art, propaganda, and religion. This was the
board that Grosso rode in his youth when he was a member of the Powell
Peralta team. Indeed, the reproduction of this board and the original
artwork from VCJ is an overt example of how skateboard art references
and reveres previous board art. Similar to how academic work is built on
a dialogue of the thinking and writing of previous scholars, skateboard
graphics are designed and produced in a conversant manner, paying
homage, respect, and acknowledgement to what came before. It connects
with the family of ideas surrounding my schema of observation, drawing
on myth, symbolism, and the way these elements sustain meaning.
Three further references to previous board art are included in the
graphic. Firstly, a banner is displayed that reads ‘God Hates Anti Hero’;
Cooper explains that this is a reproduction of the 2014 board art for Anti
Hero professional skateboarder Grant Taylor. This was a response to the
Westboro Baptist Church demonstrators and their homophobic placards
such as ‘God Hates Fags.’ He acknowledges that his artwork can be
viewed as heretical and questions if indeed God does hate Anti Hero for
releasing such a graphic. Secondly, Cooper extends this question by
showing a pigeon perched on the crucifix with its droppings defacing the
roman numerals representing 18. This requires elaboration for those
unfamiliar with the skateboard company Anti Hero. The number 18 rep-
resents the nickname for the company taking the numerical alphabetical
positions of both A and H. This is in itself a risqué nod to the far right’s
cult symbolism of Adolf Hitler and distinguishes the skateboard com-
pany as irreverent, nihilistic, and self-destructive. The pigeon itself repre-
sents the art of Todd Francis who has been a long-time collaborator with
Anti Hero and has himself produced numerous controversial graphics.
Pigeons are accordingly a common trope in Anti Hero boards. Cooper
 5 Iconography 107

states that the pigeon droppings pose the question as to whether ‘we are
just shitting on ourselves by making the art we make.’ Finally, to the left
of the crucified Grosso is a ragdoll holding aloft a building block cube.
This represents Grosso’s very first pro board graphic from the company
Schmitt Stix in 1986 originally designed by John Lucero. This is report-
edly Grosso’s favourite graphic of all time (Cliver, 2004, p. 159), but in
this context it is surrounded by a fallen Disneyland sign and the Olympic
rings. The placement of the graphic in this context is a reference both to
the mutual distaste of both the artist and Grosso for the inclusion of
skateboarding in the Olympics, and a slight to business practices where
skateboard companies collaborate with Disney. The artist resists the
notion that such practices are artistic collaborations and is critical of what
might be considered a form of ‘product placement’ in skateboarding.
Simply put, Disney’s involvement in skateboarding is nothing but pecu-
niary, and while all skateboard graphics are in some way marketing
devices, they have traditionally emerged from the subculture of skate-
boarding itself.
In general, there is a philosophical underpinning to many of the refer-
ents in the graphic. On the right side of the image there is an alien rolling
his eyes in disgust, positioned next to the character Miller from the cult
1984 film Repo Man directed by Alex Cox. In the film Miller expresses
some bizarre ideas about UFOs, time travel, and the synchronicity of the
universe. At one point he also claims the iconic actor John Wayne was a
homosexual, for which he is vehemently challenged. Cooper links the
offence taken at the John Wayne comment as akin to blasphemy and
notions, as highlighted previously, that the sacred and the profane are
empty categories which we fill with our own collective social meanings.
Both Cooper and Grosso have shared a fascination for extraterrestrials,
and the placement of the alien being signals that such interests are reli-
gious in content seeking the ultimate answers to the cosmos. Indeed,
visible on Grosso’s left forearm is his Alien Workshop tattoo, a board
company that he never rode for, yet was fascinated by their alien con-
spiracy themes. Miller’s inclusion from Repo Man also dovetails with the
connections made to the Westboro Baptist Church, and a bear-suited
man and his sexual partner from the Shining. All of these elements con-
nect to homophobia and the sordid hypocrisy of the Catholic church in
108 P. O’Connor

condemning various sexual practices as aberrant while also harbouring

paedophiles.
On the tail of the board, at the bottom of the graphic, there are two
further religious connections. On the right-hand side there is a police
mugshot of the punk icon Doc Colbin Dart, who was the lead singer in
the band the Crucifucks in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Dart subse-
quently changed his name to 26 for spiritual reasons and claims that he
is the messiah. He has, at times, been rabidly outspoken against the US
government and lives a peculiar hermit-like existence caring for animals
and shunning news on contemporary society. On the left there is a copy
of Time magazine with the pope on the cover. This depicts a papal fascia
from which the logo of the Independent Truck company is based. Jim
Phillips was responsible for designing the logo for the fledgling truck
company in 1979. He was originally inspired by the ‘surfer’s cross,’ a
practice by which surfers would signal their cultural belonging by wear-
ing an adapted German Iron Cross. Connecting to the surfing legacy of
skateboarding, Phillips incorporated the cross into his logo design. This
was initially rejected as it looked too ‘Nazi’; however, Phillips sought to
verify the ancient origins of the symbol and found it used in the Pope’s
regalia, convincing colleagues that the logo was acceptable (Denike,
2004, pp. 22–25). In such an example Cooper provides an additional
layer to an intricate dialectical relationship between skateboarding, reli-
gion, and popular culture. Again, Grosso’s Independent Trucks insignia
tattoo is also visible on his left wrist.
Cooper planned his art to give off an uneasy feeling, incorporating not
just religious paraphernalia but also unnerving elements of popular cul-
ture, situated in a smouldering apocalyptic landscape. His process is also
worthy of mention; working entirely digitally, Cooper’s classical art train-
ing has had to be revised for work in the contemporary field. The
Crucifried graphic is at once an artistic endeavour, a commentary on reli-
gion and popular culture, an Anti Hero product, and an ode to Grosso’s
skateboarding history. Beyond all this, the work is also about the friend-
ship and shared passions of both Cooper and Grosso. It is both a cerebral
and emotional work. Once again it is evocative of a challenge to a profane
and sacred divide as Cooper’s art includes an interplay of Grosso’s biogra-
phy, philosophy and religion, pop culture, and a critique of the s­ kateboard
 5 Iconography 109

industry. The real beauty of this achievement is that some will hang it on
their wall, while others will ride it to destruction.
Grosso comments that the board has been a commercial success and
has sold very well. At the same time, he reflects on the fact that the art-
work is also provocative to his fellow veteran skateboarders and good
friends, Christian Hosoi, Steve Caballero, and Lance Mountain, who are
all devoted Christians. While he notes that some people will take offence
at the graphic, his response is ‘you know what? Fuck you. I have got to
tolerate your bullshit too.’

Devotional Art
Finally, I turn to devout religious art. There are numerous examples of
religious graphics from Christian skateboarders, and also companies such
as Siren, Untitled, and Reliance. There are also many professional skate-
boarders who are publicly Christian who have not had explicitly religious
graphics, such as Lance Mountain, Steve Caballero, and Ray Barbee.
Jamie Thomas is widely regarded as a skateboarding icon. He has a
legacy connected to groundbreaking video parts, and companies. He has
been a successful skateboard entrepreneur founding Zero skateboards,
Fallen footwear, and Black Box distribution. Often regarded as an out-
sider, Thomas left his home in Alabama as a teenager and made his way
to San Francisco in 1992. For months he lived out of his car and eventu-
ally found sponsors and built a career.
Born in 1974 and brought up in Alabama, Thomas confesses that reli-
gion was all around him as a youth. He lived in a conservative town and
there was pressure and expectation for him to be religious. He was drawn
to seeking out his own identity and drifted from the church and even
rebelled against it in his teenage years (Haseltine, 2002, p. 36). At this
time Thomas also got into trouble with the police through involvement
in a racket of stealing car stereos (The Nine Club, 2017). It was not until
Thomas was a successful professional skateboarder that he returned to
Christianity. In 1999 the sudden death of fellow pro skateboarder Tim
Brauch had a profound impact on Thomas. He claims that ‘I wasn’t look-
ing for Jesus. I was fine with everything being about me. But yeah, I went
110 P. O’Connor

to Tim Brauch’s funeral and had a heavy realization that I was extremely
selfish and I asked the Lord for forgiveness’ (Thrasher Magazine, 2015).
Following his conversion Thomas decided to release a board graphic
with a cross in 2000. He reported on several occasions that he was warned
not to release a Christian graphic, that it would not sell, and that there
would be a backlash. However, the board that has the passage John 3:16
reproduced in the background of the graphic, was one of Thomas’ biggest
sellers (Skateboarder, 2013). In an interview with Thrasher magazine
he reports:

When I first accepted the Lord, I felt like it was my responsibility to share
my faith. I was also so hyped on the Lord that I felt it was what best repre-
sented me. I felt like everything else was cheap or blasphemous, but yeah I
got a lot of heat because people said I was trying to cash in on God.
Ironically, before I released the graphics everyone told me not to do it
because they wouldn’t sell and I felt so strongly about it that I did it any-
ways. When it comes to sharing your faith, you’re going to get hate because
spirituality is so personal. No one wants their spiritual space invaded. Over
time, I realized that everything I did didn’t have to advertise my faith or
spirituality, so I started doing it more subtly. (Thrasher Magazine, 2015)

Following this public display of his faith Thomas found that he was
regularly sought after for public speaking. There was no end of requests
for him to do outreach work and share his story with youth congrega-
tions. He reports that while he initially felt obligated to do this work, he
increasingly decided that his activities were an appropriate vehicle for his
own ministry, which as he details earlier, have become increasingly discrete.
In contrast to the other boards discussed in this chapter, Thomas’ Cross
board requires very little elaboration. The message is clear: it is an item of
faith and devotion. The choice of the Biblical passage is, however, worthy
of note. John 3:16–3:18 reads as follows:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but
in order that the world might be saved through him.
 5 Iconography 111

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not

believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of
the only Son of God.
—(John 3:16–18 ESV)

This is in itself a common passage repeated at Sunday service and Mass

on a weekly basis. However, in the context of skateboarding it reads not
only as an item of faith but also as an instruction and judgement. This is
significant for the fact that skateboard culture is invested in testing
boundaries, norms, and authority. It is indeed rare for such a high-profile
skateboarder to have such an explicitly religious message, condemning
those who do not believe. Much of skateboarding art is suggestive, and
laced with ambiguity. Thomas’ board does, however, conform to the risk-
taking graphics of our other examples, pushing the envelope not in terms
of symbolism and allegory, but in the earnest conviction to his new faith.
Responses to Thomas’ board must therefore be read in the context not
just of religious iconography, but also of implicit risk-taking. The online
SLAP message board is a popular haunt of skateboard gossip and indus-
try speculation. Occasional threads which provide an earnest discussion
on religion are regularly shot down with irreverent banter. Examples of
threads on the forum include ‘Are religious pro’s lame?,’ ‘Religious
Skaters,’ and ‘Skating reveals my evidence of the one and only living
God.’ The author of the latter thread declares that,

[s]kating is a deep connection to the soul, and a way to achieve perfect

bliss. Bliss like this is my evidence of having a God moment on earth, these
moments are reminders that there is a God, and he designed things origi-
nally to be pleasurable, and in a state of natural high. It is a reminder that
Jesus is alive and he is eternal, his love conquers all evil. (Taluk, 2018)

Responses to this post, almost without exception, deride it and make

jest of the comment. One reply states that ‘I bet Jesus would push mongo’
(pushing with your front rather than rear foot which is widely regarded
as uncouth and ineffectual), another suggests that the author might like
to experiment with drugs, a further jests that the author is an evangelical
skateboarder—‘Oh shit waddup Hosoi’—while another asks ‘Is god
112 P. O’Connor

with me while I’m doin blow and banging strippers??? I’m genuinely
curious’ (Taluk, 2018, pp. replies #35, #33, #39, #34). Such responses
show that while skateboarding can be regarded in various camps as a
subculture, sport, lifestyle, and art form, it is not openly a place for
religious expression. Thus, Thomas’ board deals less with the broader
sociophobics of US society (devils, pentagrams, skulls, aliens) and more
with the particular sociophobics of skateboarding and its authenticity
police. Arguably, the skateboard industry is phobic of religious devo-
tion in its products. This is a theme also discussed by Jef Hartsel who
claims that Steve Rocco would always be resistant to any Rastafarian
board graphics that he proposed whilst he was a pro for World Industries
(Swisher, 2017).
Similarly, Brian Sumner, a professional skateboarder with Birdhouse
in the late 1990s, became a fervent born-again Christian after strug-
gling with substance abuse. Birdhouse released several religiously
inspired graphics for him. These included various depictions of Jesus,
a cross, and Mother Mary. Jeremy Klein was art director for Birdhouse
during the mid-2000s when Sumner was born again. He resented hav-
ing to do religious graphics and commissioned his own pro model on
Birdhouse, depicting an abusive Mother Mary choking a child, and
surrounded by other bloodied and bruised children (Carayol, 2014,
p. 161). Sumner, now sponsored by Christian skateboard company
Reliance, continues to have devotional boards with recurring themes
of a battle between Christ and the devil. Another subversive reaction
to religious graphics is the model Skate Switch for Jesus, by Michael
Sieben for Roger Skateboards. The graphic depicts a large cross
inverted. The comedy of the board is that by riding switch (often
resulting in the board’s orientation being reversed), the graphic is
transformed, and the cross is rectified to its devout and correct posi-
tion. Again, Sieben’s board highlights that skateboarding graphics are
to be ridden and not simply gazed upon.
Some devotional boards have, however, become widely lauded and
embraced in part because they are read as being authentic in terms of
artistic and cultural contributions. One of the most famous boards comes
again from artist Marc McKee and 101 Skateboards, this time for profes-
sional skateboarder Gabriel Rodriguez (Fig. 5.4). The inspiration for the
 5 Iconography 113

Fig. 5.4 Jesus, Gabriel Rodriguez: 101 by Marc McKee (from 1991)

board comes from Rodriguez’s own home where his mother had a collec-
tion of Catholic imagery on display. Natas picked out one of the images
of Jesus and told Rodriguez that it would be the graphic for his pro model
board. In this sense, the circumstances surrounding the graphic are not so
much religious as cultural, speaking of the Rodriguez home and their
Catholic heritage. The graphic itself is reproduced in a style which appears
neither sycophantic nor satirical. One of my respondents Joe, in his mid-
forties, was quite critical of devotional religious graphics. He called for a
‘separation between church and skate’ and disliked both the Jamie
Thomas board and the Jeff Grosso boards. He suggested that the
Rodriguez board is much loved because it is subtle and you can take it
primarily as a piece of art.
114 P. O’Connor

I think it goes back to the iconography though. If you see Jamie Thomas’
board and you see Gabriel Rodriguez board, you’re more drawn to Gabriel’s
board because of the whole, the art and the person at the end, Jesus. There’s
just so much going on in that board that you’re drawn to. The artwork is spec-
tacular. Even if you’re not a religious person, you’re appreciating that board for
what it is. It’s a beautiful piece of artwork. That’s what really drew me to that
one. I remember when that board came out, I was like wow that’s really rad.

The Rodriguez Jesus board is of further significance with regard to the

fact that it, along with the Devil board, was the first skateboard whose
graphics explicitly engaged with religious iconography. Emphasising the
legacy of the Devil and Jesus images, both of these religious themed
boards from McKee originally released in 1991 were again re-released by
Dwindle as part of their heritage series in 2016. The repertoire of taste
developed and expressed by skateboarders appears to demand that reli-
gious graphics do more than simply confess devotion, that they must
have some artistic value, or be part of a larger social observation and com-
mentary. One could argue therefore that the suspicion or critique of reli-
gious expression in skateboarding is not about cashing in, or expressing
devotion, but more chiefly about being consistent and authentic to the
values and mores of skateboard culture.

Conclusion
This chapter broaches a topic that could itself be of book length. There are
hundreds of explicit religious graphics on skateboards over the last 40 years.
There are scores more with tacit, subtle, nuanced religious connections. I
thankfully resisted the desire to catalogue them all. What I have sought to
do instead is to provide a deeper exploration of some of the dynamics that
we see in religious skateboard graphics: sociophobics, satire, allegory, and
devotion. I have strived throughout to place these works of art in context, to
include the voices of the artists involved, and to also include comments from
my respondents, skateboarders who are likely to buy and ride such boards.
In conclusion I attempt to push these themes forward and make some
analytical and critical statements. Firstly, I wish to argue that the skate-
board graphic and its canvas, the skateboard, introduce an important
 5 Iconography 115

differential in our understandings of art. As I have mentioned, the skate-

board is intended to be ridden, the graphic is ultimately disposable. Of
course, a robust market in skateboard collecting has arisen to challenge
this notion. But I insist that first and foremost the skateboard graphic is,
as Sean Cliver’s (2004) book emphasises, disposable. Jeff Grosso also
makes this point:

Like what’s cool about skateboard art, especially now, is it’s temporary. You
make these really fucking grand and outlandish statements and it will be
gone in a minute. So you’re really not offending anyone because it’s just a
fucking skateboard. Get over yourself.

This presupposes an intriguing relationship that skateboarders have

with their boards and these graphics. They choose boards invariably
because they like the shape, the company, the rider, and the graphic.
Riding (read as defacing) the board is in its own way a form of devotion,
or almsgiving. Indeed, professional skateboarders earn money through
board sales. So, in the world of skateboarding there is a pride that skate-
boarders have ridden collectable boards, rather than storing them for
financial investment. Boards are meant to be ridden.
This inverts notions of sacrilegious behaviour inherent in the deface-
ment of artefacts and images of the divine. Let us consider the Japanese
practice of Fumi-e (踏み絵), or ‘stepping on pictures’ that was used in
the seventeenth-century persecution of Nagasaki Christians during an era
when their religion was outlawed. Typically these were stone tablets with
images of Christ or the Virgin Mary. It was understood that Christians
would refuse to disrespect the images and thus not tread on them. The
boundaries of religious offence are rife with ambiguity. Is it a sign of
devotion to get a tattoo of the Buddha? Are prayer mats sold in Mecca
sacred or commercial exploitation?
Saudi graphic designer and artist Yusef Alahmad produced a series of
skateboards with Arabic calligraphy. These sophisticated designs with
clean and clear graphics test the boundaries between art and decorative
design, the sacred and the profane. Originally producing them as artistic
pieces, Alahmad received interest from people who wanted to purchase
the boards. Some of his Instagram followers were keen to point out that
116 P. O’Connor

Fig. 5.5 Blue Board Ysuef Alahmad reproducing Ayat 23:29

a board that reproduced an ayat from the Qur’an (Fig. 5.5) should not be
stood on or defaced. The ayat alluded to skateboarding praising god for a
safe and fortuitous disembarking. However, the response from many
Muslims was clear—the sacred text should be revered and skateboarding
would not dishonour it. This example relates to the notion of Fumi-e and
highlights how the ritual orthopraxy of Islam and the sacrality of the
Qur’an for Muslims problematise devotional skateboard graphics for
Muslim skateboarders. Indeed, because of the tension between idolatry
and respect in Islam the medium of skateboard graphics represents a
potential challenge. One way this has been navigated is by engaging with
political issues that connect to a religious identity. For example, the
G-Hard skateshop in Kuala Lumpur produced a political graphic for the
boards they sold at their store in which a Palestinian child is depicted
throwing a stone at an Israeli tank, the child’s skateboard tucked under
his foot in defiance.
To skateboarders the feel of their board is a pleasure. It might ulti-
mately be destroyed and discarded, but there is a register of affect in rid-
ing a skateboard. Borden has noted that some skateboarders consider
their boards as a fifth limb, an extension of their body. To others they are
artefacts imbued with magical powers, what Ostwalt (2012, p. 209) refers
to as ‘spiritual talisman’ in reference to the motorcycle, replete with
supernatural powers that transform the rider. Thus, skateboard art con-
nects to an embodied schema, a way of being in the world. When skate-
boards display religious iconography this embodied relationship must
also be considered. Jamie Thomas, Gabriel Rodriguez, and Brian Sumner
see no affront to riding a skateboard with Christ’s image. This is seen as
an act of devotion. Similarly when non-religious skateboarders choose
 5 Iconography 117

graphics that are devotional, that parody or critique religion, they are also
expressing a religious sensibility.
The fact that a skateboard is a canvas for art, symbolism, and social
commentary conveys much to indicate that skateboarding cannot easily
be defined, or perhaps confined, as a sport. It would be unthinkable to
have a discussion about religious iconography and tennis racket design,
rugby balls, or golf clubs. Even within lifestyle sports skateboarding is
remarkable in the vibrancy of its visual culture. The prominence of popu-
lar culture symbolism in board art is undeniable. Distinct in the visual
culture of skateboarding is the fact that skateboards are lifestyle parapher-
nalia communicating aesthetics, and orientations of style and identity.
Boards represent all these factors and are also items of consumption, ulti-
mately to be physically ridden and eventually destroyed. Board iconogra-
phy is a vibrant topic in which religion can be observed in skateboard
culture. I argue further that the relevance of religious motifs on boards
can also be extended far beyond our trope of observation, highlighting
that skateboarding itself is potent in its ability to challenge and disturb
the dualism surrounding the sacred and the profane. The topics explored
throughout this chapter further contribute to a rendering of lifestyle reli-
gion, emphasising the individuality, choice, and consumption involved
in such new religious expressions.

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Cliver, S. (2004). Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art. Berkeley, CA:

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Part II
Performance
 6
Video Journeys

A fundamental recognition of skateboarding involves acknowledging the

process of motion. Simply rolling on the board is the traversing of space.
Tricks are all kinetic, involving propelling, rotation, and explosive releases
of energy. Academic work on skateboarding acknowledges the impor-
tance of moving through space, and thus travelling. It often entails a local
journey that skateboarders embark on as they visit their nearby spots.
Skateboarders in Northern England have been shown to construct nightly
nomadic practices where they gather with friends and travel to and
through key spots in their evening skate (Jenson, Swords, & Jeffries,
2012). Sometimes these journeys are broader in scope. Much of the
reportage on skateboarding in magazines speaks of the road trip in which
skateboard teams embark on ‘life in the van.’ This journeying has been
made the subject of an annual ‘King of the Road’ (KOTR) competition
in Thrasher magazine and now syndicated as a reality television show on
the Viceland network. In KOTR, three teams of skateboarders visit vari-
ous cities across the USA and attempt to complete challenges or tricks at
specific locations. Many of these challenges include homage to profes-
sional skateboarders, their tricks, and importantly their spots (Viceland,
2017). Similarly, skateboard videos play on the importance of place and

© The Author(s) 2020 123

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_6
124 P. O’Connor

the notion of travelling pilgrims. This chapter is concerned with both

journeying and the media which capture and communicate this.
The iconic 1987 skateboard video by Powell Peralta The Search for
Animal Chin (Peralta, 1987) involves a group of skateboarders searching
for the mythic Animal Chin who they believe to be a wise skateboarding
sage. By the end of the film Chin is revealed to be the embodiment of joy
and adventure in skateboarding, not a person or place. In the 2015 video
We Are Blood (Evans, 2015), a group of professional skateboarders take a
road trip across the USA, and then tour Brazil, Barcelona, and Dubai.
While the film is a polished piece of commercial skateboarding, in part
funded by Mountain Dew, its theme is the solidarity and connection that
skateboarders share across the world and that the skateboard is itself a
passport to skateboarding communities at home and abroad. This was
emphasised by one of my informants in Hong Kong. At 24 years of age
he claimed that his skateboard meant that he could go to any city in the
world and find skateboarders and a community to help and support him.
Returning to Yochim’s (2010) argument about the corresponding tie
between skateboard media and skateboard culture, we can understand
that the journey is important in skateboard videos because it is important
in skateboard culture and vice versa. In this chapter we also take a sym-
bolic journey into the canon of skateboard videos.
This is the first chapter to explore our polythetic notion of religion
through performance. Here we are interested in a family of ideas that
connect to factual motivations, mysterium tremendum, ritual, pilgrimage,
and communitas. Performance is addressed by looking at the contribu-
tion of skateboard videos to presenting skateboarding as a mystical jour-
ney, a sojourn of self-discovery and communitas, connecting with others
and building community. This is not a simple observation of religious
components; in fact, the religious connection in the videos that I discuss
is not overt or readily apparent. Some might argue that these videos, and
skateboard videos more generally, are not religious at all. Even the video
offerings from some Christian skateboard companies like Untitled skate-
boards simply focus on skateboarding. Thus, this chapter is not about
observation like the former chapters; it is not concerned with how reli-
gion is visible. Rather this chapter is about how religion is performed in
terms of practice, meaning, and motivation.
 6 Video Journeys 125

Building a Community Through Video

Skateboard videos are a prominent part of skateboard culture. They have,
at least since the mid-1980s, worked as an early form of social media
where skateboarders could keep up to date with new developments, and
also contribute to the culture by making their own short films. Now,
nearly every teenage skateboarder keeps up to date with their favourite
professionals and their own friends via Instagram clips and YouTube vid-
eos that are regularly posted online. However, a skateboard video is also a
term commonly associated with the filmed projects of various skateboard
companies, be they board brands, shoe companies, or other various
teams. Skateboard videos tend to have a discernible formula—a team is
the focus, but the video typically unfolds with a series of individual parts,
documenting the skills, style, and attitude of one skateboarder at a time.
It is generally understood that the final part of a skateboard video is
regarded as the ‘best’ part or performance, with the opening slot being
reserved for the second best. A variety of scholarship has addressed skate-
board videos. Yochim (2010), for instance, analyses Dogtown and Z-Boys,
an award-winning documentary on skateboarding’s origins, and Hallowed
Ground from the Hurley clothing company. Much of the extant sport
research on skateboard videos is uneven, giving particular attention to the
documentaries of Perlata and also reading the media through the guise of
masculinity and race (Kusz, 2007, 2018; Willing, Green, & Pavlidis,
2019; Yochim, 2010). More broadly, skateboard videos have been under-
stood not only as a marketing tool for companies, but also as a means to
communicate authenticity about skateboard culture, its values, and
norms (Atencio, Beal, & Wilson, 2009, p. 7; Borden, 2019, p. 117;
Wheaton & Beal, 2003). As a result, skateboarders often pay ­considerable
attention to the content and production of these videos; they critique the
music, trick selection, editing, and locations included in these films. I
make scant mention of the importance of music in this chapter, but
skateboard videos draw heavily on the emotional vitality engendered by
the music that accompanies the images. This is significant because, as
Edith Turner (2012, p. 43) identifies, ‘music is a fail-safe bearer of com-
munitas’ conveying emotion and being ephemeral. Beyond the music the
importance of location can also not be understated. Snyder (2017)
126 P. O’Connor

­ ighlights that skateboard filmers or videographers must have a remark-

h
able memory for who performed which trick in which video as duplicat-
ing footage is often seen to reflect poorly on both the company and the
skateboarder depicted. As such great importance is placed on skateboard
videos, this chapter explores how media productions communicate both
spiritual and religious themes.
Within the field of religion and popular culture there is a variety of
scholarship that employs content and media analysis to deconstruct the
way religion is portrayed in cinema. For example, in Sacred Terror,
Douglas E. Cowan (2008) addresses the use of religious symbolism in the
horror genre. He identifies a series of intriguing motifs such as the promi-
nence of churches as places of shelter in films, and also the dominance of
the occult. Cowan argues that these elements correspond with our latent
fears about religion, death, and the unknown. This is more broadly
described as sociophobics, or the social construction of fear (Cowan,
2012a). In various other works, religion is explored through the science
fiction genre (Cowan, 2012b; McDowell, 2012; McKee, 2007) with par-
ticular attention paid to both the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises. In
her exploration of invented religions Carole Cusack (2010) notes how
Jediism and Matrixism have emerged from Hollywood science fiction
films. Conrad Ostwalt (2012) also explores the impact of the Matrix tril-
ogy and the Christ-like saviour Neo. While recognising the popularity of
religious analysis of modern film, Ostwalt also highlights that these cri-
tiques are often focal on similar themes, be that a messiah, redemption,
penance, or transcendence. In contrast, he explores secular apocalyptic
disaster movies, and draws our attention to how these portray modern
risk and the evils of secular life (Ostwalt, 2012, pp. 176–177). This analy-
sis complements the sociophobics of Cowan, highlighting that the
­narrative of film can provide both caution and instruction with regard to
religion and spirituality.
A vast array of work on religion and film has been instructive in writ-
ing this chapter (Blizek, 2009; Lyden, 2003; Lyden & Mazur, 2015).
Following the schema provided by Okuyama (2015) I complement my
sociological analysis by employing a semiotic reading of the two main
videos I address in this chapter. Her work draws from Levi-Strauss (1995)
and Barthes (1972, 1973), two scholars who have contributed to a semi-
otic analysis of myth. The functional approach of Levi-Strauss highlights
 6 Video Journeys 127

that myths can be reduced to component parts representing oppositions

such as good and evil. These he describes as mythemes, essential building
blocks in myths. In agreement, Barthes highlights that modern trends
replicate mythological archetypes—heroes, villains, beauty, justice, all
come to be significant in our modern media (Okuyama, 2015, p. 26).
Influenced by these insights I explore symbolism in skateboard videos
that depict a cultural worldview.
Rather than speedily explore the vast number of videos available on
skateboarding I have chosen to analyse two titles in depth. These videos
are distinct in that the notion of communitas forms part of their concept
and narrative. They are arguably exaggerations of the skateboard video
format and while they break with a number of conventions, they are both
critically acclaimed, groundbreaking, and wholly understood as authen-
tic products. These two videos, The Search for Animal Chin (Peralta, 1987)
and We Are Blood (Evans, 2015), are filmed 30 years apart and demon-
strate a profound advancement in the professionalisation, sportification,
and globalisation of the skateboard industry. Despite the time differen-
tial, both films promote skateboarding as a fun communal activity that is
both exploratory and deeply rewarding. Both films are listed in the
Internet Movie Database (IMDB) and at the time of writing have respec-
tive ratings of 8.0 and 7.7. I proceed to introduce each film, provide a
brief synopsis, and then present an exegesis of their religious themes
grouped around the ideas of communitas, transcendence, and ritual
quest. At various points I refer to other skateboard videos to extend my
discussion. I conclude that for skateboarders, videos operate as both a
point of communion and also as an extension of text. Thus, skateboarders
watch and discuss videos as a way of maintaining community, but many
also find meaning and solace in the close detail that they pay to these
films. These videos provide lessons about life as a skateboarder under-
stands it, and also reflections of their values, ethics, struggles, and joys.

The Search for Animal Chin

Released in 1987 The Search for Animal Chin is a road trip skateboard
video that features the Powell Peralta team. The film is notable in that,
while being the third Bones Brigade video, it was the first to provide a
128 P. O’Connor

narrative structure and have skateboarders perform basic (this might be

too generous) acting in scenes. The Bones Brigade is made up of the
skateboarders Steve Caballero, Tommy Guerrero, Tony Hawk, Mike
McGill, and Lance Mountain. These young men spend the video skate-
boarding together rather than having their own separate video parts. The
premise of the video is that a legendary skater known as Won Ton Animal
Chin has gone missing and the Bones Brigade tour across the USA trying
to find him. As the film unfolds we learn that the mystical Chin is really
a metaphor for the joy of skateboarding. The finale of the film focuses on
the discovery of an enormous vert ramp in the desert. The film has
achieved iconic status in skateboarding, with people popularly alluding
to its tag line ‘have you seen him?’ Part of the attraction to Animal Chin
is the fact that it is undeniably cheesy, camp, and corny. This was true of
the film on its first release and continues to be the case 30 years later. The
film does not take itself too seriously and as a result prefigures the mes-
sage that it holds: skateboarding should be fun.
The video begins like the first Bones Brigade video, with Stacy Peralta
watching a spoof television show talking about skateboarding. One of the
men on the screen provides a cynical take on skateboarding, declaring
that skateboard graphics with ‘death, gore, dismemberment’ are key to
winning the youth demographic and that ‘after all, that is what skate-
boarding is all about.’ An annoyed Peralta hurls the television out of the
window and then opens a fortune cookie. The camera focuses on the note
inside which reads ‘have you seen him?’ Text then scrolls up the screen
introducing Animal Chin as the first person to bolt skates onto a piece of
wood and construct a skateboard. At once we are introduced to the
mythologising of skateboarding’s origins. A spoof news report declares
the fictitious 62-year-old Chin as missing and that the skateboard world
is mourning his absence. Text appears on screen that explains that true
believers in Chin are committed to the quest of searching him out and
the Bones Brigade are among these ‘true seekers.’ The video then opens to
the first scene of skateboarding action as the Bones Brigade visit the
famous Hawaiian skate spot known as the Wallows.
This opening montage provides a few cues to the broader sentiment of
the film. It addresses the commercialisation of skateboarding and the
concern that the true meaning of skateboarding is something both purer
 6 Video Journeys 129

and simpler. In the fictitious Chin, who becomes a very evident MacGuffin
(a device used to move the plot along), we have an attempt to mytholo-
gise skateboarding. As the prototypical skateboarder, Chin is portrayed as
the most authentic skateboarder. These themes are all given a mystical
veneer through East Asian aesthetics. Chin appears to be an elderly
Chinese sage with a long beard, pictured donning a bamboo hat. The
music in the introduction, and during transitions, is similarly an ode to
Westernised oriental riffs. Thus, in establishing some form of skateboard
mythology, Animal Chin employs Orientalism to construct it, deliber-
ately sidestepping the more familiar Californian origins of skateboarding.
As the movie proceeds, the Bones Brigade travel to San Francisco and
skate the streets, searching Chinatown for Chin. They visit a suburban
backyard ramp, and then hit the road heading to the famous Pink Motel.
After skating the pool at the motel, they sleep and are haunted by dreams
of falling off their skateboards. Here we are provided with another main-
stay of all skateboarding videos—a ‘slam section.’ Sometimes occupying
a discrete segment, in other cases interspersed throughout videos, these
are a collection of short scenes in which skateboarders fall whilst attempt-
ing to perform tricks. These scenes emphasise the authenticity of skate-
boarding, that it is tough and dangerous, and that everyone fails. These
often spectacular tumbles, or slams, also serve to highlight that there is no
fourth wall in skateboard videos. Viewers know that the process is filmed,
and they experience the filming sometimes seeing the filmer and other
crew in video scenes. Animal Chin breaks with this convention a little by
sustaining a fictive narrative interspersed with the filming. As the story
proceeds the Bones Brigade wake the next morning and pick up a junked
1959 Cadillac. They refit it to accommodate their skateboards, then head
to Las Vegas to Johnny Rad’s party at the Blue Tile Lounge. Here they are
given their most promising clue from Johnny Rad—news of an enor-
mous ramp that has appeared in the desert. He describes it as follows:

There is something you’ve got to know. If you look too hard for Chin you
are never going to find him. You got to relax and enjoy your skating. Isn’t
that how it all started out? … I heard about this ramp. It is in this field
between two junk yards just south of a town called Guadeloupe. … I don’t
even think it is man-made. I am talking skate Martians or something came
130 P. O’Connor

down and made this thing. … I think that is where Animal Chin is
hanging out.

As thanks they give Johnny Rad the keys to their Cadillac and head
back on the road, this time solely with their skateboards. Next, we see the
Bones Brigade skateboarding along a desert road pushing on the final leg
of their quest. A voice-over from Johnny Rad explains that he went
searching for Animal Chin once, ‘not the man, but what he stands for.’
He emphasises the message of ‘fun’ and declares that this is an art that
must be developed. The skateboarders spot a giant stone carving of a
skateboard and rush to investigate it. Tony Hawk declares ‘it is like a
skate god must have skated on this thing.’ The carving has ancient
Chinese pictographs on it and at the foot of the monument is a carving
in English with the name Guadeloupe. They scan the horizon and spot
the promised giant skate ramp. A climatic ramp scene follows which
showcases the skills of the Bones Brigade and includes some spectacular
synchronised manoeuvres including a shot where all four of the Bones
Brigade perform an invert (handplant) on the spine of the ramp at the
same time. The closing scene sees the skateboarders sitting round a camp-
fire at night and making a promise to continue searching for Chin. A
final voice-over announces that ‘as long as skaters keep searching for
Chin, they’ve already found him.’
Animal Chin is a video that must first be placed in the context of its
time. During the mid-1980s, skateboarding was in the midst of a renewed
wave of popularity. Michael J. Fox brought a whole new generation to
skateboarding in his depiction of teen skateboarder Marty McFly in Back
to the Future (1985). Hollywood also experimented with their own skate-
board themed films: Thrashin (1986), and then Gleaming the Cube
(1989), and scenes in Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987).
Members of the Bones Brigade had cameos in nearly all of these films
which further highlights the popularity of skateboarding in the
­mid-1980s. Powell Peralta was the leading board company at this time
and the celebrity status of skateboarding appears to be part of what
Animal Chin is reacting to. Furthermore, Animal Chin influenced the
way in which skateboard videos were made. Narrative structures and skits
became more common following its release. In 1989, Santa Cruz skate-
 6 Video Journeys 131

boards produced Streets on Fire, which has a loose narrative in which

skateboarder Jason Jessee is in prison. At the end of the film Jessee is sent
to the electric chair, a punitive measure for the crime of skateboarding. In
Blind’s Video Days (Jonze, 1991) a car forms part of the narrative struc-
ture in which the skateboarders journey and ultimately die as the final
scenes show it shooting off a cliff. The Birdhouse video The End (Mosberg,
1998) developed a short narrative around each of the skateboarders’ video
sections. In The End we see Andrew Reynolds getting drunk with an
orangutan, Steve Berra, being hunted down by an evil invisible force, and
Rick McCrank replying to a job advertisement as narrative elements
mixed in with their skateboarding. Themes of mortality recur during The
End—in Heath Kirchart and Jeremy Klein’s section they drive a van
around in a destructive rampage smashing into hedges, signposts, gates,
and trees. Eventually their van crashes and explodes and we see them in
pseudo-heaven as millionaires pampered with candy, video games, and
buxom French maids. The Shorty’s video Guilty (Henkels, 2001) includes
the team dressed as convicts and brought before a judge. As skateboard
videos have become more sophisticated in their filming and production,
a variety of special effects have been employed often in the form of short
narrative skits. The Girl/Chocolate videos Yeah Right (Evans & Jonze,
2003) and Pretty Sweet (Evans & Jonze, 2012) are classic examples of this,
both of which include cameos from celebrities such as Owen Wilson and
Jack Black. The Spirit Quest video also includes some highly original film-
ing techniques and special effects that merge the movement of skate-
boarders with various animals (Read, 2016). Most recently the film Jobs?
Never!!! (Greco, 2018) includes a narrative element through some of Los
Angeles’ urban decay. These films all provide a journey, a new exploration
of skateboarding and its possibilities.
It is also important to identify that Stacy Peralta, the director of Animal
Chin, has long been interested in constructing a skateboard mythology
throughout his moviemaking career. He reached his zenith with Dogtown
and Z-Boys (2001), producing a documentary that essentially identified
a group of men as the forefathers of skateboarding’s rebellious mystique.
In further documentaries, both in the Bones Brigade: An Autobiography
(Peralta, 2012) and The L.A. Boys (Kennedy, 2016), Peralta positions
himself right at the centre of modern skateboarding folklore.
132 P. O’Connor

This is significant not simply as an egotistical act—Peralta really was in

the midst of some very formative moments in skateboarding—but
because it highlights that film is a powerful way in which the origins and
icons of skateboarding have been reified.
The legacy of Animal Chin is indisputable and in many ways the video
has served as prescient. In 2016, the Animal Chin skate ramp was recon-
structed at Woodward West skate camp, 30 years after its initial construc-
tion. The original Bones Brigade members, then in their late forties and
early fifties, reunited to skate the ramp again. Remarkably they were able
to perform many of the same tricks that appeared in the 1987 video, and
were able to replicate the synchronised four-person invert that included
Steve Caballero, Tony Hawk, Mike McGill, and Lance Mountain (see
also O’Connor, 2017, pp. 1–2). Speaking in 2016, Tony Hawk states
that the story was ‘obviously based on the search for fun,’ and Steve
Caballero confesses that ‘Chin is just like a mythical person to represent
fun. It’s been thirty years and we are still searching for him every day’
(Ride Channel, 2017). Thus, the arguably superficial notion promoted in
The Search for Animal Chin, about a lifelong search for fun, is trium-
phantly enacted in the demonstration of these middle-aged men still
searching for Chin. When the Animal Chin ramp was originally con-
structed in 1986, it was ahead of its time, incorporating design elements
such as a vertical spine, channels, and extensions on a large scale. The
ramp was only constructed for the video and after three days of filming it
was destroyed. Tony Hawk describes how this added to the enigma
of the film:

I understood the sense of exclusivity for the video, it would seem right that
it would be this crazy thing that we all got to skate and then no-one else
would get to try it. There was this mythological element to it. There has
been for thirty years. No one has rebuilt that ramp which is shocking to
me. (Ride Channel, 2017)

The resurrection of the Animal Chin ramp extends the mythology of

the original video. While the message of the video was about preserving
the essence of skateboarding, the return to the ramp and the video by the
original Bones Brigade members some three decades later shows that
 6 Video Journeys 133

skateboarding is something liberating and meaningful to adults approach-

ing their senior years. The YouTube videos that depict the 2016 return to
the Animal Chin ramp are touching, and somewhat inspirational. We
witness five middle-aged men recapturing their youth and sharing a pas-
sion that has guided them through their lives.

We Are Blood

In a variety of ways, We Are Blood is an exceptional film that strives to
push the boundaries of skateboard videos in a new direction. Much like
Animal Chin, this video takes the form of a road trip narrative, but its
scope is global, crossing five continents and including a legion of both
professional and non-professional skateboarders. We Are Blood is a timely
reflection of where skateboarding now is—globalised, multicultural, and
inclusive. The video employs a documentary format led by the narrative
of professional skateboarder Paul Rodriguez, who has an impressive
resume of both commercial and competitive success in the industry. We
also hear the narrative in Portuguese from Brazilian skateboarder Tiago
Lemos, from Brandon White, a deaf skateboarder who tags along for the
road trip, and on two occasions from women skateboarders. The message
presented by We Are Blood is explicit—skateboarders share a global frater-
nity; they are not simply practitioners of a sport, they are connected in
their passion, drive, and commitment to skateboarding. This is expressed
as both a brotherhood and as something ineffable, innate, and organic.
Directed by Ty Evans, a videographer recognised for his technical innova-
tion in video technology, the film is crisply produced and rendered in
high definition with tracking shots and drone footage of the highest cali-
bre. The video is also remarkable for its duration; at 90 minutes it is far
longer than most skateboard videos and takes a meandering path from
North America to Brazil, China, and then to a spectacular finale in the
futuristic cityscape of Dubai. Much like Animal Chin, the video sup-
plants the traditional finale of ‘the best’ skateboarding, for an extrava-
gant location.
The video begins with a car driving through downtown Los Angeles.
We see the towering skyscrapers and then the street life of the homeless
134 P. O’Connor

and marginal denizens of the city. Abruptly, the speeding car hits a skate-
boarder who momentarily rides into the street. The camera zooms in on
the fallen skateboarder as time slows on a drop of blood falling from his
wounded arm. We take a molecular journey into the drop of blood down
to the level of DNA. We then follow a group of skateboarders in a slow-
motion montage as they apply DIY techniques to transform a disused
warehouse into a skate spot. They emerge on the roof of the building and
hold their boards aloft to the sky as the video title is displayed in shiny
silver bold block lettering. As the camera returns to the street scene we
learn that the injured skateboarder is Paul Rodriguez, who provides a
voice-over to scenes of his recovery. He states that it is crazy what skate-
boarders put themselves through, and then clarifies that ‘we have to, it’s
in our blood, it’s in our DNA. Skateboarding is what drives us. It keeps
us moving forward. It’s our passion, our family, our life. It’s the common
bond that every skateboarder shares.’ Rodriguez goes on to explain that
while skateboarding is now a global phenomenon, it all began in Los
Angeles, at which point the first montage of skateboarding begins with
scenes across the city set to the high-energy Metallica song Battery.
Various professionals are depicted, Omar Salazar skates a ditch at a ­frantic
speed. We see him at the end of the run visibly elated and reporting to the
camera ‘that is exactly why skateboarding is the best.’ The next scene
shows a group of skateboarders purchasing a large recreational vehicle
(RV) off an elderly lady. They convert the inside of the vehicle, paint it,
and cover it with skateboard stickers. Rodriguez’s voice-over informs the
viewer that skateboarding is about moving, the ‘freedom of the road’; it is
the ‘journey not the destination.’ The skateboarders inside the RV travel
to Las Vegas and then San Francisco, and we see beautifully filmed vivid
scenes of skateboarding at each spot. At 16 minutes into the film we hear
Tiago Lemos as he celebrates the gift of skateboarding providing him
with the opportunity to see so much of the world. He casts his eye across
the desert apparently taking in the wonder of nature and the surrounding
mountains. The next voice-over tells us that skateboarders see the world
differently, that they care about the design of cities in a way that others
do not. We then travel to Barcelona, which is described as a ‘Mecca for
skateboarding’ and that people travel to from all over the world to skate
 6 Video Journeys 135

the ledges at Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). Next,

we travel to the hills of Barcelona as an excavator digs up a skatepark that
has been buried for 30 years, before the camera speeds away to New York.
In Manhattan we briefly follow Anthony Pappalardo, a former profes-
sional skateboarder, as he seeks out novel places to skate. He confesses
that skateboarding is ‘my sacred thing’ and that regardless of his status in
life, he will always skate.
At this juncture in the film we have travelled far and the peripatetic
nature of the production is firmly established. What follows over the next
hour is a series of several aphorisms delivered by Rodriguez. We learn that
skateboarding in China involves many challenges, such as several encoun-
ters with security guards and police. We hear that there is ‘always some-
one trying to stop us.’ Next, we encounter more adversity for skateboarders
as a brutal high-definition slam section plays out. The nomadic skate-
boarders visit the Skatopia commune, Brazil, and then, back in the USA,
veteran pro Jamie Thomas joins the road trip in the RV. Thomas reflects
on turning 40, and we learn that skateboarding is a symbol of ‘hope,’
‘inclusion,’ and ‘family.’ For the finale of the video the skateboarders are
transported to Dubai, where they are provided with access to some of the
most engaging architecture, taking in office plazas and futuristic
­skyscrapers. This part of the video is also an advertisement for the Dubai
tourist industry. Part of the funding for We Are Blood was provided by
XDubai, a lifestyle sports company promoting various sports events and
the city itself. We witness beautiful panoramic shots of Dubai and see our
touring skaters skydiving and driving dune buggies in the desert. The
concluding scene in Dubai depicts the skaters performing tricks on a
bench positioned on the helipad of the iconic Burj Al Arab hotel. As the
film draws to a close we are back in Los Angeles as hundreds of skate-
boarders take to the streets and the bonds shared between all skateboard-
ers are confirmed once more.
We Are Blood is by all accounts an epic skateboard video that is dis-
tinctly ambitious. It employs state-of-the-art technical production and
innovative filming, it is global in its focus, and it also strives to
­communicate a message about skateboarding, its culture, and above all
else its community. Ty Evans describes the film as a production about
136 P. O’Connor

travelling the world, ‘showing the brotherhood,’ and ‘sharing this love for
skating’ (Eisenhour, 2015, p. 109). For Paul Rodriguez the meaning of
the film is arguably even deeper; he states that

[i]t’s addressing what it is that unites us. It’s hard to even put into words,
but what is it that keeps us coming back for more? Why did I start doing
this when I was 12 and now, here I am at 30 still just as in love with it?
What is it that makes me able to go to Brazil and meet a kid from a favela
who loves it just as much? You don’t even have to speak the same language,
and it may be someone that without skateboarding you would probably
never even be meeting each other but through this common bond you end
up clicking with that person, all because of skateboarding. (Eisenhour,
2015, p. 114)

There is much in this quote that is open to critique. Certainly, the

notions of multicultural exchange and mobility overlook the profound
power differential between Rodriguez, a Nike-endorsed professional, and
a street kid in Rio. However, it is precisely this buoyant optimism and the
pure joy of skateboarding that skate videos seek to capture. Just as Animal
Chin before it, We Are Blood is a reflection of the current state of skate-
boarding, its personalities, styles, values, and the media technology
deployed to harness and document its culture. Both videos can be seen as
synecdoche for the broader world of skateboarding, demonstrating inno-
vation and a restless desire for progress and exploration. I believe both
videos toy with spiritual and religious components and inform us how
skateboarding can be understood as a spiritual practice and also a nascent
twenty–first-century lifestyle religion. The most distinct examples of this
conform to communitas, transcendence, and the spiritual quest.

Communitas
Communitas is a Latin word that describes an unstructured community,
or, in the purest sense, the ideal egalitarian mode of community. The
concept of communitas has been developed in academic work on the
ritual process by Victor Turner (1977). He has argued that rituals include
a liminal moment in which a feeling of community arises, not out of
 6 Video Journeys 137

ordered structure, but out of a transient feeling that elides social position
and amplifies a shared commonality. This is as relevant in the rites of pas-
sage performed by a pre-industrial tribal community as in the charismatic
praise observed in a church congregation or mass prayers performed by
pilgrims on hajj in Mecca. Ostwalt departs from Turner’s narrow formu-
lation of the concept and provides an exploration of the value of com-
munitas in secular culture. He understands communitas as intense
feelings of communal solidarity, purpose, and equality. Significantly he
identifies that there is a more general malaise in modern North American
society that believes authentic community to be disappearing, or even
absent. Lifestyles that provide access to communitas are thus increasingly
appealing as they promise inclusion, equity, and validation (Ostwalt,
2012, p. 206). Edith Turner (2012, p. 2) argues that ‘communitas is a
group’s pleasure in sharing common experiences with one’s fellows’ and
that this ‘may come into existence anywhere.’ Accordingly, it is commu-
nitas that provides part of the attraction to lifestyle religion. Shared social
context creates a forum for people to relate in expressive and sincere ways
to each other, while not necessarily demanding their adherence to a set of
rules and commitments that may be seen as restrictive, compromising
their freedom, individuality, and ethics.
My first level of analysis argues that both of these videos provide a
powerful sense of communitas. It is observed on screen in the authentic
joys, triumphs, and failures of the depicted skateboarders. In Animal
Chin we are voyeurs as the Bones Brigade travel in search of Chin, but we
partake in their fun. Throughout the video we see the team riding
together, sharing jokes, and celebrating their triumphs with one another.
Along their journey they encounter friends who provide them with moti-
vation and help as they continue on their quest. The final ramp sequence
provides a celebration of their journey and even the novice comes to
understand that these individuals are not athletes in the traditional sense
of the word—they are simply immersed in playful exploration. Thus,
community is on display and equality is tacit but self-evident. Each of the
Bones Brigade has a different personality, yet they are not competing
with other skateboarders, they are in unison. We are thus pulled into
their world and partake in these experiences. Much is scripted, but the
skateboarding, even when planned, is spontaneous and connects the
138 P. O’Connor

viewer with something larger than what they see, the feeling of skate-
boarding. In We Are Blood none of these themes is subtle; the voice-over
from Paul Rodriguez instructs us on the fraternity of skateboarding. In
describing the bond as innate, within our blood and DNA, communitas
becomes unquestionable. In exploring how non-skateboarders would
respond to We Are Blood, I showed the video to a mixed group of liberal
arts undergraduates in my Value of Sports class at Lingnan University. I
asked 22 students to write down some of the themes and symbolism that
they observed as significant in the video. I performed a content analysis
of the responses which indicated that they understood the most salient
themes communicated as ‘skateboarding as life,’ ‘skateboarding as global,’
and ‘skateboarding as community.’ By promoting the kinship of skate-
boarding as a global condition We Are Blood provides a powerful expres-
sion of communitas in skateboarding. While many elements of the video
detailed some arcane skateboarding practices, all of my students identi-
fied the message of the film as an expression of the powerful and visceral
identity of skateboarders tied to a community of global reach. This in
turns leads us to question, as Rodriguez does earlier, how this feeling
could derive from something so basic. How are these feelings conjured
simply through the practice of skateboarding? We are left recognising the
communitas and also experiencing something of the ineffable, what
Turner would recognise as a liminal state.
For Victor Turner (1977, p. 112) communitas is a quality observed in
alternative lifestyles such as the beat generation and the hippies. These
lifestyles demonstrate their own community and importantly occupy a
liminal positioning, even a ‘lowly’ status in society. In part, by rejecting
social status, shunning fashion, and enduring hardships, Turner argues
that we are transported to an in-between state that provides the necessary
disjuncture for communitas. The skateboard videos I address, and univer-
sally all others, focus on liminal states and provide countless demonstra-
tions of ‘lowly’ moments as skateboarders endure pain, falling, cutting,
grazing themselves, bleeding, and even breaking bones. The ritual humil-
iation of the slam section provides a lesson. It at once informs us of the
hardiness of the skateboarders, their ability to endure pain, and their
commitment to their craft. It also demonstrates that this humiliation is
 6 Video Journeys 139

temporary, something that can be endured and even relished because it is

not permanent. This is emphasised in the editing of skateboard videos
where numerous slams of a skateboarder attempting a trick are often
shown before the final landing is revealed. Inevitably the pain has been
forgotten and the skateboarder is shown vindicated, elated, and celebrat-
ing with friends. This connects to Turner’s discussion of communitas dur-
ing the Hindu festival of Holi (1977, pp. 185–188). At this time, social
order becomes suspended and lowly caste members debase those of higher
castes in jovial festivity. In both humiliation and pain, Turner identifies
that individuals can at once be elevated into a disembodied community
and in the process experience forms of ecstasy. Thus, through communi-
tas a door to transcendence is opened.
Edith Turner (2012, p. 15) pursues these ideas further and broaches
the issue of inauthentic communitas. Here, attempts to create communi-
tas are flawed when they become structured, intentional efforts to create
a feeling rather than expressive moments of affective sharing. While the
videos are planned and organised in often meticulous detail, they are still
able to conjure feelings of communitas. How? Firstly, both of the videos,
and I might argue more broadly the canon of skateboard media, capture
the spontaneity of skateboarding. Even when a particular manoeuvre is
planned in advance, its performance is always in some way richly com-
municative of the risk involved, and the style and personality of the skate-
boarder. At a deeper level the physical expression relates to the shared
knowledge and recognition of the social symbol of the body, a materiality
that we all embody and share. To many skateboarders, competitions, par-
ticularly the high-skilled and high-stakes SLS tour, are unable to elicit
such excitement and communitas, being deliberately structured and pre-
mised on points and an ultimate winner. Such hierarchy actively works
against communitas, which is about equality and connection and is
­similarly almost entirely absent from the message and tone of the two
videos discussed earlier. Secondly, communitas works because these vid-
eos are shared with friends, they are often watched together, and certainly
form the context of much discussion. They become part of the corre-
sponding culture of skateboarding, a currency by which skateboarders
­communicate and share experiences with one another. Videos provide a
140 P. O’Connor

journey for skateboarders, connecting them with community, culture,

and heritage. This is a point that I return to in the next chapter, and
which echoes throughout this section of the book on performance.

Transcendence
The notion of transcendence relates to other-worldly or physical states. It
is associated with spirituality, religious experience, enlightenment, near-
death experiences, recreational drug use, physical pleasure, and the natu-
ral highs of physical play and endurance. In religious studies the notion
of transcendence is often associated with Rudolph Otto who speaks of
the experience of the numinous or holy as producing profound effects on
individuals, as transcendental, frightening, and expansive. We may simi-
larly consider that the medium of film is an exercise in transcendence.
Great care and expense go into crafting an experience for moviegoers that
may allow them to abscond from their everyday lives and experience and
immerse themselves in wonder, fear, bewilderment, and awe in a cascade
of audiovisual narrative. In much the same way the skateboard videos I
address present stories of wonder while detailing impressive and ground-
breaking feats of physical innovation. Borden notes that great investment
went into the production of Animal Chin that included mobile cameras
and aerial photography from helicopters. This, he argues, along with the
formidable ramp that was built for the video, was part of the spectaculari-
sation of skateboarding that the film cautions about (Borden, 2019,
p. 132). Indeed, Borden is correct, while the message is the simple fun of
skateboarding, it is demonstrated in a formidable and expensive way.
However, skateboard videographers have a challenging task; what they
seek to capture is exhilarating and dangerous, and their audience are
practitioners. Thus, their films must communicate not simply the com-
munity and the manoeuvres, but also some of the excitement, elation,
and risk involved. Skateboarding videos are therefore exercises not only in
cultural authenticity but also in transcendence.
One way to frame this is through the sociology of voluntary risk-tak-
ing, a concept termed edgework by Stephen Lyng (1990, 2005).
Edgework, like communitas, is about another liminal space that is
 6 Video Journeys 141

encountered between control and chaos. Typically, edgeworkers perform

risky activities, but demonstrate considerable skill and understanding
about both their abilities and the tools at their disposal. Part of the attrac-
tion is that it provides an escape. The negotiation of danger can become
an empowering experience as individuals gain some control over both the
alienation of everyday banality and the ubiquitous nature of contempo-
rary risks (Miller, 2005, p. 154). Ostwalt (2012, p. 223) states that ‘it
should be no surprise that faith communities center on high-risk activi-
ties and the attendant feeling of transcendence that survival of such activ-
ities bring[s].’ While edgework holds great potential for community
building, it has also been framed as part of the conceptual apparatus of
neoliberal self-sufficient meritocracy. Most importantly, edgework can
also be understood as a path to self-discovery. In asking what the value of
dangerous sport is, Russell (2005) distinguishes self-affirmation as key
and notes that dangerous sports provide ‘ways of transcending the bound-
aries imposed on us by ordinary life’ (Russell, 2005, p. 14). This is further
explored in Thorpe’s (2011) analysis of snowboarding and bodily affect.
Some snowboarding practices are shown to conform to the maxims of
edgework, courting chaos and death as practitioners negotiate big
­mountainboarding and backcountry routes. But entwined with these
pursuits are the exhilarating sensations of being present in the moment
and intensely focused. The importance of embodied knowledge and focus
connects edgework to Csikszentmihalyi’s (1975) concept of flow where
temporal states are disrupted and sensations are heightened. Such sensa-
tions are sometimes described in spiritual terms. Self-styled Indie
Spiritualist Chris Grosso (2014, pp. 9–10) describes a moment of tran-
scendence as a spectator at a Van Halen concert. Immersed in a concen-
trated state during a 15-minute guitar solo, Grosso describes the
experience of Samadhi, a Sanskrit term for a state of meditative concen-
tration akin to the notion of flow.
I argue that these skateboard videos, and countless others, in their
efforts to provide an authentic representation of skateboard culture, have
a transcendental effect on some of their viewers. While I believe the
fusion of exhilarating skateboarding, music, and the engaging filming is
transformative in itself, the fact that this is coupled with layers of com-
munitas makes it all the more significant and transcendental. Thus, in my
142 P. O’Connor

interviews with middle-aged skateboarders I was reminded time and time

again of the importance of particular skateboard videos, be they Blind’s
Video Days or Alien Workshop’s Photosynthesis. These videos clearly con-
veyed emotional significance to my participants. The significance of these
videos also proceeds in another direction, that of personal biography, or
more appropriately the quest, or journey of life.

Ritual Quest
Aptly, the conclusion to this chapter returns to the performance of the
journey. This is an important frame by which we can understand skate-
boarding, both in its micro practice of rolling and the macro global
movement of skateboarders seeking out new terrain in cities throughout
the world. The topics of this chapter, Animal Chin and We Are Blood, are
both stories about journeys, but they are also expressive in being tales
about the quest of life, learning about ourselves, our drives, and our joys.
They speak of community and transcendence and show that the perfor-
mance of skateboarding can be part of a larger journey in life. In a ­semiotic
analysis, the signs and symbols of these skateboard videos represent in a
microcosm a series of elements that reflect some of the core values of
skateboarders. The importance of place, of community, and perseverance
in the face of adversity are all strikingly evident.
Indeed, all of skateboarding is a journey, even if this is to the corner
store at the end of your road. A popular trope in skateboard videos are the
happenchance encounters with people who occupy the same space as
skateboarders. Often this will include some marginal characters, home-
less people, drug addicts, or revellers returning home after a night on the
town. This sentiment is evident in Animal Chin as a host of unusual (but
scripted) characters are encountered. Journeying in skateboarding pro-
vides a means of social encounter at a tangent from more quotidian urban
exchanges. The skateboard frequently acts as a third person in encoun-
ters, a means for discussion and communication, an ice-breaking device
like no other.
In terms of religious journeying, skateboarding has provided access to
cultures and communities for legions of elite and mobile skateboarders
 6 Video Journeys 143

across the world. This is beautifully depicted in the globe-trotting encoun-

ters of Patrik Wallner, who has travelled extensively on skateboard trips
across Europe and Asia for more than a decade. Wallner has documented
professional skateboarders in North Korea, Bhutan, and Yemen. His
book Visualtraveling is compiled from journeys to 101 nations and
includes some remarkable images of faith and religious festivals. One of
Wallner’s trips to India in 2013 coincided with the Maha Kumbha Mela
festival, which occurs once every 144 years and is an augmented version
of the already enormous Kumbha Mela pilgrimage held every 12 years
(Wallner, 2018, p. 107). A short documentary of the event combines
evocative footage of skateboarding throughout India juxtaposed with
scenes from the festival. Professional skateboarders Sean Malto, Sebo
Walker, Mark Suicu, and Nestor Judkins are shown navigating their cul-
ture shock in India while also drawing crowds through their spectacular
skateboarding. Their skateboards appear to be as essential to their journey
as their passports—these simple tools provide them with access to people
and places and are able to transcend the boundaries of language and cul-
tural difference. The journeying skateboarder in such accounts is close to
the globe-trotting snowboarder (Thorpe, 2014) and the North American
surfer (Laderman, 2014). Yet I argue that skateboarders in their journeys
both global and local are humbled by the fact that their destinations are
typically the streets where everyday folk meander and toil. I read the
symbolism of the skateboard journey in religious terms to be cosmopoli-
tan, ecumenical, and multifaith. These accounts may be suggesting that
the skateboard is at times a vehicle to learn about others and in the pro-
cess oneself.
A key focus of this discussion has been the importance of media in
capturing and communicating these elements of skateboard culture.
Skateboard videos more generally are cherished because they are seen to
represent the authenticity of the culture, providing a reflection of the
practices and challenges that colour the lives of skateboarders. These
video journeys then become text for skateboarders, something to share
with others, and in the process build and extend their community. The
importance of media for lifestyle religion is distinct. This relates to the
arguments of both Thorpe (2014) and Taylor (2007), who recognise new
and increasing spiritual practices in lifestyle sports as connected to media.
144 P. O’Connor

The argument here, that media is central in the way in which skateboard-
ers perform religion, is further developed in the following chapter explor-
ing pilgrimage.

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 7
Pilgrimage Spots

In 2017, Bayer the German multinational pharmaceutical company

launched a marketing campaign in Los Angeles focused on leaps of inno-
vation. At the Bayer event guests mingled around a specially designed
and constructed set of steps and drank cocktails. These steps led to
nowhere, a functional piece of architecture removed, it would seem, from
its context and erected to be part of a promotional gaze. The steps were
designed by Nina Freedman of Dreamland Creative Projects architecture
and design labs. The novel design included a hollowed-out underside
built into the steps. This became a room with relaxed lighting and cush-
ions where guests could mingle and lounge. In the evening, a light screen
built into the steps projected the promotional video, transforming the set
of steps into a giant video screen (see Fig. 7.1). The website for the Bayer
Leaps project also includes inspirational text and crypto-religious quotes
(Bayer, 2017).
The instillation was a reproduction of a set of 25 steps, the exact size
and dimensions of those at the Cité des Congrès in the French city of
Lyon. These steps are a famous location in skateboarding known as the
‘Lyon 25’ that graced the cover of the May 2016 issue of Thrasher
magazine depicting Aaron ‘Jaws’ Homoki as he became the first skate-

© The Author(s) 2020 147

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_7
148 P. O’Connor

Fig. 7.1 Bayer Leaps stairs photo Nina Freedman

boarder to ollie down the steps and ride away. Using the motif of a leap
of faith Bayer centred its marketing campaign on the visually dramatic
leap made by Jaws. In truth, Jaws was performing a pilgrimage of sorts in
attempting this trick, making both a journey to a notorious spot and
offering homage to an older skateboarder. The origins of the Bayer cam-
paign can be traced to feats of the talented Swedish skater Ali Boulala.
His attempts to jump down the steps were famously captured in the Flip
video Sorry released in 2002. The fact that Boulala was never entirely suc-
cessful is made all the more tragic by events that followed. In 2007,
Boulala was involved in a motorcycle accident that killed his friend and
fellow professional skateboarder Shane Cross. He spent four months in a
coma and then four years in prison for being the inebriated culpable
driver of the motorcycle. The legacy of Boulala is also captured and
acknowledged by Bayer in their promotional video in which both skate-
boarders are interviewed (Leaps by Bayer, 2017). Ironically, in the months
before Bayer began their promotional campaign the steps at Lyon had
become skateproofed with the introduction of defensive architecture to
obstruct skateboard wheels (@aaronjawshomoki, 2017).
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 149

I use the Lyon 25 as an introduction to the theme of pilgrimage spots

because it captures and compounds a variety of key issues. Mundane
urban sites across the globe have become sacred to skateboarders. The
notoriety of these sites is fuelled by media reproduction. The meaning
derived from the media is often rich and associated with the biographies
of skateboarders and also the history of the sites or ‘spots’ depicted. The
popularity of skateboarding at the end of the second decade of the twenty-­
first century has resulted in the recognition and re-articulation of some of
these sacred urban spots beyond the world of skateboarding. Yet, despite
this notoriety, many meaningful locations are off limits to skateboarders,
locations where their visits may be obstructed by deliberately hostile
architectural features, security guards, laws, and fines.
The foundation for this discussion is the importance of space, which
has been a central motif in much of the existing research on skateboard-
ing. These works have tended to focus on how architecture is appropri-
ated, reimagined, and even constructed for the purpose of skateboarding
(Beal, 2013a; Blayney, 2014; Borden, 2001, 2019; Howell, 2005).
Gregory Snyder explores the roots of urban sociology and considers how
skateboarders are preforming urban theatre. He argues that, largely
through subcultural media, skateboarders have a ‘quasi spiritual’ relation-
ship with mundane urban space and that they experience a ‘strong emo-
tional attachment’ to places which they may never visit (2017, p. 197).
Sean Wilsey (2014, p. 113) similarly articulates that skateboarders have
an urban spiritual purpose providing love to unloved places, ‘emotion to
emotionless terrain.’ I want to contribute to this discussion by exploring
the idea of urban space as not just playful, but emotional, and in some
cases even spiritual. I argue that skateboard spots can also be understood
as pilgrimage spots—locations in which meaning is invested and com-
munitas is achieved. Sets of steps in a San Francisco office plaza, brick
banks under the Brooklyn Bridge, and a handrail at a Hollywood school
can be sacred to skateboarders in a similar way that ‘Old Trafford’ can be
sacred to football fans. These places become meaningful through the
actions of individuals and the media in which they are reproduced.
Importantly, many of these sites are found spaces, but that does not mean
that constructed space is not also important. Thrasher’s book on Epic
Spots (Burnett, Phelps, Henry, & Creagan, 2008) includes numerous
150 P. O’Connor

skateparks, sites constructed specifically for skateboarding. The book also

documents the importance of DIY spots, places skateboarders have
located, designed, and constructed themselves, almost always without
permission. I argue towards the end of this chapter that skateparks are
devotional monuments to urban space. Skateparks are thus hybrid enti-
ties that lovingly replicate swimming pools, steps, and handrails for ludic
worship. However, I begin by situating skateboard spots in a discussion
of sacred space and pilgrimage. I then proceed to unpack examples that
demonstrate how sites in California, and then beyond, have become pil-
grimage spots for skateboarders. While the focus here is on place, I under-
line throughout that it is performance that makes all of these locations
meaningful.

Sacred Spots
The performance of pilgrimage must be framed through our polythetic
understanding of religion. It relates to Geertz’s qualification that religion
includes factual motivation that conjures strong feelings in individuals,
communities, and thus cultures. Place can be understood as fact, a mate-
rial location that can be visited, and thus a physical entrepôt to the divine.
Sites which are considered important are imbued with both feelings and
thus motivation. I connect Pilgrimage to a family of ideas about the
power of religious feeling, what Otto (1959) would refer to as mysterium
tremendum, and in turn the manifestation of the sacred, which Eliade
(1963) describes as hierophany. Both Jaws and Boulala enacted feats that
dramatised the values of skateboarding and Bayer recognised the univer-
sal quality of these actions in terms of a spiritual performance of human
potential and creativity. Places are thought to be important because they
are where intense, holy, and sacred things occurred. For Mircea Eliade the
symbolic value of place acts as an anchor between the sacred and the
profane. His idea of the Axis Mundi suggests that a sacred place symbol-
ises a central pillar in which the ‘homogeneity of space’ is disturbed
(Eliade, 1959, p. 37). He elaborates that such important sites can be
understood as an orientation, a point to which attention is turned and
focused. Holy sites are seen to be locations that represent creation, and in
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 151

returning to these sites in the rhythmic ritual of pilgrimage we are recon-

necting the past and the present and instigating creation anew. While
Eliade’s ideas have been criticised, especially in the contradiction that
holy sites are at once multiple and also essentialised as the centre of cre-
ation, his sensitivity to the importance of place is influential.
Throughout this chapter I discuss pilgrimage but collapse the distinc-
tion between secular and religious understandings of the act. Paraphrasing
Geertz (1973, p. 90), my argument is that for some skateboarders places
that we might recognise as banal functional urban terrain is deeply mean-
ingful and sacred. Some enact pilgrimages to these sites ‘clothing’ their
conceptions of the ‘moods and motivations’ they derive from skateboard-
ing in an ‘aura of factuality.’ That is to say, these places are ‘really’ real to
these individuals, representing deeply held truths and a locus in which
they have been enacted. This engagement in sacred spots is at its essence
a field of communication and communitas and builds on our discussion
of video journeys in the previous chapter. Indeed, the motivations for
many skateboard pilgrimages come from an engagement with skateboard
media. However, the significance of sites of pilgrimage extends deep into
human history and our initial ties to place. Lewis Mumford (1961) sug-
gests that the very first cities were actually cities of the dead. These were
ceremonial places where loved ones were given a permanent resting place
which, in turn, became sites of significance motivating ritualised journeys
of return and eventually human settlement in the vicinity of these monu-
ments to the dead. Mecca has become synonymous with sites of pilgrim-
age; the history of the city of Mecca provides an insight into a location
where pilgrimage was entwined with trade and sustenance from the
Zamzam well, even in the pre-Islamic phase (Crone, 1987). Thus, human
activity precludes the development of many everyday sites into sacred
places. The European pilgrimages of the thirteenth century and the
‘Grand Tour’ in the seventeenth century are presented by Urry (2001) as
examples of noble and enriching pursuits that over the centuries departed
from religious pilgrimage and became tourism. Indeed, in modern times
the line between pilgrimage and tourism is increasingly blurred
(Margry, 2008).
This is a dynamic which mirrors the way churches have become tourist
attractions (e.g. the Sistine Chapel) and the development of ‘Dark
152 P. O’Connor

Tourism,’ where morbid sites such as the Auschwitz concentration camp

or the ‘Killing Fields’ of Cambodia further complicate our understanding
of both pilgrimage and sacred places. Similarly, Gammon (2004, p. 34)
suggests that pilgrimage exists on a hypothetical continuum where piety
is at one pole and the secular tourist is at the other. He highlights that
even for pilgrims who journey for expressly religious purposes, travel may
include other priorities. This can be demonstrated in various ways:
Mitchell (2016), for example, discusses gay sex tourism, pilgrimage, and
racial nostalgia in Brazil. Here, alike some examples of skateboarding,
pilgrimage is part of a repertoire of pleasure, consumption, commerciali-
sation, and tourism. In a further connection to Mitchell, it may also be
errant to think of skateboard pilgrimages as devoid of sexual adventure in
unfamiliar places, and homosocial desire. Jenkem Magazine has joked that
the entire skateboard industry is built on ‘guys having crushes on guys’ (@
jenkemmag, 2017). The documentary on Skatopia provides insight to the
sexual adventures of Brewce Martin where the Mecca of Skatopia draws in
skateboarders, musicians, and strippers alike (House & Powers, 2010).
Countless articles in Thrasher magazine detail tours to important locations
juxtaposed with pictures of attractive nubile local women, be this in Cuba,
Japan, or London. Even at a competition in Oceanside California the
writer confesses ‘I’m in it for the boobs’ (Peterson, 2001, p. 78).
Essentialising activities as sacred or profane is perhaps an unhelpful start-
ing point. In Palmer and Siegler’s (2017) anthropology of Daoist pilgrims
in China the authenticity of spirituality is constantly tested by languid
monks hamstrung by bureaucracy, many with a penchant for either power
or sex, and wealthy American visitors consuming expensive tours and
secluding themselves in mountain caves fasting and drinking their own
urine. Thus, the notion of pilgrimage may be deeply entangled and mud-
died with profane activities and is ambiguous at best.
Secular pilgrimage is, however, a term that is often associated with
sporting activities and their fans. An example can be found in Cusack and
Digance’s (2009) exploration of the annual Melbourne Cup horserace.
They make a distinction regarding the social transformations which have
seen commercial events ‘sacralised’ and religious places ‘secularised’ as
little more than tourist attractions. Cusack and Digance tie their analysis
to spiritual transformations and a contemporary departure from forms of
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 153

organised religion. This extends to a body of work on the sociology of

religion which observes a greater emphasis on identity construction and
individuality, a theme that becomes our focus in the closing chapter of
this book. Secular pilgrimages emerge as a way to share a communal
experience of place made meaningful through historic expression. Cusack
and Digance, like Mitchell, and Palmer and Siegler earlier, argue that
contemporary pilgrimages connect to consumerist rituals and identity
construction.
Here, there is arguably much material that can relate to lifestyle sports
where the importance of mobility (Laderman, 2014; Thorpe, 2014) has
been discussed at length. Place is sometimes secondary to the nomadic
lifestyle of exploration and endless journeying for the perfect spot. Thorpe
(2014, p. 136), for example, highlights how each lifestyle sport has a list
of destinations made iconic through media coverage and personal stories.
Place is important to the surfer, snowboarder, and skateboarder but in
very different ways. Natural settings dominate the two former activities,
while constructed and found space is important to the latter. Similarly,
snowboarding and surfing can be regarded as middle-class pursuits in
contrast to skateboarding, which although often imagined as a white and
middle-class activity, is in no way essentialised by these dynamics (Thorpe,
2014; Wheaton, 2013). All of these activities are connected by the lack of
importance they have with regard to stadiums and sports grounds which
have tended to dominate discussions of sports pilgrimage (Gaffney &
Bale, 2004; Gammon, 2004).
Academic work on skateboarding has identified the importance of
place in skateboarding (Borden, 2001; Woolley, Hazelwood, & Simkins,
2011; Yochim, 2010) yet has stopped short of making a distinct connec-
tion to its emotional importance and the notion of pilgrimage. However,
Beal (2013b) provides an astute explanation of both the importance of
place and a list of iconic spots in skateboard culture. She highlights that
skateboarders are invested in finding fresh places and creatively adapting
sites for new uses. Yet this search also generates a wealth of significant
places that stand out, that are revisited, and memorialised. Through acts
of skateboarding, spots gain notoriety locally, and through media cover-
age and association with personalities they gain international recognition
and subcultural meaning. Beal states that ‘their iconic status is more
154 P. O’Connor

about what the spot symbolizes than whether it is well designed. The sites
need to embody the ideals of skateboarding: creativity, freedom, and do-­
it-­yourself (DIY) ethos’ (Beal, 2013a). While Beal does not frame these
spots as pertaining to pilgrimage, she identifies them as being iconic pre-
cisely because they communicate important ideals and values about
skateboarding.

An Enhanced Experience of Space

Evident in the subcultural media of skateboarding, and in various aca-
demic works, is the disposition that skateboarders are privy to some
essential esoteric knowledge. This reveals itself in various ways, an aloof
almost aristocratic attitude, an artistic and style-conscious modus ope-
randi. In one skateboarding blog the writer refers to non-skateboarders as
muggles (Neverwas, 2018). This term for non-magic folk from the Harry
Potter series of J. K. Rowling highlights that skateboarders consider
themselves as having an ‘enhanced experience’ of reality (Borden, 2019,
p. 211), qualitatively different from other people. This in part may be due
to the way skateboarders see ludic possibilities everywhere. Commenting
on an art exhibition, Newman (2015, p. 129) notes that the skateboard
artist ‘shows us that the bleak rationalism of the urban environment can
be resisted, its cultural signifiers reclaimed to create a more fulfilling set
of daily encounters.’ The notion that skateboarding is a tool in creating a
more fulfilling life is significant here. It underlines how place becomes
meaningful and even sacred.
We can confidently assert that skateboarders experience space differ-
ently from other athletes. Borden’s (2001) groundbreaking analysis of
skateboarding applies the spatial theory of Henri Lefebvre and shows that
skateboarders create places of meaning that they derive from functional
street architecture. One distinct example is the handrail that is designed
for support and safety as one traverses down steps; for the skateboarder it
is transformed into an item of dangerous spectacle to be slid and grinded
upon with acute balance and timing. Not all skateboarding occurs in the
street; stadiums and skateparks are increasingly prominent (Lombard,
2010; Thorpe & Wheaton, 2017), some even achieving heritage status
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 155

(Brown, 2014). However, it is the case that many important places in

skateboarding are overlooked, banal, functional architecture. Borden
(2001, pp. 224–225) reproduces a two-page spread from a skateboard
magazine that shows only curbs, drain covers, and tarmac with poetic
prose overlaid. Similarly a book on DIY skatespots constructed through-
out the world shows virtually no skateboarding, only the vacant spaces of
concrete transitions and curbs (Gilligan, 2014).
While previously videos distributed on VHS and magazines were cen-
tral in communicating space, now social media reinforces this impor-
tance. During the writing of this chapter I observed Instagram clips of the
latest tricks at Hollywood High, El Toro, or Barcelona’s MACBA, and
also references to historic skateboard videos, and the past achievements of
professional skateboarders. These discussions, or the Instagram clips, then
became the subject of conversations amongst skateboarders. One clip, for
example, a switch backside tail slide by Tiago Lemos in June 2017, first
appeared on Instagram (@brian_panebianco, 2017) but was shared
throughout the skateboard media world, appearing in Thrasher (Thrasher
Magazine, 2017), The Berrics (2017) and blogs (Boil the Ocean, 2017)
and many more locations. One evening I was having a meal with four
other skateboarders and when someone mentioned Tiago Lemos, every-
one acknowledged the trick he had performed, commenting on either the
height, the fact it was switch, or the location. Each had witnessed the trick
individually on social media, and each acknowledged the trick without
explaining it, consolidating their shared knowledge, identity, and status as
skateboarders. While revising this chapter I saw a Facebook comment on
a new skatepark design suggesting that one feature was ‘a bit Tiago Lemos,’
meaning that it was too high for most mere mortals. This is a key example
of what Yochim (2010) describes as the corresponding culture of skate-
boarding, a tie between media, tricks, people, and place.

Place: Mythic California

In Chap. 3, I foregrounded the way an origin myth had emerged that
placed California at the centre of skateboarding folklore. Similarly,
California is home to some of the most iconic skateboarding terrains in
156 P. O’Connor

the world. Skateboard media that has documented skateboarding in

California has also been instrumental in presenting some typical
Californian landscapes as staples in skateboarding. This is apparent in the
early days of pool skateboarding, in which empty kidney-shaped swim-
ming pools were used by skateboarders. This classic Californian-style
pool has become a hybrid part of skateparks around the world, replete
with pool coping and tiled edges (Glenney & O’Connor, 2019).
Skatepark bowls are in some ways monuments to Californian pools. Just
as significant is the elevation of some unremarkable urban locations to
iconic status both within skateboarding and beyond. Skateboarders across
the globe know of a set of four steps in San Francisco referred to as
‘Wallenberg,’ a set of 12 and 15 steps in a Los Angeles high school as
‘Hollywood High,’ and a grass bank at another school called the ‘Carlsbad
Gap.’ A documentary was even made to pay homage to the Carlsbad Gap
after it was demolished as part of renovations to the school that housed it
(Just Skate, 2015). A scale model reproduction of the location was manu-
factured and marketed as a skateboarding toy (FingerSkateSelective,
2009; Snyder, 2017, pp. 202–205) and a digital rendering of it appeared
in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 computer game (Tonyhawkgames, 2016).
Similarly, homage was paid in the form of a farewell skateboard competi-
tion to the Clipper spot, a ledge at a San Francisco high school that was
scheduled for demolition. Videos of the event (Thrasher, 2015a, 2015b)
detail professional skateboarders doing tribute tricks and discussing the
historic events and personalities associated with the spot. This ties directly
to the sense of history that Gaffney and Bale (2004) describe in their
work on sensing the stadium. It also highlights the fact that even after
places have been destroyed, as in the case of the Carlsbad Gap, they
remain culturally significant. They are revisited, no longer in person, but
in videos, interviews, photographs, toys, and computer games. This rich
repertoire of media paves the way for new forms of pilgrimage, be it
video, digital, or even virtual. Skateboarders are deeply engaged in such
processes, revisiting not just the locations, but the documentation of per-
sonalities and tricks that made these places iconic. I argue that the emo-
tional investment skateboarders have in these places remakes them as
both more than banal urban architecture or even sporting locations and,
more significantly, holy sites.
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 157

Matt, a British graphic designer in his early forties, spoke of visiting

San Francisco on a business trip and seeking a hotel near the Embarcadero
Centre, a plaza made famous in numerous skateboard videos in the 1990s:

I was in San Francisco I deliberately chose a hotel in Embarcadero. You

know, my view, my room. I requested a room looking on to it. Most people
would think it’s weird, but it was like, you know, where else…? And espe-
cially because of ‘Questionable’, you know, that is where it all went down.
Mike Carroll, Rick Howard, everyone. … You know, that’s no different
from going to Brazil and seeing Christ the Redeemer. That has the same
impetus and relationship to me as it would to somebody else of a Christian
faith. (O’Connor, 2017)

Here, Matt speaks of a personal pilgrimage and draws his own com-
parisons to religion. He describes how evocative and consequential the
office plaza is to him. His testimony highlights both the importance of
place and the key individuals associated with it. His explanation empha-
sises that Embarcadero is important because of the legacy of Plan B’s
‘Questionable’ skateboard video. This triad (place, people, media) is also
emphasised by Andy, a 43-year-old Londoner who describes himself as a
skate tourist. He speaks of a recent road trip to California:

Venice Beach was like nirvana. The skate surf culture there is so revered.
You’re treated, dare I say, a little bit like royalty. If you’re on a board people
move out the way, cars stop, you skate through traffic. It’s just so engrained
and the weather is beautiful every day so you can just, you know, skate
every day. … Yes, I never experienced that sort of real culture where it was
just like a playground for boarding. You’ve got the strip down there and I
was skating past spots where I used to see Natas and Eric Dressen skate in
the videos. (O’Connor, 2017)

Just as videos communicate place, so too do photographs. In 1997,

professional skateboarder Jamie Thomas left his board sponsor Toy
Machine to ride for his own company, the newly established Zero. His
first advert for the new team was a photo sequence at Point Loma High
School in San Diego. It showcased a jump down an 18 foot drop aside a
flight of stairs with 27 steps. The advert includes the bold text ‘Leap of
158 P. O’Connor

Faith’ and the spot has subsequently been referred to by this name.
Ultimately Thomas fails to ride away from the jump snapping his board
on impact, but the sheer bravado of the attempt has made the location
iconic. The name of the spot has come to be significant partly because the
feat itself required courageous bravado summed up in the idiom ‘leap of
faith,’ but also through connection of the religious biography of Jamie
Thomas. Following the funeral of a friend in 2001, Thomas returned to
Christianity, which had been an important part of his upbringing. He has
subsequently been a committed and outspoken Christian, giving com-
munity talks and working with youth outreach programmes of various
churches (Haseltine, 2002; Thrasher Magazine, 2015). Thomas regularly
draws on religious imagery in his choice of skateboard graphics. These are
frequently images of a cross or crucifix, or passages from the bible. He is
also associated with struggle, originally being an outsider in the ‘cool’ of
early 1990s San Francisco street skateboarding, trekking his way to
California from Alabama. The journey Thomas recounts of travelling to
California conforms to the notion of pilgrimage as a physical and emo-
tional test. With little money Thomas and two friends made their way
west while passing through a skateboard competition in Texas, sleeping
in a skatepark, and, on eventually arriving in San Francisco, surviving by
eating left over pizza and sleeping in their car (The Nine Club, 2017).
The iconic status of the ‘Leap of Faith’ spot has been preserved by the
fact that nobody, not even Thomas, was able to accomplish the trick. In
2005 the spot was permanently blocked by the construction of a disabled
access elevator at the school (Wikipedia, 2017). The spot has, however,
been preserved with photographs, video footage, and digital rendering in
the ‘Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2’ video game (IGN, 2012).
The sacred association of the spot, fuelled by the original advert, has
been revealed to be a little misleading. Thomas recounts that the real
meaning of the ‘leap of faith’ was mostly connected to his new business
venture, leaving the successful brand Toy Machine to set up something
entirely new (The Nine Club, 2017). The spot is tied to the career and
identity of Jamie Thomas and in part seems to be a quest of human
potential, of faith in oneself, and of facing adversity even if not overcom-
ing it. These are similar values articulated by Bayer Leaps in their adop-
tion of the Lyon 25. Nevertheless, the example serves to highlight the
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 159

intimacy fostered with skateboarding spots and how the meanings these
places have can be layered with biographical, spiritual, and even com-
mercial significance.
In conversation with one skateboarder who has visited California and
many famous skateboard spots, I learned of the difficulty of gaining
access to some of these locations. For example, he described Wallenberg
as a dangerous place to skate because the local skateboarders do not like
tourists. He claimed that, if you go there you must be able to stand your
ground and prove through competent skateboarding that you are worthy
of visiting the spot. He mentioned that the best way to visit was to go
with a local. He also noted that it was common to encounter profes-
sional skateboarders at these sites; some would even sell their equipment
to skaters passing through (O’Connor, 2017). This same scenario is
observed in an episode of Rick McCrank’s Post Radical television show.
Sitting at Wallenberg, McCrank and Frank Gerwer encounter a skate
pilgrim who has travelled to the steps simply to take in the ambience.
McCrank asks the pilgrim if he considers Wallenberg a sacred place, to
which the pilgrim replies ‘Yes. In its own weird way’ (Craig, 2018;
O’Connor, 2018b).
Wallenberg can be challenging to access, with skateboarders having to
wait until the caretaker leaves for the day. The difficulty of gaining access
to spots like Wallenberg connects to Preston’s (1992) typology that pil-
grimage sites are often remote and hard to reach. This makes such trips
more complex; they may not be expensive to visit, unlike stadiums and
big sporting mega-events, but they may similarly be difficult to gain access
to. The need to work with local rules, the benefit of having a guide, the
need to perform rites at a specific time, and the commercial opportunism
encountered, all connect this account of Wallenberg to other pilgrimage
stories. During the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, or Hajj, Saudi rules
must be keenly observed: only Muslims can enter the holy city, pilgrims
are required to have a Hajj guide, rites must be performed on the appro-
priate days, and the city is full of paraphernalia to purchase and take home
(Bianchi, 2004). Just as a prayer mat purchased from Mecca might be
valued for its connection to place (despite being made in China) one
could argue that a set of wheels purchased from a professional at
Wallenberg could be a meaningful artefact to a visiting skateboarder
160 P. O’Connor

(O’Connor, 2017). Similarly, both examples of pilgrimage contain a

cachet of risk or danger. Hajj is fraught with risk; even within recent years,
disease, dehydration, fire, and even stampedes have been serious threats to
pilgrims. Accompanying these problems are social concerns, bureaucratic,
residential, travel, but also robbery and fraud. As such pilgrims must only
leave for Hajj after putting all domestic affairs in order, to also prepare for
the morbid possibility that they may not return. Skateboarders encounter
different risks, the most potent of all being injury, but perhaps also fines
and detainment by security guards and police. After having made a long
journey to a famous location, the last thing a skate pilgrim wants to do is
break a bone miles from home and perhaps in a different country. This is
not to make a false comparison between Wallenberg and Mecca, but to
highlight that both forms of pilgrimage include a range of sacred and
secular practices not focal on the place itself.
A further instance of the challenge of skateboard pilgrimages is the
sense of reality when confronted with the imperfections of an iconic spot.
Various people have mentioned to me that seeing famous locations in
person only gives them deeper respect for the professionals who have
skated there. Visiting an iconic spot can underline one’s own limits and
mere mortality. One of my informants described visiting Hollywood
High as daunting, not simply because of its legacy, but also because of its
size and difficulty to skate. This was also emphasised by Matt who spoke
of the notorious San Francisco spot, the Hubba Hideout.

It’s just cool to see the place in which those tricks occurred, or how big
some of those things were. So, you see like a big set of steps like Hubba,
then you know how difficult that stuff really is. (O’Connor, 2017)

The Hubba Hideout set of steps acquired its moniker from the street
slang for crack cocaine (Salo, 2011). The secluded design of the steps
meant that it was a popular place for illicit transactions. It was here that
people would score a ‘hubba,’ or small hit of crack, and often smoke ‘hid-
ing out’ in relative privacy. However, it is the architectural features of the
steps with sloped concrete ledges on either side that attract skateboarders
and on which they grind and slide. The influence of the spot is vast. In
skateboard vernacular, analogous sloped ledges have all come to be called
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 161

hubbas. Skatespots and skateparks around the world with concrete,

metal, or wooden sloped ledges are all called ‘hubbas.’ Indeed, interna-
tional competitions similarly use this appropriated street slang to describe
these now intentionally designed and constructed features. With the
growth in mainstream appeal of skateboarding the Hubba Hideout has
even been referenced in the New York Times in association with profes-
sional skateboarder Brian Anderson (Dougherty, 2016). Anderson’s per-
formance of a ‘frontside blunt slide’ on the hubba is reproduced in the
1996 skateboard video ‘Welcome to Hell’ and is sometimes described as
the trick that secured him sponsorship. The notoriety of the place has
been further heightened by the fact that Anderson has subsequently
become a cultural icon beyond skateboarding, being the first professional
skateboarder to come out as gay. Alike the Lyon 25, the Hubba Hideout
has made its way into popular culture and is linked not just to skate-
boarding, but to the biographies of those who made the spot famous
(O’Connor, 2017).
As important as place may well be, not all skateboarders have reverence
for iconic locations. Sarah, a 44-year-old Californian pool skater, con-
fessed that she did not feel a particular need to visit any iconic spot. She
stated that ‘there is no place that has been that built up in my mind or my
consciousness that I, like, need to go there.’ More important to her was
the journey, the process of travelling to spots with her friends, rather than
the fame of one location over another. She attributed this in part to her
somewhat blasé familiarity with California. As a woman skater she had
come to see that much of the skateboard culture in the area was far from
sacred and was in fact too male-centred and sexist. For Sarah the cultural
magnetism of skate culture in California was not potent and she ­confessed
to feeling a little excluded from the scene in comparison to other places
(O’Connor, 2017).
Emphasising the importance of video in skateboard placemaking and
building on the discussion in the previous chapter, the documentary ‘The
L.A. Boys’ (Kennedy, 2016) provides some powerful insights. This video
tells the story of four skateboarders who grew up in Los Angeles and were
featured in the 1989 skateboard video ‘Ban This’ (Peralta, 1989). The
skateboarders—Guy Mariano, Rudy Johnson, Gabriel Rodriguez, and
Paulo Diaz—all grew up skateboarding together, and back in 1989 Stacy
162 P. O’Connor

Peralta wanted to capture this fraternity in ‘Ban This.’ This was a savvy
move on Peralta’s part as skateboarding in the late 1980s had started to
shift, becoming far more focused on street skills and the innovation of
young pioneers. All four skateboarders went on to have careers as profes-
sional skateboarders and the documentary provides an emotional account
of the friends reuniting 25 years later at the locations at which they skated
in ‘Ban This.’ Now, as grown men we watch them recreate tricks they
performed as teenagers and in one incident they find a dent they made on
a metal grate that was captured in the filming of ‘Ban This’ a quarter of a
century earlier. In truth, the documentary appears to be rather bland; it
is simply a group of four revisiting some banal urban locations in Los
Angeles. But the magic that is conveyed relates to the emotional invest-
ment in these spaces, the ways in which they were made meaningful and
continue to be so (O’Connor, 2017). The documentary also highlights
that skateboarding’s history is not like that of other sports. It is not a his-
tory of pitches, stadiums, and courts. The pilgrimage spots of skateboard-
ers are hidden in plain sight, inscribed with scratches, dents, and wax.
These pilgrimage spots are found and socially constructed, remade
through human creativity and innovation, and this is in part why they
come to be emotionally and spiritually potent.
As I have already argued, California is for many a skateboarding holy
land, tied to place, media, and people. For some it provides sites of pil-
grimage but also an ethic and an ideal. The importance of media, particu-
larly video, cannot be understated in the process of making spots iconic
to skateboarders. Skateboard videos, and increasingly documentaries like
‘The L.A. Boys’ and ‘Dogtown and Z Boys,’ reinscribe the importance of
place by paying homage to locations and their histories (O’Connor,
2017). But we must be sensitive to the fact that this is not specific to
California, and that it is a process taking place the world over.

Morrison Hill: Hong Kong

The previous examples have explored the prominence of California, and
also a European site. However, the global popularity of skateboarding has
seen a number of East Asian locations rise to prominence over the last 20
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 163

years. As a result, skateboarders have to associate an array of global cities

around the world with specific skateboarding spots. Again, these have
been made famous through magazines, videos, and most recently in social
media. China has attracted a slew of skateboard pilgrims seeking an end-
less array of marble ledges that cities like Shenzehn, Guangzhou, and
Shanghai offer (O’Connor, 2017). As Tim Sedo (2010, p. 276) reports,
one skateshop in Shanghai produced a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Hey
America, come skate Shanghai … everyone is doing it!’ sarcastically
mocking the large numbers of skateboarding tourists passing through. I
have encountered dozens of skateboarders stopping in Hong Kong while
on their way to China. Many of these are solitary travellers, living a frugal
existence propelled by a desire to skate some of the skateboard utopia
they have seen reproduced in skateboard media. These skateboard pil-
grims are a peculiar by-product of China’s meteoric rise and rapid urban-
isation. Skateboarders are drawn to these new monumental spaces, many
of which are not policed by security guards, and some are even ghost
cities, urban shells with few residents constructed for some future antici-
pated commerce. One skateboarder who had accompanied numerous
professionals on skateboard trips to cities in China described these loca-
tions as culturally barren. He argued that China has the spots but none
of the feeling. Veteran skateboard videographer Anthony Claravall repli-
cated these comments seeing China as a skateboarding boot camp, a place
simply to get video clips and photos, not really a place to enjoy yourself.
Hong Kong, as a Special Administrative Region of China since 1997,
has a different history than other Chinese cities, and a different impor-
tance in terms of travel. Hong Kong is often a gateway to China, a key
transportation hub, and a convenient place to get visas to travel into
China. Many tourists and skateboarders alike stop off in Hong Kong as
they travel through East Asia (O’Connor, 2018a, 2018b). Hong Kong
also has a core skateboarding scene that reaches back to the early 1990s
with longstanding connections to players in the skateboard industry
based in California.
In Hong Kong one small bicycle track in Morrison Hill Road has long
been used by skateboarders and has been awarded skatepark status by the
Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD). It has received inter-
national recognition because of its unusual architecture that includes
164 P. O’Connor

humps and winding paths through plush vegetation (O’Connor, 2017).

The path has a steep curved ‘snake run’ and is made all the more curious
and attractive to skateboarders by the addition of cylindrical metal barri-
ers throughout. Morrison Hill embodies the ideals that Becky Beal
(2013a, p. 43) identifies in iconic skatespots. Its architecture is unusual
and corresponds with the freedom and individuality that skateboarders
tend to value. Similarly, as a found spot appropriated for skateboarding,
it corresponds with the DIY ethos and creativity found within the cul-
ture. As a frequent visitor to this site since 2001, I have met numerous
visiting professional skateboarders including X-Games champion Eric
Koston and Zoo York rider Zered Bassett (who appears on the cover of
this book). Morrison Hill has thus become a site for skateboard pilgrims
and with each notable visit the spot becomes more widely known
(O’Connor, 2017).
One evocative example of the way in which Morrison Hill is regarded
by skateboarders can be provided through a recounting of events from
October 2014. During this time Street League champion and owner of
April Skateboarders Shane O’Neill visited Hong Kong and posted a
picture of Morrison Hill on his Instagram feed for his more than 1.2
million followers (@shanejoneill, 2014). The post featured a shot of
the skatepark with O’Neill’s board in the background, and the text
‘HONG KONG.’ The message I read in this was simple, that to skate-
boarders across the world, Morrison Hill signifies Hong Kong. The
dazzling skyscrapers and the busy harbour that adorn so many post-
cards of the territory are not chiefly important to skateboarders when
they imagine Hong Kong. It can be argued that when they think of a
city, or a country, they think of the architecture that they are familiar
with, and the spots that have been made important to them through
skateboard media. It was also significant that O’Neill, one of the
world’s most famous skateboarders, turned up to Morrison Hill with-
out pomp or preparation and simply began skateboarding with the
locals who occupy the park day in and day out. While many of these
skateboarders were excited to skateboard with a visiting professional,
O’Neill was arguably performing a type of ritualistic deference to the
locals, that is, showing them and their spot respect by engaging with
them. A further example of the importance of the location is provided
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 165

by professional skateboarder Torey Pudwill. He visited Hong Kong

specifically to film a line (a continuous run of tricks) in Morrison Hill
skatepark that featured in a video he released funded by his sponsors
(Red Bull, 2017). In short, Morrison Hill was the reason Pudwill vis-
ited Hong Kong.
In conversation with visiting professional skateboarder Jake Johnson at
Morrison Hill in October 2015, I learned the spot was well known to
professional skateboarders in the USA and it was a key location on any
visit to Hong Kong. Johnson was enthusiastic about finally getting a
chance to skate at what he regarded was an iconic spot. The fact that both
Converse shoes in 2015 and New Balance Numeric shoes in 2017 chose
to do skateboarding events at Morrison Hill underlines the importance of
this place and how it is remade and reaffirmed by the skateboarders who
visit (O’Connor, 2017). This association is further highlighted by video
footage of skateboarders at Morrison Hill available on YouTube. One
montage includes more than eight well-known professional skateboard-
ers including Chris Cole, Stefan Janoswki, and Jamie Thomas (Rodgers,
2009). Again, beyond the world of skateboarding these names may carry
little relevance, but as both the Bayer Leaps example and the New York
Times report on Brian Anderson highlight, mainstream knowledge of
skateboard spots is on the rise.
So can Morrison Hill be regarded as a pilgrimage spot in skateboard-
ing? Returning to the literature on pilgrimage, it can be understood as
having a form of spiritual magnetism and a type of ‘sacred geography,’ a
place not made for skateboarders but embraced and admired by them
(O’Connor, 2017). Significant placemaking has also occurred through
association with various personalities, who while not supernatural are
recognised for their skill (Preston, 1992). The popularity of this spot with
both locals and professionals characterises Morrison Hill as a mandatory
place for visiting skateboarders. The obligation to visit, as Preston has
argued, is equally an important part of pilgrimage and a notable part of
sacralised modern tourism (1992, p. 56). These accounts highlight that
place in skateboarding is key, but differentiated from place in other sports
since many of skateboarding’s most important spots are not legitimate
sporting facilities. In fact, they are prosaic, unremarkable urban locations
that have become so much more.
166 P. O’Connor

A final note on Hong Kong is that too often iconic places are consid-
ered only in terms of their relevance to the core skateboard industry in
California. There is similarly a great deal of regional importance attrib-
uted to skateboarding spaces. Dr Sander Hölsgens (2018) writes beauti-
fully on the specificities of place for Korean skateboarders, especially as an
extension of home. In a research trip to Hong Kong, Hölsgens encoun-
tered Korean skateboarders who saw a cultural value in documenting
their travels to regional skateboard spots on their social media feeds. This
underlines that it is not professional skateboarders alone, or at all, that
make spaces significant and meaningful to skateboarders.

Skateparks: Found and Built

The versatility of the skateboard has meant that it is a tool of urban free-
dom. There is no need for a specific court or playing field to skateboard.
One simply has to walk out of the door in order to find somewhere to
skate. However, the desire to construct tailor-made places for skateboard-
ing emerged as a prominent commercial activity in the 1970s. In this
final part of the chapter I suggest that skateparks can also be meaningful
sites of pilgrimage. But my main claim here is that skatepark construc-
tion, both officially approved projects and opportunistic DIY skatespots,
are ultimately sites of urban devotion to the majesty of urban architec-
ture. Skateparks are hybrid environments, taking cues from swimming
pools, office plazas, handrails, and even parking lots. To exploit a religious
vernacular here, skateparks are monumental forms of idolatry. They are
temples to the urban environment, honouring concrete, steel, and wood
in the playful ways they can be combined. Skateparks provide places for
skateboarders, but as my discussion highlights, these places are very much
in dialogue with the sacred notion of cities at large and exist in honour of
them. Our Neolithic ancestors fashioned their surroundings to mimic
the phallus and the vulva, to consecrate not just loved ones, but to also
honour the stars, the seasons, and the tress. Simon Schama (1995) writes
at length about our intimate relationship with the landscape and how it
is revealed in our art and architecture. Skateparks can be seen as an expres-
sion of love for a more contemporary landscape, that of the city. Richard
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 167

Sennett (2002, pp. 18–22) speaks of the desensitised citizen in the mod-
ern city, sleepwalking through malls and passive in their automobiles,
disconnected from the world they have created. The skatepark flips this
scenario and provides a recreated site of reverence for all of the disre-
garded beauty of the city, not in its pomp and opulent architecture, but
in its ludic potential. Skateparks are voluptuous sculptures of urban eros.
Iain Borden (2001) describes how skateparks emerged not simply as a
commercial vehicle, but also as a combination of three other desires.
Firstly, the associated danger of skateboarding meant that many felt it
necessitated containment to be safely practised. This motivation was bol-
stered by a second, the increase of legitimate spaces due to the criminali-
sation of skateboarding on streets. Thirdly, the boom in skatepark
construction in the 1970s was built off the introduction of urethane
wheels and the desire to test these new products in the best possible envi-
ronments. The lessons of poor park design in the 1960s contributed to a
new awareness of what parks could be if designed correctly.
The very first skateparks that were built in the USA aimed to mimic
the environments that skateboarders had come to use, often found spaces,
drainage banks, hills, and empty swimming pools. The example of the
skatepark bowl, which is basically a Californian-style backyard pool
designed simply for skateboarding, is an excellent primary example of the
hybridity of skateparks. One of the first bowls designed and built was at
the Pipeline skatepark in California. It opened in 1977 and was cele-
brated as a terrain relevant to skateboarders. It also received criticism for
not being similar enough to a swimming pool. Skateboarders noted the
absence of pool tiles and coping blocks standard in backyard pools
(Borden, 2001, p. 62). Rather than these features replicating the appear-
ance of the pool, skateboarders desired these elements because of the ways
in which their skateboards could be used with them. Coping blocks pro-
vided a surface to be grinded by the trucks, and the tiles provided an
audible reverberation as wheels travel across them signalling that the
skateboarder has risen to the steepest part of the bowl. These design ele-
ments of the backyard pool are valued features that resonate with an
embodied experience of riding the pools, an experience that was similarly
desired in skatepark bowls. In the British context, skateparks, like the
Rom park in Essex, transplanted the typical Californian backyard pool
168 P. O’Connor

from American skateparks. This fusion continues to be replicated across

the world to this day. Bowls mimicking the classic Californian backyard
pool are to be found across the globe in territories as diverse as Bali
and Tehran.
The rise in popularity of new skateparks at the turn of the century also
signals a further evolution of skateboarding. New parks, whilst still fre-
quently housing bowls, also accommodate new skateboarding practices
in replicating features of the city that skateboarders have often appropri-
ated. Skateparks now commonly possess the features of stairs, handrails,
concrete ledges, pole jams, manual pads, along with flat banks and transi-
tions of varying angles, and gaps which manifest as void space between
obstacles that skateboarders try to jump between.
By the year 2000 skateboarding had once again become consolidated
as a popular, if not central, sporting pastime in North America and
throughout the world. In an excellent analysis of the renewed popular-
ity of skateparks Ocean Howell highlights that the number of skate-
boarders between 1995 and 2005 rose from 4.5 million to 20 million
in the USA (2008, p. 476). The fluctuating number of skateparks in the
USA details these changes. In 1982, there were 190 skateparks in oper-
ation throughout the country; ten years later this had fallen to just 120,
only to rise again to 165 by 1997 (Borden, 2001, pp. 68–84). Howell
notes that between 1997 and 2008 the number of skateparks had once
again ballooned from 165 to 2100 (Howell, 2008, p. 475). As of 2014,
estimates suggest that there are approximately 3500 skateparks in the
USA (Transworld Skateboarding, 2014) and over 9630 skateparks glob-
ally (Concrete Disciples, 2017). A news release from Transworld
Skateboarding magazine website (2014) reports that the Centre for
Disease Control suggests the USA requires an additional 9000 skate-
parks to meet the needs of the current active skateboarding population
and provide resources to encourage an active and healthy generation of
young people.
The new era of skatepark construction has produced many superb
parks which attract their own groups of new pilgrims. Jordan, an IT
worker in his mid-forties, spoke about the annual skatepark trips he made
with friends:
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 169

I also do a yearly trip to Colorado. Somehow Colorado has become a

Mecca for skateboarding, because they have so many parks all within 20 to
30 minutes of each other, and flights in the off season for Denver are really
cheap from Chicago. It is $180 for a round trip flight, and then we just rent
an Airbnb. I think eight of us are going this year. Last year and the year
before, I think it was only four people… and then maybe six people the
year before that. … I do a lot of shutterbug, a lot of videos and photo-
graphs out there, just because we’re skating these amazing parks, and we
never know which is going to be the last trip.

These trips took on emotional significance for Jordan. These were

times to be with his friends, to enjoy skating new terrain, and to docu-
ment a pastime that he feels may be slipping away from him. As his
concerns about ageing raise doubts about his future trips, his photog-
raphy provides a means to capture the meaning and experience that he
holds dear. His testimony utilises a specific type of language, referring
to Colorado as a site of pilgrimage, a Mecca. He goes on to discuss
how beautiful these new parks are and how pleasurable it is to
skate them.
The renaissance of skatepark development is also matched by the rec-
ognition of skateparks as part of urban historical heritage. This was dem-
onstrated in September 2014 when the Rom Skatepark in Essex England
was listed as a heritage site (Brown, 2014). The history of skateboarding
that is documented and reproduced in skateboard media brings with it a
motivation to preserve these important locations.
In recent years there has been a considerable rise in this type of activ-
ism by skateboarders seeking to protect such iconic locations in skate-
board culture (Blayney, 2014; Howell, 2005; Németh, 2006; Trotter,
2013). The campaign to save the Southbank Undercroft in London was
a success that consolidated a cultural and commercial acknowledgement
of the role of skateboarders in the civic life of the city (Borden, 2015).
One of the evocative successes of the Long Live South Bank campaign
was to capitalise on the communitas and grass-roots nature of placemak-
ing (Ruiz, Snelson, Madgin, & Webb, 2019). The ‘Bro Bowl’ built in
Florida in 1979 was the first skatepark in the USA to be listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2013 (Skateboarding Heritage
170 P. O’Connor

Foundation, 2016). It has subsequently been demolished in a redevelop-

ment of the surrounding area. The bowl was laser-scanned and recon-
structed in an effort to preserve the site and its legacy (Pratt, 2015).
Beyond the skateparks that have been planned and funded by busi-
nesses and local government is a whole host of skatespots and skate-
parks that have been self-made. The DIY ethic in skateboarding is a
prominent credo that at one pole links to the entrepreneurialism of
millionaire skateboarders and at the other connects to penniless teenag-
ers pulling together scraps of wood to make a ramp or slidebar. This
element of skateboarding is replicated in stories of first skateboards, of
milk crates being cut up, and roller skates being sawn into two and
nailed onto two by four planks. The key example of this is the Burnside
skateboard project in Portland, Oregon, where skateboarders in the
early 1990s decided to build their own skatepark in a vacant area under-
neath a bridge in the peripheries of the city. The project was ultimately
celebrated by the local authorities as it had a gentrifying effect on the
local community, influencing a drop in crime and the clearing out of
homeless people from the same area (Borden, 2001, p. 485; Howell,
2008). Burnside has become another iconic site of pilgrimage, a con-
structed site, and a concrete palimpsest to skateboarding. The Skatopia
skatepark and commune in Ohio is perhaps one of the most infamous
skate pilgrim locations. A Rolling Stone article describes the 88 acre
skatepark as an attempt at skateboard utopia where there are none of
the rules that have come to dominate skateparks across the world. The
founder Brewce Martin imagines himself as a cult leader, drawing com-
parisons to Stephen Hawking, Socrates, and Robert Mugabe (Binelli,
2008). Skateboarders across the world make their way to Skatopia
where they are free to skate and live as long as they contribute an hour
of work each day. The skatepark was founded in 1995 and holds an
annual skateboarding event called the ‘Bowl Bash.’ Skatopia provides
further parallels to the scholarship on pilgrimage. Martin has con-
structed a l­iminal space, free from rules, that is open to all manner of
marginal wandering skateboarders.
The love of urban space is beautifully demonstrated in Richard Gilligan’s
(2014) book on DIY skateparks. The coffee table book is essentially a col-
lection of photos Gilligan has taken across the world at various small- and
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 171

large-scale DIY projects. Originally extending from a photography proj-

ect he did at Burnside, his collection of DIY skatespots is underscored by
the very ephemeral reality of these spots, none of them appearing to be
built to last indefinitely. Unlike the grandeur of a skyscraper, potent yet
naive of its finite existence, the DIY skatepark is not built to look good,
but purely to be enjoyed. Yet in Gilligan’s book very few of the photo-
graphs include skateboarders, or any people at all. One plate details a
location in Derry Ireland where 80% of the picture is green, a field strewn
with trash. A small concrete driveway comes to an abrupt end with a short
banked concrete transition. A thing of beauty? The vistas are laid bare for
the reader to indulge not in the spectacle of skateboarding, but in its
sumptuous terrain.

Conclusion
The fact that Bayer pharmaceuticals, a company unrelated to skateboard-
ing, chose to celebrate the Lyon 25 and that the New York Times reported
on the legacy of the Hubba Hideout suggests that the hidden places of
skateboarding are slowly becoming better recognised and understood. I
believe that increased emotional investment in and spiritual identifica-
tion with iconic spots is also tied to the growing mainstream popular-
ity and sportification of skateboarding. By this I mean that some
skateboarders are seeking to demonstrate and consolidate parts of their
culture which are being altered beyond their control. The emotional con-
tent of a life of skateboarding makes an impact and our exploration of
pilgrimage spots touches on this. These places are sites of communitas.
They are sites of cultural heritage both tangible and intangible (Ruiz
et al., 2019). They also foreground a possibility that skateboarders might
pursue cultural rights, perhaps ones that extend beyond specific places
and pertain to self-expression and even ritual process.
These varied accounts of important places in skateboard culture con-
nect to existing discussions of both space (Cresswell, 2004) and sport
(Bale, 2003; Gaffney & Bale, 2004; Henning, 1997; Vertinsky & Bale,
2004; Wenner & Billings, 2017). They highlight that skateboarding is
not unlike other sports in the sense of history surrounding placemaking.
172 P. O’Connor

Yet, skateboarding is differentiated in the types of spaces that become

significant. Many of skateboarding’s iconic places are overlooked urban
spots. This means that they are anonymous to the average person, unlike
the ways stadiums are distinct even to those disinterested or unaware of
sports. Skateboarding’s important locations may be denied to skateboard-
ers; they may have to trespass, risk fines, or wait till late at night to visit
them. Yet, they are also democratic; not everyone can score a goal in
Wembley stadium, but any skateboarder can visit Wallenberg, or the
Lyon 25 (O’Connor, 2017).
What is most significant in this discussion is that place in skateboard-
ing is intimately tied to history; places become vessels of the past and are
connected to photographs and videos. The importance of skateboard vid-
eos in placemaking is distinct, and is shown to be self-aware and self-­
referential. Skateboarders remember ‘who did what and where’
(O’Connor, 2017). This holds significance for professional skateboarders
also, as it is they and their filmers and photographers who have to be
mindful of the past and understand what is homage to previous perfor-
mance, and what is disrespect. The discussion on the Lyon 25 underlines
how tentative the line between the two may be.
By way of conclusion I return to the Lyon 25 and cite an enthusiastic
and emotive account of Boulala’s attempt to jump the steps. It provides
pause in showing that triumph is not an integral part of the glory of
skateboarding, that the ritual humiliation of failure is part of the com-
munitas that makes the activity and its places both real and relevant:

Ali Boulala’s Sorry part, literally ends with his destruction and failure.
Now, a 25 stair ollie is a very tall order, but how amazing and refreshing is
it to see a man not succeed as a way to close out his career’s greatest achieve-
ment? You see, that’s a skate video I can relate to. It doesn’t make his part
any worse, it makes it real. Us commoners don’t normally get our big trick,
most of us don’t even try. … Ali Boulala’s Sorry part is the realest account
of skateboarding ever produced by a professional skateboarder. He gets
drunk, he pukes, his dog humps his leg, he throws meat at a window, he
does absolutely absurd things on a skateboard, and best of all? He bails. He
gets hurt. He gets really hurt. And he doesn’t win … he’s just like us. He is
our champion. (Ridge, 2015)
 7 Pilgrimage Spots 173

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 8
Ritualised Play

Three taps, three times. This is part of professional skateboarder Andrew

Reynolds’ ritual when trying to offset his anxiety before he performs a
trick. He refers to this as ‘the madness.’ It manifests in a variety of ways,
perhaps riding his skateboard up to an obstacle repetitively, tapping his
board on the ground in anticipation, or kicking a nearby wall. In one
video we see him attempting a backside flip down the Wallenberg Gap
and indulging in the madness as he prepares (Vice, 2012). Reynolds
describes how the madness is even part of his obsession with the prac-
tice of setting up a new board, sometimes organising his wheels into
patterns of three (The Nine Club, 2017a). This is a personalised ritual,
and it is one that Reynolds recognises as part of his obsessive and com-
pulsive personality. It appears to be anything but religious. The madness
might be best understood as a superstition, a tactic of edgework to
assert some control over the chaos of attempting to jump a four-foot-
high and 16-foot-wide set of stairs on a precariously wheeled wooden
board. But in some ways rituals are superstitions, they must be performed
at certain times and follow specific procedures in order for them to be
valid. Rites are performed to allay our anxieties about specific life events
both big and small. They can be communal, providing the opportunity

© The Author(s) 2020 179

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_8
180 P. O’Connor

to signify the importance of a particular moment, perhaps the shift from

one phase in life to another. Similarly, all rituals contain the capacity for
personalisation as Catherine Bell (2009, pp. 221–222) argues. It is pre-
cisely the capacity for ritual to be effective in forming and sustaining
groupings while also being open to appropriation that makes it so pow-
erful. Skateboarding is awash with ritual, ranging from the most arcane
and personalised practices, like the madness of Andrew Reynolds, to the
institutionalised global celebrations of the annual Go Skateboarding Day.
Ritual relates to repetition, communication, knowledge, and the body.
In religion, ritual is physical worship, seen to signify moments of depar-
ture from everyday life and immersion in the holy or numinous. Ritual is
thus associated with a different realm of reality, of play, performance, and
efficacy. For Bobby Alexander (1997, p. 139) a simple definition of ritual
identifies it as ‘performance, planned or improvised that effects a transi-
tion from everyday life to an alternative context within which the every-
day is transformed.’ The notion of performance is our overarching motif
in this second part of the book. It resonates with the way Geertz has
explored religion as a cultural phenomenon, and, importantly, the
emphasis he puts on ritual being an activity, a performed action, rather
than a belief. Indeed, when Geertz (1973, p. 90) speaks of religion as
‘clothing’ ‘conceptions’ of an ‘order of existence’ with ‘factuality’ that
make ‘motivations’ ‘realistic,’ he is addressing ritual as a means to make
belief and worldview apparent. Thus, in enacting ritual people are
involved in committing not just to a worldview, but in making that
worldview part of their lived and experiential reality. Importantly, Geertz
gave ritual considerable attention and developed the notion of thick
description in his account of the Balinese cockfight (1973, p. 412). In his
own words, to religious people rituals are ‘not only models of what they
believe, but also models for the believing of it’ (1973, p. 114). Key in
Alexander’s definition is the fact that ritual transforms daily life. This
echoes Durkhiem’s understanding in which religious life is signified by a
move from the profane to the sacred realm. The notion of transformation
is paralleled in Borden’s (2019, p. 285) work on skateboarding. He sees
that the skateboard provides a means to transform the ‘everyday’ and,
quoting Lefebvre, points to the possibility of a ‘magnificent life.’ The
signal of a political and transcendent ritual quality to skateboarding is
 8 Ritualised Play 181

readily apparent in Borden’s work (2001, 2019). This suggests that ritual
could be an apposite answer to the ever-elusive quest of defining skate-
boarding itself.
These conceptions are exciting for us because they resonate with the
way in which skateboarding is fundamentally a performance. Indeed, the
problem that I broach in this chapter is not how to identify the relevance
of ritual in skateboarding—it is self-evident and manifold. Rather the
challenge is to order and interpret the prominence of ritual in skateboard-
ing. In the following pages I provide a standard unpacking of the features
of ritual and highlight how skateboarding conforms to these tropes. I
point to both macro and micro rituals, the former being those that can be
simply traced onto standard life events and existing religious architecture
(birth, death, festivals) and the latter being idiosyncratic to skateboard-
ing. Micro rituals are similar to what anthropologist John Bowen (2012,
p. 54) describes as diacritic actions, particular performances used to com-
municate with, and understood by, only a select group. For Bowen these
actions and motifs are like indexes by which others can infer a wealth of
codified information. We learn through this chapter that skateboarders
have a ritual life that is layered with such symbolic meaning. In analysis
this renders the cultural world of skateboarding in a unique way, under-
scoring it as both philosophical and political. This chapter shows that, to
many, skateboarding is a religion and that it is primarily a religion of
ritual. The first half of this chapter provides evidence to underscore this
argument. What is absent in the recognition of the ritualised patterns of
skateboarding is what the overarching meaning of skateboarding might
be. I argue that many popular accounts of ritual overlook the importance
of play and thus I explore this component to argue that skateboarding
can be understood as an emergent lifestyle religion of ritualised play.

Classifying Ritual
There is a vast body of work on ritual and numerous taxonomies regard-
ing different forms of ritual expression. Ronald Grimes (1985) distin-
guishes 16 different categories of ritual, including practices of purification,
magic, and pilgrimage. A more conservative schema is provided by
182 P. O’Connor

Catherine Bell in what she refers to as a ‘pragmatic compromise between

completeness and simplicity’ (1997, p. 94). She provides six categories in
which distinct ritual practices can be distinguished. Firstly, she identifies
rites of passage that signal the transformation of one life stage to another.
These include birth rituals, coming of age rites, and funerary practices.
Secondly, calendrical rites that pertain to temporal repetition: an annual
festival such as Easter for Christians, or Holi for Hindus. These need not
be annual events. For example, the five pillars of Islam include rites that
must be performed daily (prayer), monthly (almsgiving), annually (fast-
ing), and once in a lifetime (pilgrimage). Of further significance, the
Islamic calendar, like the Chinese ritual calendar, is based on the moon,
and thus rituals need not occur in the same months or seasons year to
year. The third category includes rites of exchange and communion.
Symbolic offerings, sacrifices, and devotionals are some examples of such
rituals. Rites of affliction become Bell’s fourth category and represent acts
to mitigate bad omens or spirits. Her fifth category of ritual is reserved
for feasting, fasting, and festivals. While it is true that these acts might
conform to calendrical rites, they can also be performed outside of such
cyclical repetition. The emphases in these acts are to demonstrate the
strength of the ritual community and to express commitment to it. Her
final ritual category is that of political rites, which are used to make power
visible, and in some cases to create and critique hierarchy. Inherent in any
culture is some form of structure which communicates values and social
order. Rituals of display, parade, and various honorific gestures all seek to
codify this. In all six categories ritual can be understood as a cultural
process, not exclusively limited to religion, deities, and transcendence.
John Lyden (2003, pp. 80–102) attempts to map his argument regard-
ing ‘film as religion’ onto Bell’s six criteria of ritual. He recognises that
some fit more neatly than others, for instance, he suggests that calendrical
rites are not particularly significant to filmgoers, especially when linking
specific films and particular times of the year. He does, however, acknowl-
edge that certain genres of film become more significant when traced on
top of existing annual festivities. Think, for example, of when individuals
tend to watch Christmas movies and also the prominence of horror films
released, broadcast, and now streamed during Halloween. Lyden also
argues that Bell’s third, fourth, and fifth categories are less distinct and
 8 Ritualised Play 183

have, at times, some overlapping characteristics. Indeed, rites of exchange

may be performed during festivals which in turn may signify a rite of
affliction. These overlapping qualities are undeniably evident in all explo-
rations of ritual. My argument about the communitas derived from
skateboarding video journeys and the subsequent pilgrimages to sacred
urban spaces touch upon many of these ritual processes. Bell’s categories
are helpful as a means to order our discussion of ritual; however, ritual in
practice is far from tidy and distinct. Ritual is in part so meaningful
because it can be layered with devotion, penance, sacrifice, pilgrimage,
and feast.
The relevance of ritual is similarly potent within the sociology of sport.
Carole Cusack (2010) lists the various ways in which sport and religion
are contrasted and positions ritual as a dominant motif. She unpacks the
ancient Pan-Hellenic games from which we derive the modern Olympics.
It is clear that the historic games were sacred events in which elaborate
ritual patterns were observed. Modern sports have replicated some of
these rituals and introduced new ones. Cusack’s exploration of sport and
religion highlights that at the heart of religion there is an importance not
of a deity, but of commitment to something. As a result, the pursuit of
sport as an occupation need not be dismissed as a pointless indulgence,
or a base activity of volatile competition. Indeed, Cusack (2019, p. 921)
notes that in ancient Greece sport was a valid profession for an aristocrat,
particularly because participation was in itself seen to be a noble pursuit.
This aristocratic quality is similarly identified by Morissette (2014,
p. 391) as a feature of lifestyle sports practitioners who appear aloof from
winning, not hot-headed competitors but cool and immersed in the the-
atrics of performance. My emphasis in this chapter is not on skateboard-
ing competitions, which in sum do not represent the most common
experiences of the sport, but rather both the commitment to skateboard-
ing as a meaningful pastime and the significance of its performance.
In order to make instances of skateboarding ritual distinct, I follow
Bell’s sixfold schema. Many of the examples and anecdotes explored here
show that skateboarding is distinctly ritualised. In various accounts,
skateboarding has been introduced to, and traced upon, existing rituals,
remaking them meaningful to a niche community, and to individuals
themselves. In other cases, skateboarders have developed their own
184 P. O’Connor

­ istinct rituals that strengthen community, appearing cryptic to outsiders

d
not socialised by the culture of skateboarding. Some iterations of ritual
appear to be growing in importance, perhaps seeking to signify issues
distinct to skateboarding in an era of increased institutionalisation and
mainstream commercial popularity.

1. Rites of Passage

The best way to demonstrate the ways that skateboarders have sought to
signify rites of passage is through macro and micro life events. I see these
divided into the bigger issues of life that are relevant to us all, and smaller
specific life events in a skateboarding biography. I began this book with
an anecdote about the funeral of a skateboarding friend. This was signi-
fied with his skateboards displayed prominently at the altar. There are
countless other examples of how skateboarding becomes significant in
funerary rites. For example, I have seen coffins of dead skateboarders
plastered with skateboard stickers. Following the death of Thrasher maga-
zine’s long-time chief editor Jake Phelps, owner of the magazine Tony
Vitello said that Jake ‘would be cremated with his skateboard’ (Staley,
2019). A further example is provided by Atencio, Beal, Wright, and
ZáNean (2018, pp. 199–200) in their ethnography of skateparks in San
Francisco. They report on a memorial following the death of a 20-year-­
old skateboarder Ronald Diaz who was hit and killed by a car. Instigated
by the youth of the local skatepark, the memorial involved hundreds of
people revelling in remembrance at the skatepark, skateboarding, drink-
ing, and smoking late into the night. A photo depicts a cross made out of
several skateboards tied to the fence of the skatepark with Ronald’s photo
attached. Visible are candles, beer bottles, a rosary, and scrawled messages
of love and respect.
On 12 October 2016, professional skateboarder Dylan Rieder died of
leukaemia. The outpouring of sorrow that followed the news of his death
was shared millions of times on social media. His sponsor, the board
company ‘Fucking Awesome,’ released a video of his skateboarding set to
a solemn dirge. The Los Angeles branch of the Supreme skateshop erected
a memorial to Dylan. Thirty of his skateboards, his image on each, were
 8 Ritualised Play 185

hung with a vase of white lilies placed in front of them. The window of
the store replayed his videos while mourning fans laid flowers and left
messages. The following weekend when I met up with friends to go skate-
boarding, Dylan was a topic of conversation. Some had been fortunate
enough to meet him. All of us were familiar with his videos and we spoke
about them at length. Then, as a homage to Dylan, we all started practis-
ing impossibles (an ollie in which the board is scooped vertically wrap-
ping around the back foot in a 360° rotation), a trick he showed particular
finesse with.
Death is one distinct example of a rite of passage. Similarly, the birth
of a child or marriage can also be signified by including skateboarding. It
is perhaps unsurprising that these macro events in life find expression
through the ritualised use of skateboards. Sports sociologist Holly Thorpe
(2014, p. 100) has highlighted similar practices in other lifestyle sports.
She refers to paddle outs, a communal practice to commemorate the
death of a surfer. The soulful spirituality of surfing resonates in this exam-
ple—the ocean is the surfer’s hallowed ground. For skateboarding it is
concrete and asphalt that becomes the ritual space for commemoration.
One example would be the world famous LES skatepark in Manhattan
which is commemorated to New York local skateboarder Harold Hunter
who died in 2006 at the age of 31. Another example is the 2018 com-
memorative skateboard competition for acclaimed skateboard videogra-
pher Preston P-Stone held at his home DIY skatepark, Lower Bob’s.
Moving beyond these macro rites of passage pertaining to standardised
notions of life events I propose that there are numerous micro rites of
passage in skateboarding. One need only perform a cursory survey of
skateboard media interviews to learn of the important landmarks in any
skateboarder’s biography. One specific rite of passage relates to the
moment a skateboarder gets their first board. Then perhaps their first
experience in a skateboard shop, and entry into a fraternity of other
skateboarders. This is aptly described by David Thornton in his skate-
board biography Nobody:

So, that night, in the parking lot between the Daranelle post office and
what I believe was a Methodist church, I became a member of the skate-
board subculture, a full-fledged member of the tribe. … This might sound
186 P. O’Connor

crazy, but it was like I was hanging out with rocks stars. No, these guys
were bigger than rocks stars. It was more of an initiation into a secret reli-
gious order. (Thornton, 2016, pp. 35–36)

A life spent skateboarding can include various rites of passage; for

example, the moment when a skateboarder learns their first ollie. More
potent perhaps is the nerve-wracking experience of dropping in on a tran-
sition ramp or bowl for the first time. This requires a leap of faith, the
equivalent to a novice swimmer jumping into the deep end of a swim-
ming pool. I have witnessed countless moments when someone achieves
this rite. If they are able to do this with others present, a spontaneous
celebration will occur. As a ritual act of approval skateboarders will cheer
and many will slap the tail of the board on the ground or on the nearest
obstacle making a raucous chorus of approval. Other rites of passage
might include a first skateboarding trip, often a pilgrimage to some iconic
spot; filming a video part; for some this might even escalate to getting
photos in a magazine; entering a contest; winning a contest. For skate-
boarders who achieve some level of success, receiving sponsorship, or
more importantly turning professional, is regarded as a prestigious land-
mark. Professional skateboarders receive their own boards with a custom-­
made graphic emblazoned with their name. In recent years skateboard
companies have gone to elaborate lengths to signify the moment a spon-
sored skateboarder turns professional. This will often include throwing a
surprise party, inviting friends and family, capturing the event on social
media, and taking out an advert in a magazine. In the popular podcast
The Nine Club where skateboarders are interviewed about landmark events
in their careers, many of these rites are discussed and reflected upon.
It is significant that a recurring theme in these discussions is the fact
that turning professional has become increasingly ritualised as a rite of
passage. Veteran skateboarders often remark that they first learned they
had turned professional when they saw a board with their name on it in
the company warehouse, or when it arrived at their home in the mail. I
consider that there are at least three salient dynamics that contribute to
the contemporary ritual prominence of turning professional as a cele-
brated rite of passage. Firstly, skateboard sales mean much less to the
industry now than at any other point over the last 30 years. Shoe and
 8 Ritualised Play 187

energy drink sponsors are able to provide skateboarders with comfortable

and sometimes lavish earnings; skateboard companies are not. Skateboard
prices have stagnated while the number of board companies has quadru-
pled. It is now easier than ever for any individual to set up a board com-
pany with their own designs and branding. Popular YouTube channels
like Revive and Braille show that it is quite simple to make yourself a
professional for your own brand (Kerr, 2015). So, the importance of pro-
fessional skateboards as a career landmark and an integral part of being a
sponsored skateboarder has been significantly disrupted. Secondly, social
media has facilitated much scrutiny of the day-to-day lives of professional
skateboarders. Platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and to a lesser
extent Facebook, all provide a cheap and effective marketing strategy;
thus, the opportunity for self and brand promotion on social media and
for creating a viral moment with any noteworthy news has become
inflated. Thirdly, I believe the growth in significance of the rite of passage
of turning professional comes from an understanding that skateboarding
has become increasingly institutionalised and skateboarders remain hun-
gry for practices that continue to present the culture as distinct, commu-
nal, and connected.

2. Calendrical Rites

The significance of calendrical rituals is their repetitive and cyclical

nature. We anticipate their approach and in each celebration there is
remembrance and even nostalgia for events that have passed. In Christian
traditions Christmas, Easter, and Lent are annual events, and in
Hinduism, Diwali and Holi recur each year. In Chinese religion there are
important rites surrounding different days of new-year celebrations and
Jiao festivals. The most obvious examples of such calendrical rites in
skateboarding are skateboarding competitions and jams. Globally recog-
nised events include the annual Go Skateboarding Day founded in 2004
as skateboarding’s own holiday by the International Association of
Skateboard Companies (IASC). It is annually enacted on June 21 with
skateboarders taking to the streets en masse each year and engaging in
various events sometimes with prizes, food, and frequently with travel
188 P. O’Connor

between important skateboard spots within any given city. Similarly,

competitions like Battle of the Berrics, Street League Skateboarding, Vans
Pool Party, and the Vans Park Series attract global attention each year.
Thrasher magazine’s annual Skater of the Year (SOTY) award is antici-
pated months in advance with professional skateboarders strategically
filming video parts in bids to capture the title and the prize of their photo
on the cover of the magazine. Calendrical rites also interact with the
extant annual rituals of world religions. In Haifa, Israel, the Jewish festi-
val of Yom Kippur has become a festival for local skateboarders precisely
because no one is allowed to work on that day, and as a result cars are not
driven. The roads become freely available for skateboarders to engage in
their own celebrations (Craig, 2018). In many ways this is an appropri-
ated ritual, both in terms of the date of the celebration and the space it
inhabits. It is a ritual of festivity, indulged in with communal joy and a
hint of political critique as hundreds of Israeli skateboarders descend on
Haifa to roll the streets together throughout the day and late into the
night. The fact that the Israeli skateboard scene also includes Christian
and Arab skateboarders signifies a reorientation of Yom Kippur’s meaning
and demonstrates that skateboarding remakes not only space but rit-
ual time too.

3. Rites of Exchange and Communion

An informal practice in skateboarding is that of gift exchange. People

regularly donate boards, shoes, and clothes to one another. Sometimes
such exchanges can be demonstrated by skateboarders filming tricks for
one another. In other circumstances promising skateboarders are given
free products by companies, often skateboards and shoes. This transac-
tion is termed ‘flow’ and is symbolically the first step to a career in skate-
boarding and financial endorsement. The free products are understood as
help, reducing the financial burden of skateboarding. The obligation of
the skateboarder is not simply to keep skateboarding, but to also prog-
ress. The gift exchange of flow is an informal client–patron relationship.
Anthropologists recognise that the process of gift exchange is necessitated
by its informality, that the reason it means so much is because it is
 8 Ritualised Play 189

­ issimilar to a financial transaction. Drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of

d
habitus, Bell (2009, p. 82) suggests that exchange is premised on ‘deliber-
ate oversight’ and that the misrecognition of a gift as a form of altruistic
generosity obscures the ritual itself and thus facilitates its efficacy.
Drawing on the macro rites of passage, calendrical rites, and rites of
exchange, the annual Harold Hunter day in New York serves to com-
memorate the death of the professional skateboarder, and also provides
gifts to the local skateboard community. A product toss (effectively the
giving away of free skateboards, shoes, and T-shirts) is a common prac-
tice. Seen in part as a publicity stunt to encourage skateboarders to
endorse a company’s products, skateboarders also view these product
tosses as a form of community sharing. Skateboarders typically spend lots
of money on boards, shoes, and clothing that all take a significant amount
of wear and tear. Free product provides a way for companies to also say
thanks and demonstrate the ritual significance of gift exchange. So great
is the importance of free events and giving back to the community that it
becomes difficult to see the skateboard industry as simply a corporate
entity. The skateboard industry is also bound by certain codes of cultural
gift exchange that skateboarders pay acute attention to. Vans, for instance,
organises numerous events to consolidate their authenticity in the skate-
board community: competitions, House of Vans art shows, new shoe
‘Wear Tests,’ and ‘Skate Frydays’ are all free events and can be read as
forms of gift exchange. The Hong Kong House of Vans is a unique con-
crete skatepark built by California Skateparks on the seventh storey of an
old industrial building in the Kwun Tong district of Kowloon. Each
Monday evening Vans has given the venue over to women skateboarders,
a calendrical event that has become both a skateboarding ritual and a
political event. The industry has obligations to skateboarders and skate-
boarders correspond by continuing to purchase products and in turn vali-
date companies as authentic and cool in the broader culture of
skateboarding. Companies that transgress these boundaries may be
quickly dismissed by skateboarders and lose their legitimacy in the cul-
ture and ultimately suffer commercial losses (Lurper, 2012).
This notion of gift exchange is even more significant at the macro scale
with reference to the growth of skateboard philanthropy in the guise of
charities and NGOs. The annual Harold Hunter day held every year
190 P. O’Connor

since 2007 is organised by the Harold Hunter Foundation (HHF, 2019)

to help underprivileged youth in New York access skateboarding, ‘nur-
ture individual creativity, resourcefulness, and the development of life
skills.’ Numerous other organisations like the Tony Hawk Foundation,
Skateistan, and Skate for Change replicate models of gift exchange.
Skateboard philanthropy has become popular largely because skateboard-
ers see it as symbolic of the gift exchange and reciprocity in skateboard
culture—it is a macro example of a micro process. As I have previously
argued (O’Connor, 2015) and as I explore in more depth in Chap. 11,
skateboard philanthropy is underscored by a focus and expectation that
the real beneficiaries are skateboarders and the skateboard industry.
Similarly, when a skateboarder gives away their board to a novice eager to
learn, this is not simply charity. This resonates with the principles of gift
exchange in that the skateboard given as a gift is also symbolic of an
expectation that the recipient will use it. At a deeper level the exchange
also includes a tacit lesson, that ‘this is what skateboarding is about,’ and
it is a responsibility for the recipient to uphold and in time replicate.
Bell (1997, p. 108) includes offerings, sacrifices, and devotionals in
this category and thus opens a variety of other avenues for comparison.
One of my respondents, Matt from Kansas, provides an anecdote about
building a backyard ramp to skate:

I constantly thought of how the Egyptians built their pyramids to please

their gods. When I built my ramp it had to be perfect, it had to like, it had
to be nice and square, it had to be the most perfect thing I ever built and
when I did make a mistake, boy did it make me mad. It was like, the skate
gods are frowning on me.

Matt’s example relates to both a devotional service and an offering. The

ramp is significant beyond his own instrumental use. The building of it
took on ritual significance for Matt, making him feel like he was doing
divine work. It is not uncommon to hear of skateboarders making comi-
cal remarks that their skateboarding is motivated by a higher calling.
They may push themselves further ‘for the culture’ or to appease the ‘skate
gods.’ Such declarations are often made for comical effect but betray a
deeper sentiment held by some in which skateboarding is regarded to be
of cosmic consequence.
 8 Ritualised Play 191

I believe that a further iteration of exchange demonstrated by sacrifice

is particularly prevalent in the thinking of skateboarders. Sacrifice in
skateboarding is personal, pertaining to physical injury, bruises, torn
skin, and broken bones. Thus, rather than sacrifice being a sadistic act
inflicted on others, it is a masochistic act. It can be framed as a catharsis
offering a release from anxiety. Falling and injury can be seen as a neces-
sary part of skateboarding and are sometimes greeted with relief, almost
as if to get it out of the way. One of my respondents broke his ankle dur-
ing my research, this came after a number of his friends had experienced
their own injuries that had seen them relegated from their boards. In
response to his broken ankle he made an Instagram post with a photo of
his bandaged ankle in the back of an ambulance simply titled ‘guess it’s
my turn now.’ A further example of this comes from Patrick Eisenhauer’s
blog. Here he muses on the lessons of inevitable injury for older skaters,
referring to it as ‘paying the piper’ (2016). Another respondent, Carl
from the USA, who is deeply attuned to the religious aspect of skate-
boarding, made similar comments, emphasising that injury is the cost
of playing:

With many skateboarders, this physical consequence can become some-

what self-flagella[tory]. An idea exists among some of the dedicated that
you must ‘pay your dues’ and take a certain amount of punishment before
entering the ranks of the authentic riders. That paying of a physical cost for
the ability to clear the mind and focus on [the] present has a … echoes of
monastic devotion. There is a certain amount of truth in the concept
though, in that you must not be afraid to fall in order to not fall. That cour-
age truly comes from already having taken the fall in the past and surviving
it, from pushing personal thresholds of pain tolerance. This monk-like
conditioning is not only in the rite of passage by self-abuse, but also in the
ritualistic dedication. I have known many skateboarders who rode
‘religiously’.

In a more sombre account of injury titled ‘I broke my neck, and that’s

fine,’ a middle-aged skateboarder Overfield looks back with gratitude at a
host of seminal moments in his skateboard biography. In essence this is a
devotional testimony, not bitterness about the possibility that injury has
put an end to his skateboarding forever. The author recounts the humble
192 P. O’Connor

moments of joy on his board. He refers to the time Mike Vallely gave him
‘the finger’ at a contest, celebrates the fact that he carved (skated round in
a surfing fashion) a bench at San Francisco’s China Banks and ollied the
steps at Hubba Hideout. As a postscript he lists some of his best tricks,
including that he did a board slide on a handrail, and kickflipped a set of
five steps (Overfield, 2018). In this testimony injury is part of the sacri-
fice for the ‘gifts’ of skateboarding. Overfield’s skateboard biography
touches on various ritualised elements we have surveyed throughout the
text. He celebrates his encounters with professional skateboarders (skate
gods), he proudly refers to pilgrimages at iconic spots, and lists the tricks
he performed at these sites in order to signal the gravitas of such actions.
Injury is thus a type of sacrifice in skateboarding and one that many
skateboarders reflect on with pride and humility. In this light, a broken
bone is symbolic of a rite of exchange as it appears as though what is
derived out of skateboarding for these individuals is so rich and reward-
ing that the injuries are acts of devotion.

4. Rites of Affliction

Rituals in this category seek to diminish evil, bad spirits, or danger. Lyden
(2003, p. 83) suggests that sacrificial acts of penance can manifest as self-­
affliction. Here the ritualised abuse of Shiite Muslims on the day of
Ashura comes to mind. However, Bell argues that the type of ritual
depends entirely on the way a culture interprets the problem of evil or
danger. In skateboarding we recognise that there is an acceptance of dan-
ger and injury. However, in order to navigate the extreme and most
unfortunate risks of skateboarding I believe there is macabre symbolic
indulgence with danger, pain, and death in skateboarding. We have
already treated the iconography of skateboards at length and seen how
these court occult symbolism, skeletons, and ghouls. Sean Wilsey writes
that skateboarders have superstition towards places where they have fallen
and become injured, almost seeing these locations as haunted by bad
spirits. Indeed, the only concussion I have ever received has resulted in
me assiduously avoiding the very same spot in my local skatepark
as a result.
 8 Ritualised Play 193

Typically, skateboarders choose to encourage each other while skate-

boarding, and seldom point out the potential dangers or risks while a
skateboarder attempts a trick. Such an intentional focus on danger may
translate as simple sympathetic magic (Frazer, 1996, p. 24). Just days
before writing this I was chastised by a friend for referring to one of his
tricks (a frontside 5.0) as looking comfortable and safe. Invoking safety
was seen by contrast to be suggesting the alternative, danger. This relates
to superstition about laws of similarity, and laws of contagion—that by
mentioning a potential negative you summon it. Such caution about
dwelling on the risks and dangers of skateboarding while in the act is then
inverted in skateboard media. Thrasher magazine has long had a feature
called ‘Hall of Meat’ where readers send in images of their broken limbs
or open wounds. In recent years this feature has made its way out of the
magazine on to YouTube and Instagram. Video clips on these sites show
skateboarders being knocked unconscious as they fall from their boards,
being struck by cars, sustaining compound fractures, and frequently
injuring their genitals. A regular feature in the now defunct Skateboarder
magazine titled ‘Skate Anatomy’ showcased all the major injuries a pro-
fessional skateboarder had sustained since he/she began skateboarding.
Any one of these articles provides a wincing read, but Kyle Leeper’s
(Skateboarder Magazine, 2012) is a fairly standard account including
almost fatal loss of blood, brain bruise, pneumonia, bruised testicles, bro-
ken toe, meniscus tear, broken ankle, broken thumb, and broken wrist.
The recounting of these injuries appears to work as rites of affliction in
numerous ways. Firstly, they provide a degree of caution for novice skate-
boarders, reminding them, just as slam sections in videos do, that skate-
boarding is as much about falling as it is about rolling safely away.
Secondly, these testimonies contribute to the community, providing a
point of reference in seeing that others have suffered, and more impor-
tantly that others have gone on to heal and live to skateboard again.
Lastly, they work as an exorcism providing a safe space to deal with the
risk and danger without focusing on it while skateboarding. While it
might be easy to critique these rites of affliction as hyper-masculine, I
would argue that this is a simplified reading of their presentation and
meaning. Indeed women skateboarders also embrace the ritual humilia-
tion and catharsis of injuries (Moselle, 2018; The Nine Club, 2017b).
194 P. O’Connor

This is demonstrated by Sophie Friedel, who describes her initiation into

skateboarding: ‘I felt I needed the pain to feel alive and was particularly
proud of my wounds. Then, I proudly proclaimed that scars need to be
earned—tattoos can be bought’ (Friedel, 2015, p. 81).

5. Feasting and Festival

This fifth category is perhaps the most important of all. I do not think
the notion of feasting is of specific relevance to skateboarding, but cer-
tainly the notion of festival is. If we disregard calendrical festivities, the
relevance of spontaneous festivity resides at the heart of skateboarding.
Bell’s (1997) exploration of festivity corresponds with the catharsis of
relaxed social norms, of a liminal space between decorum and chaos. I
argue that skateboarding is itself a festival, this is particularly apparent
when it is witnessed and analysed in urban settings. The presence of a
skateboarder can transform urban space, providing a break with the
banality of everyday life. This remaking of space is at the heart of Borden’s
(2001, 2019) exploration of skateboarding. While it has popularly been
framed as a political critique of cities and capitalism, skateboarding can
also be understood as a ritual cleansing of mundane non-places in our
streets and towns. Sean Wilsey (2014, p. 113) describes skateboarding as
‘bringing emotion to emotionless terrain—unloved parking lots, vacant
corporate downtowns long after the office workers are home. I remember
skating in such places and feeling I was somehow redeeming them from
their daily functions, giving them a secret life.’ This interpretation is
evocative of magic and rites of exchange, that skateboarding is in itself
transformative.
The spectacular urban festivity is communicated through skateboard
magazines and videos. We constantly see groups of cheering skateboard-
ers, puzzled pedestrians, enthusiastic evening revellers so distracted by the
exploits of skateboarders they become waylaid in their night-time
sojourns. Countless skateboard videos depict such scenes. One videogra-
pher, Greg Hunt (2015), is particularly adept at setting his camera at
some distance from the action. As a result, Hunt captures not only the
skateboarder in motion, somewhat dwarfed by the surrounding space,
 8 Ritualised Play 195

Fig. 8.1 Chris Bradley provides some urban carnival for office workers

but also the candid reaction of pedestrians who stumble upon the
impromptu festivity. Dani Bautista captures just such a scene in which
skateboarder Chris Bradley nose grinds a ‘no parking’ sign outside of a
Hong Kong office block (Fig. 8.1). In the background, office workers,
perhaps on a cigarette break, look on. To the right we see a security guard
approaching; we suppose he intends to put an end to the unsanctioned
use of that space. This photo provides an insight into the way in which
skateboarding can be a festival, with skateboarders pursuing their own
interests and yet becoming metropolitan shamans.
Bell’s exploration of festival refers to a range of events including the
Hindu festival of Holi, Carnival, Mardi Gras, April Fool’s, and parades.
She highlights that in all of these events there is an opportunity for
‘orchestrated anarchy’ and ‘licentious play’ (Bell, 1997, p. 126). One
­particularly fascinating characteristic of such festivity is the capacity for
it to draw dissimilar social groupings together. This is another feature
196 P. O’Connor

replicated in skateboarding. Participation is often seen to be the most

important component of skateboarding, not age, race, class, gender, or
ability. Thus, skateboarding is very much a festival in which the taking
part is the most significant element. A further point that Bell makes is
that festival also facilitates social inversion, when the high becomes the
low and the low becomes the high. Festival remakes social relations, cre-
ating a ritual space where status is either flipped or elided. Again, in
Fig. 8.1, the skateboarder appears to be the hero. He is outside of the
typical order of the business world and its pomp of sensible attire, civility,
and decorum. Yet at the same time he is part of this world; it is his ritual
space and he transforms it, demonstrating the magic overlooked when we
confine ourselves to the expected.
Let us not forget that a good many skateboarders are indeed office
workers, bankers, frontline service staff in restaurants, engineers, software
designers, professors, plumbers, and electricians. All of these occupations
similarly occupy various parts of the city. Ocean Howell has reflected on
his experience of being an office worker treated deferentially by security
guards in daytime San Francisco, and then as an evening skateboarder
castigated or dismissed by the very same personnel at night (Pushing
Boarders, 2018). Skateboarding thus provides an opportunity for cathar-
sis, remaking these spaces and inverting identity and status in the process.
Festival creates a liminal space, moving between social worlds and their
associated roles. Lyden (2003, p. 95) argues that festival is partly a process
of ‘lampooning the status quo’ to awaken a spiritual life by subverting the
norms and hierarchy. He builds upon the work of Victor and Edith
Turner, embracing the way in which ritual creates a liminal space, a portal
of sorts, to surrender traditional conventions and touch upon an unstruc-
tured and egalitarian community.
The capacity for skateboarding to disrupt social conventions is remark-
able. Sophie Friedel’s (2015, pp. 61–67) account of working with the
Skateistan NGO in Afghanistan provides many rich examples. In one
scenario she recalls watching tribal warlords with their AK-47s strapped
to their backs attempt to balance on the skateboards they see young
children playing on. She observes both their curiosity and joy as they
attempt to awkwardly comport themselves on a simple object that has
 8 Ritualised Play 197

such a capacity for magic. In another anecdote Friedel speaks of skate-

boarding in an old swimming pool where the Taliban used to execute
people. Reflecting on the peculiar feeling of the place and its history, she
decides that skateboarding has given the place new life.
My personal experiences with skateboarding help to clarify this point.
Most skateboarders are familiar with the way in which their skateboard
often makes them a social subject. Holding or riding a skateboard
becomes almost an invite for people to speak to you. This is perhaps com-
parable to the experiences of pregnant women who, simply by the nature
of their visible pregnant bulges, are approached with a familiarity from
the general public. Parents with newborn children experience this, as do
dog owners. It is a break in what Erving Goffman (1963, p. 83) describes
as ‘civil inattention.’ People are more likely to talk to each other in an
elevator when there is a break with the norm, perhaps someone dropping
an item, the lift spontaneously jerking, or a passenger holding an unusual
object. Similarly, the skateboard disrupts social order enough to create
new social dynamics. During a summer visit to New York in 2014, I
spent a weekend skateboarding solo around Manhattan. That Saturday I
was approached numerous times and asked directions, or just informally
spoken to about the world cup, street scenes, and of course skateboard-
ing. At the end of Saturday I broke a rib at a skatepark and surrendered
my skateboard for the rest of the trip. In stark contrast, on Sunday, when
I opted to travel the city by foot, no one approached or spoke to me.
Bereft of my board, I was socially invisible.
The skateboard can therefore operate as a portable carnival, and a
magic key. In a point that dovetails with the arguments made in the pre-
vious chapter, travelling skateboarders experience tourist destinations in
distinctly different ways to more conventional tourists. The skateboard
provides both access and motivation to visit parts of cities that may very
well be off the traditional tourists’ map, sequestered in marginal urban
locations marked by heavy industry, working-class populations, or high
crime. Here skateboarders are able to engage, not in dark tourism (Foley
& Lennon, 1996) and not necessarily in pilgrimage, but in a form of ritu-
alised adventure tourism that brings with it festivity and street perfor-
mance for the local population.
198 P. O’Connor

6. Political Rites

Going by the intriguing Yom Kippur Israeli example described earlier

and also in part relating to a calendrical rite, skateboarding can also be
understood as a political ritual. As Borden (2001, 2019) has so eloquently
described, it is both a critique and a reproduction of urban space, capital-
ism, and modern culture. As a political expression Ferrell (2005) suggests
that skateboarding might be the last adventure left in a society that con-
trols and commodifies every experience.
In an evocative take on religion and skateboarding, Chris, a Belfast
native born during the late 1960s, discusses growing up skateboarding
during the troubles in North Ireland. Despite the sectarian conflict
between Protestants and Catholics, he speaks of a context where religion
was typically reduced to a volatile political label. Downplaying his per-
sonal experiences of the troubles, he emphasised to me how banal the
constant tension and military presence were on the streets. Remarkably
skateboarding provided a unique escape from the troubles, opening up an
organic DIY, depoliticised, space in which the only focus was skateboard-
ing. In carefully listening to Chris and analysing his words, I understand
his experience of skateboarding in the mid-1980s and early 1990s as con-
noting a ritually pure space where, despite its potency, religion was never
discussed. He describes the skateboarding community in Belfast prior to
the ceasefire and peace process, as largely cut off from the rest of the
world. There was no proper skateshop in Belfast and boards were hard to
come by. Soldiers stalked the street and ironically because of the emphasis
on security, skateboarders were largely left to do as they pleased. Far from
criminalised, these youth were able to circumvent the volatile and politi-
cally charged status quo in pursuit of a seemingly trivial act of riding their
boards. Consequentially skateboarding provided a sense of freedom and
mobility that few in Belfast had access to at the time. Chris provides
another example of an annual event that provided a ritualised opportu-
nity to reclaim the streets:

I can remember one time, in particular, where there was a series of protests
around a banned march which, for a number of years in a row, meant that
there was protests that closed roads and really shut down the entire
 8 Ritualised Play 199

­ rovince, not just Belfast. That meant that there was a lot of police out and
p
about but they were dealing with everything else. I can remember literally
skating down one of the busiest streets in Belfast because there was no traf-
fic, there was no buses. There was nobody about and that was on a Saturday
afternoon or at teatime, somewhere that it would have been completely
impossible beforehand.

Chris also speaks of a bizarre occasion when the police stopped a car
full of skateboarders travelling between sectarian districts. When they
explained they were dropping off a friend in a Catholic area, but driving
from and then returning to a Protestant area, the police could not com-
prehend the logic of the situation which defied the times. While sport
was used in Northern Ireland to forge bonds across the communities, it
was always part of a strategic plan. More commonly, sport was an exclu-
sive domain for the inclusion of specific sectarian identities (Cronin,
2002). In contrast, skateboarding was a self-started cross-community
activity that was never about peace, religion, or anti-sectarianism. It was
simply about skateboarding and as a result it forged a ritually distinct
social space beyond the rigid conservatism of the era. The image of
Catholic and Protestant skateboarders negotiating puzzled troops of the
Royal Military Police makes much of the contemporary celebration of
skateboarding as prosocial appear twee by comparison.
There is a paradox here. In a social context where politics and religion
were tightly entwined skateboarding provided a space outside of these
considerations. Yet, in being disinterested with these considerations
skateboarding became both ritualised and political. Framing skateboard-
ing as a political ritual shows how it is able to tacitly subvert and critique
existing social hierarchies and social disparities. Part of what has made
skateboarding so important and enduring as a lifestyle and culture has
been its capacity to remain meaningful without any explicit politicisation
or organisation. Validating Bell’s earlier comments, skateboarding as a
ritual appears important because it resides in miscommunication.
Skateboarders having various identities, not because of an overarching
political climate but because of a shared passion for skateboarding, is
still considered a radical social expression. However, this dynamic has
increasingly been repackaged by NGOs, educators, policy planners, and
200 P. O’Connor

corporations. I argue that it is precisely the attempt to harness this potent

political element in skateboarding that further contributes to individuals
seeking to make skateboarding more religious, preserving practices that
they see as unique and meaningful beyond the tentacles of institutionali-
sation and unbridled commercialisation.
In all of these accounts, what skateboarding appears to offer is a space
of interaction and expression that transcends typical and uniform codes
about sports, hobbies, and subculture. Moreover, it corresponds with the
notion that ritual provides a departure from the everyday, a sphere of
practice beyond the confines of mundane and profane concerns.

Play
One type of ritual that is of central importance to skateboarding is that
of play. This is overlooked in Bell’s exploration of ritual. The process of
play is something that we often take for granted. Deemed superficial,
childish, and yet essential for how the young learn their way in the world.
We appear to depart from play as we get older and engage in organised,
structured, and meaningful competition with clearly defined objectives.
When we play football, the notion of play is elided by the structure that
is suggested by the sport of football itself. Literally and figuratively, foot-
ball has a goal. There is a clear objective to win. Ritual, like play, might
be similarly understood as not having an explicit goal in itself; the pur-
pose is its performance alone. One of the most influential explorations of
play comes from Johan Huizinga (1949), who sets out to explore the
far-reaching impact of play in human culture. His work is remarkable for
engaging with both sacred and secular notions of play, but has been criti-
cised for going too far and losing the distinctiveness of play by exploring
it as an intrinsic part of contest, war, and legal process (Guttman, 1978,
p. 7). For both religious scholars and sociologists of religion, Huizinga’s
reflection on the sacred status of play is influential. He begins by high-
lighting a number of qualities that play possesses, being voluntary not
obligatory, having an essential ‘fun’ element, serving as a departure from
‘real’ life into a sphere entirely of its own being. Along with all of these
features, Huizinga (1949, p. 9) declares that ‘play has a tendency to be
 8 Ritualised Play 201

beautiful.’ At once play is shown to also be contradictory, it is ‘pointless

but significant’ (1949, p. 19). Most importantly, Huizinga connects play
to myth, to the numinous, and also to ritual. Firstly, he engages with the
idea of serious play, arguing that seriousness as an idea seeks to exclude
play, seeing it as improper and superfluous. Indeed one is encouraged not
to play in serious places such as work or while studying. But for Huizinga
play is of a higher order because while serious situations seek to exclude
play, the norms of play are often very serious in themselves (1949, p. 45).
Think how the rules of a make-believe game must be agreed upon and
followed despite their futility. Children know the importance of play and
the gravitas of following the rules in order for play to be fun. Huizinga
(1949, p. 18) also declares that ‘ritual is seriousness at its highest and
holiest. Can it nevertheless be play?’
These ideas are touched upon by Borden (2001, p. 97), who recognises
that skateboarding is in part engaging with the world and relating the
body to nature and the cosmos. The skateboard is like a divine object that
can connect an individual to conceptions of existence greater than them-
selves. Borden develops this from the work of Henri Lefebvre (2008,
p. 118), who claims that ‘toys and games are former magical objects and
rituals.’ The emphasis here is not on the action as much as on the object.
Lefebvre recognises that toys and games have been somewhat stripped of
their mystical powers. They have become ‘demoted’ and ‘clothed with
new social meaning.’ He similarly suggests that this new meaning is con-
fined to expressions such as play, and in the process he signals that play
might be superficial. However, he also notes that the potency of these
objects lingers on; particularly in games of chance he suggests there is the
opportunity to awaken the consciousness to possibility and in turn cri-
tique the existing social order in all its banality.
For sociologist of religion Carole Cusack (2013), Huizinga’s concep-
tion of play helps in the analysis of new or invented religious traditions
that tease a path between parody and sincerity. Sports sociologist Allen
Guttman (1978) charts a transformation from ritual sport to quantified
contemporary sport. He observes that play is autotelic, an activity in
which the end is the purpose itself. Sport since the industrial revolution
has become somewhat mechanical, ordered, and structured for a specific
result. He sees the structuring of sport as a mirror to society. Arguably the
202 P. O’Connor

growth of lifestyle sports and their popularity might, by the same token,
signal that society has become less structured and formal and thus more
individualised. Play can therefore be a theme that brings together discus-
sion on both the sociology of lifestyle sports (Thorpe, 2014; Wheaton,
2004, 2013) and the sociology of religion (Clark & Clanton Jr., 2012;
Heelas, Woodhead, Seal, Szerszynski, & Tusting, 2005).
From these discussions we can fashion an understanding of skate-
boarding as a ritual process that is important precisely because it is a sepa-
rate realm of activity in which there is no clear objective other than that
of play. Qualifying skateboarding as fun appears superficial but is, in the
light of Huizinga’s comments, precisely the quality that makes it so
important. Skateboarding appears to be serious fun. I turn to the com-
ments of one of my informants to qualify this point:

There is a meditative quality to skateboarding that is difficult to articulate.

Like many repetitive tasks or skills there can be a calming or focusing effect
when one practices the ability consistently. A repeated action refined over
time centers the mind and helps the practitioner regain a temporal and
moral perspective. Many sports, activities, and hobbies have this medita-
tive quality of calming and refocusing through repetition. … To ride on a
skateboard you are required to have an awareness of the present moment
and maintain a certainty in your actions and balance. Failing to do so will
have very real consequence: [i]njury, destruction. You find the present
moment because you have no choice. If your mind wanders to regrets of
the past or worries of the future, you are smacked by the reality of the pres-
ent. You must have confidence in your actions because your doubts will
slam your body into hard concrete.

The conflation of play, ritual, and meditation is a curious develop-

ment. I refer to another example from a skateboarding blog where the
magical tool of the skateboard becomes a portal to connect with a tem-
poral distortion of the self. This blogger reflects on skateboarding as a
ritual process that he has been engaged in for 30 years:

After skating for about 45 minutes, I sat down to take a break. Sitting in
the warm night air, with the cicadas droning on in the nearby woods, I
suddenly realized how much Salem’s Lot physically resembled a night spot
 8 Ritualised Play 203

from my distant youth. Maybe that was why this place had that certain
sense of magic to it. Then, it seemed as if the fabric of time began to
unravel. A distant memory experience came flooding back to me. A hot
summer night, when I was about 12-years-old. I was skating in an empty
parking lot. I had found some wood, and some bricks, and made a small
platform. 12 am. Age 12. Empty Lot and a platform. 12 am. Age 42.
Empty Lot and a platform. Suddenly, I was 12, and 42, at the same
moment. The continuum of time had collapsed. Generally, we experience
our ‘now’ in terms of our future short and long term goals and possibilities
(e.g. take the next left turn in the road, meet a work deadline, retire at 65,
find the mounting hardware bolt I just dropped on the floor, etc.). How we
comprehend and interpret those goals and possibilities is contextualized in/
by our prior experiences. Our ‘now’ is future orientated, but guided by our
past, all of which fuse into a present understanding of our ‘now.’ Here, in
Salem’s Lot, all of this was breaking down. The past was guided by the
future, 30 years ago was now, and the ‘now’ was a lived-memory … all at
the very same instant. The experience of past, the future, and the now,
became a single, seamless, timeless, experience, in which it was difficult to
parse apart one from the other. My mind swirled. All I could do was look
at my skateboard, and smile, for it … it … alone was the single string
which fused the past, present, and future together in this one moment. It
alone was the portal. (Sedition, 2016)

In this passage the skateboard is a ritual tool. In its use it creates ritual
time, being both in the moment and also in a transcendent place between
spheres of existence. Here we can extend that the practice of skateboard-
ing has temporal effects on practitioners, akin to the disruption of time
experienced in states of flow where time is slowed in moments of extreme
concentration, and sped up as one becomes lost in the concentrated per-
formance of an activity (Abraham, 2017; Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; Kotler,
2006; Lyng, 2005). This is similarly the temporal disruption that is expe-
rienced in moments of communitas, in religious rapture. Both of the
previous accounts read in this light as spiritual and philosophical reflec-
tions on the act of skateboarding.
Ritual time is explored by Mircea Eliade in a variety of his texts. He
argues that many calendrical rituals are an attempt to control time, to
return to an origin myth, a perfect primordial state in which the world
204 P. O’Connor

came into existence. In part, this need to replicate the process of creation
is part of a broader human anxiety about the inevitability of death; thus
ritual repeats what has gone before and pauses time, forestalling the inevi-
table once more. The ritual and creativity of play have considerable depth
in reference to the writings of Eliade. He argues that ‘the creation of the
world becomes the archetype of every creative human gesture’ (Eliade,
1959, p. 45). For as Eliade comments, ‘in the festival the sacred dimen-
sion of life is recovered’ (1963, p. 89).
This notion of sacred ritual time also finds its place in those with exist-
ing religious affiliations. Take, for example, the Australian Amar Hadid,
a skateboarder of Lebanese descent. She is an observant Muslim who
fulfils her five daily prayers and yet finds spiritual fulfilment in the prac-
tice of skateboarding. In conversation she states that

[e]very time I skateboard it is like an escape, like an adventure where you

face challenges that push you to your limits and when you overcome those
obstacles you feel an incomparable feeling of excitement. For most of us it
is not only a sport, it is social as well. There is no better feeling than going
out on a sunny day and having a session with friends at the skatepark …
Skateboarding is uplifting, challenging and engaging. It uplifts, challenges
and engages one’s spirit. In itself it is a beautiful sport. It [a]ffects our spirit.
It touches our hearts and makes us question our minds, thereby strength-
ening out mental power. It is habitual and has a deep-rooted effect with a
persistent but profound influence on one. Some deem skateboarding spiri-
tual but what skateboarding really does to me is evoke and awaken the spirit.

In Hadid’s response skateboarding appears to be an extension of wor-

ship touching both the spirit and consolidating communal ties while also
being physically and mentally invigorating. Ritually, it ‘awakens the
spirit.’ It is indeed playful and at the same time an activity with serious,
earnest, and broad implications. Entwined in all of these accounts is the
indivisible notion that skateboarding is performance, something one
does. The ritual aspect of skateboarding is about action and there is no
greater signifying practice to the identity of a skateboarder than the pro-
cess of skateboarding (Beal & Weidman, 2003).
 8 Ritualised Play 205

Conclusion
In this chapter I have sought to demonstrate how various understandings
of ritual resonate with skateboarding. In conclusion it is important to
qualify that in arguing that skateboarding can be religious, one need only
demonstrate that skateboarding itself manifests as a ritual event. It con-
nects to all of Bell’s six categories and in its most distinct rendering is an
enactment of urban festivity. Skateboarding can mark the passage of life’s
most important phases for those who are devotees, and provide a schema
to map more nuanced achievements and landmarks. Annual events,
exchange, affliction, and sacrifice are all features of what skateboarders
recognise as their culture. In our final exploration of play we come to
understand how skateboarders see themselves as having access to a spe-
cial, magical realm of life. In performing ritual some skateboarders con-
sider themselves enlightened, different from the blinkered ‘muggles’
ignorant of their toy, the true essence of the city, the nearness of freedom
and fraternity, and of course the enduring rewards of play.

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Part III
Organisation
 9
A Vehicle for Faith

A typical sunny morning in Barcelona sees professional skateboarder

Shaun Hover collaborate with local skaters in assisting him filming a
series of short video clips for his Instagram feed. Mingling at the legend-
ary Museum for Art Contemporary Barcelona (MACBA) spot and
uploading to social media happens to be the fundamentals of the Christian
ministry he performs for the group Calling all Skaters. Shaun, in his early
thirties, is a talented skateboarder and has a gregarious personality. His
social media presence includes regular humorous posts about his every-
day life, hanging out in Barcelona with his wife and young daughter. In
Colorado, a mother, unsettled by the gruesome skateboard graphics of
her son’s friend, responds by setting up her own Christian skateboard
company. While in Ontario, Canada, a small church converts its com-
munity hall space to an indoor skatepark and welcomes new members to
its congregation. These are all aspects of one of the most overlooked facets
of skateboard culture, evangelical skateboard ministry. It is also a vibrant
example of the way that religion has become organised into sport.
Forming the final part in my polythetic understanding of religion,
instances of organisation relate directly to a family of ideas that include
worldview, institutions, ideology, and collective action. In Geertz’s (1973,

© The Author(s) 2020 211

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_9
212 P. O’Connor

p. 90) definition of religion this aspect is represented as a conception of a

general order of existence. In this chapter I present some examples of how
institutionalised religion connects and engages with skateboarding, pro-
viding a space of spiritual outreach. I also discuss how these activities can
be regarded as forms of appropriation, co-opting the cool and commu-
nity of skateboarding to present new articulations of religious
commitment.
Throughout my research I have found hundreds of Christian skate-
board organisations that work to provide a connection between skate-
boarding and faith. Skateboard ministers are essentially skateboarders
who have found Christ and use their culturally specific skills and knowl-
edge to reach unchurched skateboarders. Some are self-taught and others
have attended courses, often styled around youth ministry. Much of this
evangelical work in 2019 is promoted and sustained through social
media. This includes Instagram feeds, Facebook accounts, websites where
you can sponsor skaters, help fundraising, and purchase Christian-­
branded skateboard products. YouTube channels also provide a diverse
array of content on young globe-trotting ministers and Christian skate-
board tours. Skateboard ministry conforms to, and appears to be trans-
forming, an aspect of ‘lifestyle Christianity’ (Ostwalt, 2012, p. 202)
strongly influenced by modes of consumption and identity politics (Flory
& Miller, 2008, p. 74). But it is also apparent in the discussions provided
here that skateboard ministers apply earnest effort to lead by example and
make a positive impact in the lives of their peers.
This chapter draws on research that I have conducted following the
social media accounts of skateboard ministers. I conducted seven inter-
views, mostly by Skype, with individuals deeply involved in skateboard
ministry. These individuals were involved in performing outreach, man-
aging Christian skateboard brands, or working in a skate church. My
findings point to a vibrant and connected subculture within the culture
of skateboarding. I asked all my informants ‘why do skateboarders need
Christianity’ and most agreed that everybody needs Christ, it is just that
the majority of skateboard ministers happen to be both skateboarders
and Christian. Yet all of the people I spoke to held assumptions about
problematic elements in skateboard culture to which skateboard ministry
was able to provide an alternative. Little in the way of research has
 9 A Vehicle for Faith 213

explored these dynamics, though my findings here are helpful to contrast

with the work of Ibrahim Abraham (2017) who has researched evangeli-
cal youth culture in alternative music and extreme sports scenes.
I highlight how the issue of social media is important in providing a
space where the niche interests of Christian skateboarding can reside.
These dynamics are in turn tied to the fact that Christian, Muslim, or
openly religious skateboarders are largely overlooked and dismissed by
the broader workings of the skateboard industry and their media. This is
despite the fact that some Christian skateboard companies have been
instrumental in giving numerous professional skateboarders their first
step into the industry. Through this chapter we learn that a prejudice
towards Christian skateboarders continues to influence the careers of
professionals and the ways in which they present themselves. In order to
give context to these discussions I begin by providing an outline of skate-
board ministry. I then provide a brief overview of the notion of relational
ministry and how this theme fits into the development of a commercial
version of lifestyle Christianity. I discuss in more detail the findings from
my interviews and conclude with a contrasting example of social media
skateboard dawah in Indonesia.

Skateboard Ministry
Skateboard ministry refers to the evangelical work and guidance provided
by Christian skateboarders, churches, and Christian youth groups.
Models of skateboard ministry may include the provision of skateboard-
ing apparatus in a church property, or the outreach of skateboarders in
skateparks and skateparks globally. Typically, the aim of this proselytisa-
tion is to bring skateboarders to Christ, not to bring skateboarding to
Christian youth. There are numerous groups which perform skateboard
ministry internationally. Some of these are small projects instigated by
local churches and youth groups like the Legacy XS skatepark in Essex,
UK. Others are bigger operations like Calling all Skaters, with evangelical
activities administered simultaneously in the USA, Europe, Asia, and
South America. The St James Church in Ontario, Canada, began open-
ing its doors to skateboarders after finding youth skateboarding on
214 P. O’Connor

Church property. Rather than continuing the practice of chasing them

away, a young minister suggested welcoming them in. Skateboarders have
been provided with a designated space and apparatus to skate and the
church has been revitalised with a youthful congregation. One skate-
boarder reports: ‘I gave my life to Jesus. My whole life got transformed.
But you know? Skateboarding came with me. There was no way I was
dropping skateboarding’ (Kalb, 2010). The same pattern has been repli-
cated with the Legacy XS skatepark in the UK which has been funded by
a local church group in Chelmsford Essex since 2001. It aims to provide
facilities for youth to skateboard and also introduce them to Christianity.
The Pastor, Peter Hillman, advocates that the youth who use the skate-
park can begin to incorporate their skateboarding as a form of worship.
In elaborating what skateboard worship might be, he states that ‘rather
than landing a trick for the pleasure of me, I am going to land it for the
pleasure of you’ (Chelmsdio, 2007).
Two of the most well-known skateboard ministry programmes, Calling
all Skaters (CAS) and MSSkateMinistry (MSSM), have a very different
structure that has emerged through social media promotion. Founded in
2012, CAS is led by American skateboarder Shaun Hover, who, as of
2019, is living in Barcelona. CAS operates the Discipleship Training
Schools (DTS), which enrols skateboarders in a self-funded programme
of up to six months. A key component of the DTS is outreach, which sees
teams of skateboarders travel to a different country and provide skate-
board ministry for up to three months. The DTS programme is run in
cooperation with Youth with a Mission (YWAM), a global evangelical
Christian non-profit group founded in 1960. Between 2012 and 2018,
CAS has seen 106 skateboarders complete their DTS. In contrast, MSSM
is led by Mike Steinkamp, a talented skateboarder and motivational
speaker who looks like the eurocentric vision of Jesus, handsome with
long blonde hair and blue eyes. Set up independently by Steinkamp when
he was 19, his ministry involves public speaking, skateboard competi-
tions, and social media messages. MSSM produces polished YouTube
videos with inspirational life-affirming tales and has a smartphone app
Landing Bolts that provides a 14-day devotional for skateboarders, to aid
them in thinking about and committing to Christ. Both DTS and CAS
are led by charismatic and skilled skateboarders who notably ride for the
 9 A Vehicle for Faith 215

same Christian skateboard company, Untitled Skateboards. Both are also

examples of evangelical lifestyle Christianity in the social media age,
something I explore in more detail later.
There are a number of Christian skateboard companies such as Manna,
Untitled, Reliance, Siren, Wisdom, and Motherboard. Many of these
also operate as ministries and provide competitions, and demos (demon-
strations of skateboarding by professionals) to promote their brand and
their faith. All Christian board companies are small and do most of their
trade via their websites or selling boards at events. Jud Heald, owner of
Untitled Skateboards, discussed how it was challenging to get skateboard
shops to sell his boards, again emphasising the way that Christianity is
treated with suspicion within skateboarding.
One of the most fascinating elements of skateboard ministry is that it
appears to be a well-developed subculture within the broader culture of
skateboarding. Just as the skateboard industry has slowly acknowledged
and incorporated female skateboarders (Atencio, Beal, & Wilson, 2009;
Kelly, Pomerantz, & Currie, 2006; Kelly, Pomerantz, & Currie, 2007;
Pomerantz, Currie, & Kelly, 2004), and just as the impact of YouTube
skateboard companies such as Revive and Braille is still only partially
understood by the skateboard industry at large (Kerr, 2015), I argue that
skateboard ministry is a potential disruptor to the norms of skateboard-
ing as they have evolved over the last 30 years. The thread that ties all of
these dynamics (women, YouTubers, Christians) together is that they
have all directly benefited from their adoption and use of social media.
Indeed, social media has given women skateboarders a platform that
niche skateboard media historically refused to do. Skateboard companies
and magazines have responded by including women skateboarders as
professionals, giving them magazine covers, and increasing the means for
them to participate in competitions. Similarly YouTube skater-run chan-
nels have been able to provide accessible content and information for
new skaters peripheral to skateboard culture (Donnelly, 2006; Dupont,
2014), a group that have long been ignored by skateboard media, or mar-
ginalised and humiliated as uninitiated grommets and kooks. The result
has been falling board sales by traditional ‘core’ skateboarding companies
and a tier of YouTube skateboard personalities who have turned them-
selves ‘pro’ for their own companies. Skateboard ministry presently poses
216 P. O’Connor

little threat to existing dynamics in skateboarding both social and com-

mercial. However, I argue, that skateboard ministry is a developed aspect
of skateboarding that tells us much about Christianity in the twenty-first
century, and the various subcultural careers of skateboarders.

The Emergence of Relational Ministry

To foreground this discussion on skateboard ministry it is helpful to pro-
vide a cursory sketch of the emergence of contemporary forms of evan-
gelical Christianity that have sought to include the ‘unchurched’ by
relationship building which draws on lifestyle marketing techniques and
identity politics. This is the type of evangelical Christianity that has flour-
ished in the USA, where religion has had to compete in the marketplace
of ideas, separated as it is from the state (Moore, 1994). It is this intense
secularism of the USA, Ostwalt (2012) argues, that has counter-­intuitively
made the nation so deeply religious. To European sensibilities, this some-
times reads as twee and disingenuous. Europeans are primed for a more
officious and less commercial Christianity. America by contrast is the
home of mall-sized Mega-Churches, or giant stadiums filled with
Christian rock festivals, and Christian-lifestyle stores replete with T-shirts
and bumper stickers with slogans like ‘Real Men Love Jesus.’ In recent
years a variety of Christian fashion brands, such as Not of This World
(NOTW), Humbled Daily, and Faith Rx’d, have become indicative of
the commercial lifestyle branding of religion in the USA. These brands
highlight that it is hip to be a Christian who engages in pop culture,
keeps fit, and pursues lifestyle sports (Ornella, 2017). There are numer-
ous Christian fashion brands, an annual ‘Christian Fashion Week,’ and
an array of Christian fashion Instagrammers. The rise in Christian mar-
keting and Christians as a sales demographic is an important transforma-
tion in North American religious life (Quail, 2009).
This contemporary commercial Christian-lifestyle branding has grown
out of the evangelical Christian movement in the USA. During the nine-
teenth century there were architectural modifications in churches
throughout America that began to orient worship towards entertainment
(Flory & Miller, 2008, p. 62). This commodification of Christianity is
 9 A Vehicle for Faith 217

also observable in the early twentieth-century fundamentalism of entre-

preneur brothers Milton and Lyman Stewart. These Californian oil mil-
lionaire brothers founded a fundamentalist approach to Christianity,
arguing a moral position in the modernising world, but also embracing
religious work as a commodity. Over three million copies of their publi-
cation The Fundamentals were published and distributed across the coun-
try, all fuelled by their personal wealth (Pietsch, 2013). A trend in
evangelism and entertainment grew throughout the century and included
the theatrics of Irwin Moore, and preacher Billy Graham who was heavily
promoted in the newspapers of Randolph Hirst (Flory & Miller, 2008,
pp. 62–63). A new model grew out of Chuck Smith’s Cavalry Chapel in
California, which sought to accept people as they were, rather than trans-
form them into part of a homogenised congregation—a concession, I
would argue, to the growing subjective notions of spirituality (Heelas,
Woodhead, Seal, Szerszynski, & Tusting, 2005; Taylor, 1991, p. 26). In
Smith’s church, unkempt hair and rock music was adopted and embraced
by the church as a legitimate expression of worship. The Chapel is
regarded as a hub of the subsequent Jesus Movement of the late 1960s
and early 1970s (Abraham, 2017). This was further developed by Bill
Hybels in the megachurch model at Willow Creek in Chicago. Founding
the seeker style of evangelism, Hybels adopted market research tech-
niques and pursued a way to make the church relevant and appealing to
the unchurched. Flory and Miller (2008) characterise the seeker style of
evangelism as a form of appropriation. They argue that while ministry
may take on apparently new forms, being consumptive, hip, and lifestyle-­
oriented, the content remains the same. Thus, Christian rock and
Christian fashion brands are effectively shells in which an identical
untransformed evangelical technique and message of redemption resides.
But for Heelas et al. (2005) this model of Christianity conforms to their
argument of the dominance of the subjective turn. Their analysis suggests
that in both the UK and the USA, congregations that have worked to
provide more subjective expression and reflection by their members have
seen less attrition than more rigid Christian congregations that dictate
‘life as’ a conforming member of a tradition and congregation. In sum,
we can bring these themes together and recognise that the secular thread
of the USA has facilitated the emergence of the subjective and c­ ommercial
218 P. O’Connor

expressions of Christianity. While individuals may be at ease in construct-

ing an understanding of the sacred that conforms to their lifestyle (tat-
toos and motorbikes for example) the church has been appropriating
practices from popular culture to promote Christianity in an increasingly
subjective spiritual context.
The most comprehensive exploration of the new fusion in lifestyle
sports and evangelicalism comes from Ibrahim Abraham (2017), who
looks at skateboarding, surfing, and rock music subcultures. He finds a
host of interrelated themes that are central in this chapter discussing
authenticity, flow, relational ministry, serious leisure, and sports for devel-
opment. Many of Abraham’s respondents have successfully fused a sub-
cultural and Christian identity, although they note challenges about the
ways they are perceived both by other subcultural participants and
Christians. One powerful example relates to the perception that musi-
cians are using Christianity insincerely in order to make money. Abraham
(2017, p. 55) notes that for some artists who are moderately talented the
church may provide an easier path in their careers. However, he also notes
that there are considerable challenges for musicians who decided to be
openly Christian, presenting obstacles, or at least a ceiling to the sort of
success they might achieve. These findings are echoed in the responses of
Jud Heald, who recognises that skateboarders who have been supported
by his company have had to downplay or depart from their Christian
identity in order to make their name in professional skateboarding. Many
of the most well-known professional skateboarders (Christian Hosoi,
Steve Caballero, Jamie Thomas, Ray Barbee) became Christian after they
were already established skateboarders. Being a committed and public
Christian appears to present significant challenges in the cultivation of a
skateboard career. However, as Abraham’s research suggests, involvement
in skateboard ministry may provide an attractive path to those less talented.
Like many of the surfers and musicians Abraham spoke to, there
seemed to be a caution about identifying religious elements within skate-
boarding itself. The experience of flow in skateboarding is likened to reli-
gious experience, yet as Abraham (2017, p. 91) notes, it is also problematic
as it spills over from religion in the parameters of the profane world. I
argue that in light of such caution, skateboard ministry largely, but not
entirely, conforms to the appropriation argument that Flory and Miller
 9 A Vehicle for Faith 219

make. The numerous Christian skateboard organisations I have studied

and the individuals I have spoken to tend to embrace skateboarding as a
form of ministry in ambiguous terms. This is a critique that I have seen
both within the work of Flory and Miller and in religious and evangelical
publications. As Stevenson (2007, p. 198) argues, ‘I’m sure that the skate
ministers are good guys, and they’ve undoubtedly sacrificed what would
be more lucrative gigs from secular sponsors. But it’s hard to say what
marks this kind of ministry as a Christian activity.’ Moreover, I consis-
tently encountered ambivalence about skateboarding and spirituality
amongst skateboard ministers. In general, many saw nothing spiritual or
enlightening about skateboarding, yet remained enthusiastic about it as a
physical outlet. One might argue that skateboarding itself seems simply
to be a façade that does not connect to any observable spiritual practice
or understanding. That is to say that neither Christianity nor skateboard-
ing seems to have developed any new form in this partnership, and skate-
boarding could be simply supplanted for any other lifestyle or activity.
However, one unique thing is observable in this fusion of skateboarding
and Christianity—representation. Time and time again ministers would
highlight how skateboarding is a distinct culture, and thus hard for
Christians to reach. Being both a Christian and a skateboarder provides a
unique position and cultural fluency in what too often are imagined as
distinctly different, or even opposed, identities.
One example provides a helpful analogy of how I understand skate-
board ministry. The Australian-published ‘Skaters Bible’ (Bible Society
Australia, 2007) is in its essence a straightforward reproduction of the
New Testament. It does come with a glossy cover, which depicts an
abstract photo of a skateboarder and then includes 20 glossy inserts
throughout the Bible which have photos of Christian skateboarders and
short testimonials about their calling and commitment to Christ.
Invariably the stories confess how great Christ is and the photos speak to
the skateboarding. Occasionally skateboarding is mentioned and fre-
quently underlined as only partially fulfilling unlike the truth of Christ.
The final glossy inserts of the text provide an overview of the message of
the Bible and some key guidelines for living a Christian life relating to
abundance, salvation, temptation, drugs, and sex. In sum, there is a dis-
tinct division between the elements of the Skaters Bible. Skateboarding is
220 P. O’Connor

literally inserted and is in almost all of the inserts a visual component

where stories of loss and salvation dominate. While I believe that there is
no contradiction between being Christian and being a skateboarder,
skateboard ministry often appears like an insert, a cut-and-paste combi-
nation that is seldom clear about how the two are connected.

A Dark Culture
One recurring theme in my interviews was the fact that skateboarding
culture has a tendency to appear subversive, dangerous, and antisocial. In
various ways my participants spoke about the Satanic imagery of the
skateboard magazine Thrasher. Famously one of their logos, the Skategoat,
includes a Baphomet with 666 inscribed on its head positioned within a
pentagram, part of which is a skateboard truck. This iconic logo has also
become a popular tattoo, significant as another ritualised way in which
skateboarders fuse media and physical affliction in order to create and
sustain community. Figure 9.1 shows a Skategoat tattoo of a 30-year-old
woman skateboarder at a Hong Kong skatepark. To her this symbolised
membership and commitment to the skateboard community, and was
not a religious or Satanic act. However, for Christian skateboarders the
logo and the iconography of Thrasher was problematic. Three of my par-
ticipants used the same phrase ‘dark culture’ to describe skateboarding.
For Marco (a pseudonym), a 21-year-old from Florida who now lives in
Australia, Thrasher represents the worst of skateboarding:

Look at everything Thrasher puts out. It’s six, six, six. It’s upside down
crosses. It’s naked women. It’s the world. You know what I mean? My point
of view is why wouldn’t they act like that? The Bible says you can’t blame
sinners for their sin.

Shaun Hover recognised this Satanic imagery in Thrasher and argued

that this corresponded with the anti-religion element in skateboard cul-
ture. Much of what he observes is actually mocking Jesus and the cruci-
fixion. Jud Heald also described Thrasher as anti-Christ and Satanic and
chose to rework the skategoat logo for his brand Untitled skateboards.
 9 A Vehicle for Faith 221

Fig. 9.1 Thrasher Skategoat tattoo. (Photo by Author)

Instead of using the Satanic goat and pentagram, Jud used a sheep with a
cross on its forehead to symbolise Christ as a shepherd and placed it
within a Star of David (Fig. 9.2). The reworking of the logo represents
how skateboard ministry and Christian skateboard companies provide an
alternative to the subversive anti-Christ narrative popular in skateboarding.
Indeed, this was part of the motive behind the establishment of
Motherboard, which uses Catholic imagery in their skateboard graphics.
The owner of the company was tired of the dark and gruesome images of
many skateboard companies. Motherboard is the sister company of Full
of Grace USA, which reproduces historic artwork originally appearing in
Catholic prayer cards for use in stationery, pendants, and other items.
The artwork of Motherboard skateboards is thus influenced by the art-
work of Margaret Mary Nealis, a nun from Montreal who was prolific in
producing devotional Catholic imagery that has been used throughout
222 P. O’Connor

Fig. 9.2 Skatesheep Untitled logo courtesy of Jud Heald

the world. Each board includes a hidden image of the Miraculous Medal,
a sacramental that is included to provide protection and good luck. These
graphics and those of other Christian skateboard companies embody an
edgy aesthetic and tease the notion that faith, like skateboarding, is a
radical thing.
This was a topic that Jud picked up on. Expressing frustration with the
way Christianity was marginalised in the skateboard industry, he empha-
sised his belief that this was a contradiction. In Jud’s argument, skate-
boarding and religion require faith and commitment. The issue of
authenticity is central in both identities. Being a committed Christian is
‘punk rock’; Jesus was a rebel, he pushed boundaries and hung out with
the most marginal people in society. Jud states that ‘skateboarding is not
being a poser, being Christian is the same.’
 9 A Vehicle for Faith 223

Leading by Example
For Shaun Hover and Mike Steinkamp, skateboard ministry involves mar-
keting themselves. As founder of CAS, Shaun has a strong social media
presence with a following of more than 56,000 on Instagram. Originally
from Michigan, 32-year-old Shaun lives with his wife and daughter in
Barcelona. He has become associated with the MACBA scene, skateboard-
ing with locals and visiting professional skateboarders at this iconic spot.
In conversation Shaun presents as sincere, articulate, and intelligent. Like
many skateboard ministers Shaun sees a disconnect between skateboard-
ing and religion, emphasising that they are not the same thing:

For me, I would say skateboarding itself is not a spiritual or religious thing
… skateboarding is part of what I believe God has given me and what God
has called me to do, the culture that God has called me to represent Christ
inside out, and for me, skateboarding is the healthiest thing for my own
personal mental health and sanity.

Shaun is passionate about skateboarding; he declares that in his thirties

he is more excited and committed to skateboarding than at any other
time in his life, and partly this is because he believes that God has willed
him to be a representative for Christ in the skateboard community. When
I asked Shaun why skateboarders need Jesus, he explained that skate-
boarding was a powerful culture and identity in its own right, and this
formed part of the need to reach this community. He elaborated that
‘people who are skateboarders are really skateboarders. That’s who we are,
more than I’m an American. … My heart is in the skateboarding com-
munity. My identity is within that community. That’s where I find
my values.’
Much of my discussion with Shaun focused on the DTS programmes
that CAS runs in collaboration with YWAM. The various strands of CAS
are spread out across the USA and globally. They have teams in Los
Angeles and Denver and San Francisco where they will hold DTS. From
there newly trained skateboard ministers will travel to do outreach in
places as diverse as China, Columbia, and Spain. Scrolling through the
Instagram page of CAS a variety of posts show skateboarders completing
224 P. O’Connor

a DTS in Barcelona, skateboarding in the streets of Latvia, Bosnia, Tel

Aviv, Berlin, and the UK. Part of this global spread is due to the outreach
performed by CAS, but it is also an inheritance from the 106 skateboard-
ers who have completed a DTS. As Shaun highlights, many of these indi-
viduals have gone on to travel and perform skateboard ministry, set up
their own skateboard companies, or have become more deeply involved
in church work.
With regard to how all of this is financed, Shaun is candid: everyone is
self-funded. A student signing up for a DTS pays to join and as a result
gets housing, food, travel, and teaching materials covered.

Everyone is in charge of their own fundraising, basically no one gets paid.

We’re part of Youth With A Mission (YAWM), which is a massive Christian
organisation with over 20,000 full-time workers worldwide and nobody
gets paid.

Despite this declaration, both YAWM and CAS survive through vari-
ous sponsorships and corporate support. But much of Shaun’s support
comes from donations of people who are encouraged by his message and
his lifestyle. Being very active and visible on Instagram as both an accom-
plished and committed skateboarder, but also a devoted husband and
father, carries with it a cachet of wholesome coolness. The importance of
social media for Shaun cannot be understated. This is where he provides
the crucial insights into his everyday life and leads through example.
Unlike many skateboard ministers, Shaun Hover’s Instagram feed pro-
vides little insight into his faith and work as a skateboard minister. His
feed is similar to many other well-known professional skateboarders.

The reason I have a following on Instagram isn’t because I’m such a famous
skater that people follow me, it’s because I’ve been posting cool stuff on
Instagram for a long time … what I felt from the Holy Spirit was, don’t
make your Instagram just pictures showing your daily life. Make your
Instagram sick skateboarding clips.

Many of Shaun’s friends and colleagues have challenged him on why

his Instagram is not a more authentic representation of his life and min-
istry. He responds that his account is purely a skateboarding platform and
 9 A Vehicle for Faith 225

need not be anything else. However, he is also conscious that this follow-
ing feeds into part of his broader mission.

I show up to MACBA with my kid. People see me with my child, the way
that I love her, the way we hang out. I want people to be able to maybe see
something that they haven’t seen in skateboarding, or see something that
they have never seen before, which maybe is a dad loving his little girl, or
me and my wife having a healthy lasting marriage.

Shaun is thus living life before his followers just as one of Abraham’s
surf ministers describes (2017, p. 106). This includes setting an example
for others and circumventing the need to preach. In many ways Mike
Steinkamp has a similar experience. He has produced a number of beau-
tifully edited YouTube videos that contain evocative scenes of skateboard-
ing alongside messages about the richness of a life committed to Christ.
Mike’s ministry is much smaller than Shaun’s and involves him talking at
Christian camps and conferences and organising skateboard competi-
tions. Both Mike and Shaun recognise how central social media has been
in developing their ministry. In the early 2000s when Untitled skate-
boards first established itself as a company, ministry involved touring
around the country and providing demos at skateparks. Increasingly this
style of ministry has become less popular because in many locations
throughout the USA people have become blasé about professional skate-
boarders and are much more attuned to the constant feed of information
on their phone than the antics of a touring Christian skateboard company.
Skateboarding is the key ingredient of Mike’s skateboard ministry. He
stated respectfully that it is hard to take someone seriously who does not
belong in skateboarding. Emphasising that the notion of authenticity is
key in skateboard culture, Mike asserts that skateboard ministry requires
the specific skills of skateboarders. He provided an analogy by discussing
prison ministry that normally includes former convicts. I questioned
Mike on the issue of appropriation, and he responded sympathetically
about the problem that this posed for skateboard ministry:

I think what you are kind of addressing is authenticity at some point. Like
people look at it and they go, well this looks fake or cheesy, because you’re
just saying, I am a Christian motorcycle rider, or I am a Christian graffiti
226 P. O’Connor

artist. I kind of get that. I think it even feels fake in skateboarding some-
times when you talk to a skateboard minister who isn’t sold out, completely
in love with skateboarding. To be honest with you, I even have a hard
time with it.

Of all the ministers I spoke to, Mike appeared most at ease in accept-
ing the tensions between skateboarding and religion. He was balanced in
his criticism of the skateboard industry and the ways in which skateboard
ministry was sometimes organised and presented. Indeed, this was a fea-
ture Jud also acknowledged. Being a Christian skateboard company
required leading by example, and some companies have historically been
inauthentic in their work and commitment to religious principles. For
Mike this meant not profiting from his ministry. In order to pay the bills
he works on producing promotional videos in the film industry and flips
houses to make extra cash. He, like many others, does not take a salary
from his ministry and while he does not publicise this fact, he believes it
is part of the authenticity that ministry requires.
Precarity appears to be a feature of skateboard ministry. Jud stated that
‘you need multiple streams of income’ to survive in skateboard ministry.
Beyond the running of a company or marketing oneself on social media,
all skateboard ministers need to be entrepreneurial in order to pay their
bills. Some like Marco and Shawn are reliant on fundraising and dona-
tions, setting up GoFundMe pages, and relying on their Christian net-
work often for housing, skateboards, and travel expenses. Others fund
their ministry activities through their own work.

A Tool
While Shaun, Jud, and Mike all place skateboarding as a central feature
of what they do, they all also see that their faith is the most important
thing. While Mike is passionate about skateboarding he also regards it as
ephemeral and a distraction from the bigger questions. His point being
that while skateboarding is good while you are young and healthy, what
happens when you become injured or too old to skate? Skateboard min-
istry is important for them because it communicates this need to connect
with something bigger than skateboarding.
 9 A Vehicle for Faith 227

However, for two of my informants skateboarding was simply regarded

as a tool. Marco underlined that skateboarding was nothing more than a
way to establish rapport:

It’s never been and will never be about skateboarding. I’m not preaching to
kids about skateboarding. I actually hate it when all dudes want to talk
about is skateboarding.

These same themes were echoed by Dave Tinker from Florida who
established Wisdom skateboards, a Christian-focused board company,
and is also Director of Services at Skaters for Christ (SFC). The Jericho
skatepark is owned by SFC and provides some free sessions for skate-
boarders if they participate in Bible study. Previously involved in ministry
through Christian rock music, Dave explains in a YouTube video that he
was motivated to get involved with skateboarding because of its ‘dark
culture’ (Backstage with Tinker, 2017). Dave is clear that he has surfed
but never skateboarded and is therefore ‘outside’ of the culture. Dave
explained to me that skateboarding is solely a tool to reach out to youth,
and that skateboarding itself is not really a necessary focus. In seeking to
provide an inclusive community at the Jericho skatepark Dave explains
that SFC has been open to scooters. But as a result, skateboarders have
largely stopped visiting the skatepark and SFC is considering rebranding
itself as Scooters for Christ.
Such comments add considerable fuel to the argument that skateboard
ministers are appropriators as Flory and Miller suggest (2008), in essence
using skateboarding for an evangelical agenda by exploiting skateboard
culture. This in many ways is remarkable as it contrasts starkly with the
creative spiritual talk of many skateboarders who find both meaning and
solace in the rituals and community of skateboarding. What I have
observed in skateboard ministry is a disengagement with the subjective
spirituality described by many of my respondents. This becomes even
more distinct when Marco describes the practice of relational evangelism.
This practice is not about going out and preaching, it is about learning
who young people are, taking an interest in their daily life, asking them
about their day, going to the cinema together, hanging out and cooking
pancakes. Marco says ‘being relational, it’s not standing on a pedestal
228 P. O’Connor

going, you’re going to burn … it’s just about relationships. About hon-
ouring the person and seeing the potential in them. Just being their
friend.’ Despite this rhetoric, Marco remained focused on the fact that
his ultimate goal is to share the Lord’s message and he even reflected on
the fact that he might be holding himself back by focusing too much on
skateboarders and skatepark ministry.
A further contrast to this dynamic is provided by the St James skate
church in Ontario. I spoke to Eric, an outreach worker and former social
worker connected to the Church. He explained how around 2010 the
church experienced a problem during the harsh weather with skateboard-
ers breaking into the church hall and skateboarding inside. Initially the
youths were all chased away and banned from the church until discussion
in the congregation suggested that they should be welcoming the skate-
boarders in. Several years later the church has been transformed by the
infusion of youth in the church and the swelling attendance. Eric high-
lights that the process is not one way; this is not about skateboarders
simply coming to Christ, it is also about a Church and congregation
relearning their Christian values. In a very different way Eric recognises
skateboarding as a tool, but importantly one to develop community and
communication between groups of people. He describes skateboarding as
a ‘unique community’ that truly care for and ‘help each other.’ This is
again similar to an account provided by Abraham (2017, p. 99) in which
skateboarder’s sense of community appears like a religious congregation
without the paraphernalia of organised religion. Ironically a number of
skateparks have been built in older churches no longer used by a religious
community. Take, for example, Skatehal Arhmen (Skatehal, 2017) in the
Netherlands and the ornate Skate Church in Coruño, Spain, painted by
artist Okuda (Inkandmovement, 2017).

Critiquing Skateboard Ministry

Skateboard ministry is an overlooked and little understood phenomenon
within skateboard culture. Indeed, many skateboarders are suspicious of
Christian programmes connected to skateboarding, particularly if they
involve a skatepark with mandatory prayer time. One skatepark in
 9 A Vehicle for Faith 229

Chattanooga Tennessee was only built after the local government made
skateboarding in Chattanooga illegal. I interviewed one local skate-
boarder from the area who was deeply critical of the skatepark and the
fees they levied on skateboarders that he then believed to be directed back
to the church. While he was deeply suspicious of this scenario my further
investigations also suggested that he was at least partially misled and that
the skatepark did charge for sessions but also had free access for those that
attended a prayer meeting. In the end the skatepark closed to the disap-
pointment of many who regularly attended. In another example a skate-
boarder takes to YouTube in criticism of the Legacy X skatepark’s
Christian ‘brainwashing’ (Broomfield, 2012). As common as these cri-
tiques are, many churches are doing no more than providing one weekly
evening of prayer and free skateboarding. They are able to help skate-
boarders in providing facilities, stepping in where there are not local
resources or funds available to support a burgeoning local scene. Abraham
argues that unless a ministry ‘is willing to invest in a skate park, and
maintain a church presence in a religiously neutral space, there is no obvi-
ous material benefits a church can offer local skateboarders’ (2017, p. 100).
Of greater interest is the larger network of Christian non-profits and
their methods of relational evangelism. This model was used by both
Marco and Shaun, and it is also part of the structure and focus of Skate
Life, a Christian skateboard non-profit under the Umbrella of Canadian
parachurch Young Life. More generally it appears to be the model of all
skateboard ministry I have observed: Relational evangelism. YWAM, for
example, which CAS is affiliated with, has come under various forms of
criticism for a range of ‘cult-like’ practices. Critics have warned that the
shepherding of relational ministry can be coercive, deceitful, and contrib-
ute what some have phrased as ‘spiritual abuse.’ More readily apparent in
my conversations with both Marco and Shaun is the financial burden
that skateboard ministry involves. Individuals fund themselves and often
pay rent to an organisation like YWAM. Furthermore, they are living and
socialising within the group almost exclusively. In effect, young people
are paying the organisation to participate and the organisation provides
full-time workers or volunteers with no wages. This leads to a Ponzi-type
situation where the youth ministers who are most famous, who possess
the largest social networks, end up acquiring many more funds than a
230 P. O’Connor

cook volunteering in the organisation. Reflecting on this situation with

regard to social media skateboard ministry, it is clear that there is a dis-
tinct thread of entrepreneurialism involved. While this is nothing new in
skateboarding, it is arguably an issue in conflict with the mission and
sincerity of religious work and spiritual guidance, especially in a context
that focuses explicitly on youth. The commercial interests of Christian-­
branded skateboard companies like Untitled, Reliance, Siren, and
Motherboards often go hand in hand with evangelical work. Untitled
skateboards spent years travelling their skaters to skateparks across the
USA and performing ‘demos,’ essentially putting on a show of great tricks
for spectators and thus promoting their brand and the gospel. This type
of evangelism has become increasingly less successful as skateboarders
have now become indifferent to such teams unless they include notable
and famous professional skateboarders. Christian-themed skateboards
are thus appealing to Christian skateboarders and their parents, provid-
ing an alternative to images and themes on boards that may be unsavoury
and against their religious and spiritual orientation. Yet, while they are
fundamentally brands, Christian skateboard companies provide some
connection between skateboarding and Christianity, typically religiously
inspired graphics and endorsement by Christian skateboarders. This con-
nection is consistently less apparent in skateboard ministry, which too
often uses skateboarding simply as a tool to direct people to Christ.

Future Organisation
As skateboarding continues to grow as a legitimate inclusive global sport,
so too do the avenues for religious expression and organisation. The social
media potency of this is clear. While skateboard media is reluctant or
simply unwilling to represent Christian skateboard brands, Instagram,
YouTube, and Facebook are open. Similarly, Instagram is a vibrant
resource for Muslim skateboarders in South East Asia to promote their
lifestyle and beliefs. Dinia, a 24-year-old woman skateboarder from
Indonesia, posts a mix of evocative religiously themed images and videos
on her Instagram feed alongside posts about skateboarding. Often her
posts combine the two, and on some occasions she posts her own original
 9 A Vehicle for Faith 231

artwork that fuses Islam and skateboarding. In one of her pieces of art she
depicts a female skateboarder dressed in an abaya, pushing along on her
board whilst holding an Islamic flag with the Shahada written in ornate
Arabic (see Fig. 9.3). The Shahada forms the first of the five pillars of
Islam; it is a creed, the profession of faith. It translates as ‘There is no god
but God. Muhammad is the messenger of God.’ Written above this image
is the word Tauhid, which is the principle of unity, the affirmation of one
universal God. Other posts on Dinia’s Instagram are similar, one depicts
a simple image of a girl skateboarding in an abaya with the words ‘push-
ing to Janah,’ which can be translated as skateboarding to heaven. Another
image, this time a photo taken at Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, shows a card
with a written slogan stating ‘I love skateboarding, but first I love Allah,
Islam, Qur’an.’ Speaking with Dinia I learned that there are some paral-
lels to skateboarding ministry in Indonesia. In Islam the process of pro-

Fig. 9.3 Tauhid by Dinia Sahana (from 2018)

232 P. O’Connor

moting or inviting people to religion is called dawah. Browsing through

Instagram feeds shows an emerging organisation of skateboarding dawah,
where efforts to infuse youth with a commitment to religion draw upon
lifestyle sports, philanthropic works, and rock music. One group based in
Bandung called Shift focuses on youth dawah and has the collaboration
of some notable Indonesian skateboarders. The Shift Instagram account
is vibrant and active, promoting frequent events and has over 1 million
followers (@pemudahijrah, 2018).
Dinia’s artwork and the Shift youth organisation show how it is not
just Christianity that is using skateboarding to bring young people closer
to religion. These activities and organisations also connect to forms of
philanthropy that have become very visible not just in skateboarding
(Skateistan, Be the Change, the Tony Hawk Foundation) but more
broadly in lifestyle sports (Action Sports for Development and Peace,
2018). Many skateboard charities have religious foundations or motiva-
tions and those that do not still occupy a moral and ethical space that
links them to religious activities. However, the focus in this chapter has
been to highlight how religion has organised itself around skateboarding.
Dinia is also an example of some of the new articulations of Islamic
feminine identity that are being accessed and performed on social media.
Williams and Kamaludeen (2017) have discussed this through the fusion
of fashionista and hipsters social media identities with hijab-wearing
Muslim young women and the development of hijabista and hijabster
subjectivities. Both of these portmanteau neologisms are popular hashtags
on social media platforms. Another term, hijabcore (Pasbani, 2017), also
relates to hijab-wearing metal enthusiasts, many of which have gained a
platform and exposure through YouTube. Dinia reinforces her own ideas
about the role of religion and the hijabista and hijabster movements. She
is critical that these are not modest or pious practices. While makeup and
glamorous fashion goes against Dinia’s principles, she understands that
skateboarding is a sport and is thus acceptable under Islam. It is signifi-
cant that religion, and religious dress, becomes important for Muslim
women skateboarders in Islamic countries in South East Asia. Malaysian
skateboarder Fatin Syahirah Roszizi participated in the street skateboard-
ing component of the 2018 Asian Games. She competed with her heads-
carf and wore a helmet on top. She was also subject to widespread
 9 A Vehicle for Faith 233

criticism on social media for her performance. Some of this criticism

conflated her poor scoring as representing not just Malaysia badly but
also her religion of Islam. In contrast, Fatin received wide support from
the skateboarding community, even receiving messages of support from
professional skateboarders Tony Hawk and Daewon Song
(Malaysiakini, 2018).
Most strikingly, while this chapter deals explicitly with organised and
institutionalised religion, the notion that skateboarding is, or can be
regarded as, religious is fairly weak in the accounts of my respondents. It
appears that in linking skateboarding to organised religion the practice
and device become de-mythologised. What is clear in the accounts of all
the individuals I spoke to about skateboard ministry is that skateboarding
is transient, and religious truth is eternal. As much as skateboarding can
be fun, exhilarating, social, and even an integral part of one’s identity,
skateboard ministry ultimately approaches the activity as a tool to con-
nect with Christianity. The charge of appropriation is potent here; it can
appear as though Christian groups want to feed off the community and
cool of skateboarding. There seems little that is authentic in the marriage
of the two; these are not examples of a new niche Church of Christianity.
Take, for example, the Church of John Coltrane, which infuses Christian
worship with a liturgy in which the music of Coltrane is central (Bahan,
2015). My research was unable to uncover any instance in which skate-
boarding became an acknowledged part of the spiritual practice of my
Christian informants. However, as my discussion in the following c­ hapter
indicates, this does not mean that this is not already taking place or
unlikely to occur beyond Christianity. What is most apparent about
skateboard ministry is that skateboarders can, and often are religious, and
that the organisations and groups provide a means for them to share their
worldview and to work and worship collectively with others. Mike
Steinkamp was both sensitive and critical of the way in which non-­
skateboarders became involved in skateboard ministry, and Jud Heald
argued the case that both Christianity and skateboarding are radical acts
of commitment and bravery. This resonates with Abraham’s findings
from other research on evangelism in youth cultures where one respon-
dents argues that ‘if you’re a born-again Christian, you’re already quite
radical’ (2017, p. 52). In Jud’s and Mike’s articulations there appears no
234 P. O’Connor

contradiction or inauthenticity about the meeting of skateboarding and

Christianity. In contrast, the example of Dave Tinker feeds to some of the
greater criticisms of evangelical work in skateboarding. The fact that the
Jericho skatepark is considering giving up on skateboarders in order to
focus on scooters instead will validate the scepticism many skateboarders
have about the involvement of Christianity in skateboarding. For other
critics the involvement of any Christian group or church in skateboard-
ing is disingenuous, ultimately being a covert way to get young people
into Christianity (Broomfield, 2012). This alone is not a reason to be
cynical about skateboard ministry as there is no shortage of venal and
insincere business practices in the skateboard industry unconnected to
religion. In this chapter I have only scratched the surface of what is a
distinct and growing trend. Much more can be explored on the subject of
skateboard ministry, especially as other religions begin to engage with
similar models. Abraham (2017, p. 19), for instance, discusses Hindu-­
oriented Krishnacore punk and Ostwalt (2012, p. 219) refers to the King
David Bikers, a Jewish motorcycle gang that find religious reinforcement
through their bikes. It is distinct that the dynamics that have fuelled the
growth in the institutional organisation of religion and skateboarding are
both the growth in skateboarding’s mainstream popularity and the demo-
cratic nature of social media. In part, skateboard ministry is both part of
the increased mainstream popularity of skateboarding and also a
response to it.

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 10
DIY Religion

Early skateboard culture embodied the notion of DIY. Young children

typically built their boards independently, sourcing parts from roller
skates and cutting a board out of whatever available wood they could
find. This ethic of self-reliance has continued to be part of the skate-
boarding identity, whether it is connected to setting up your own board
or your own board company. The DIY element of skateboarding is tightly
connected to the explorative creativity of certain aspects of the culture. It
therefore makes a certain amount of sense that some skateboarders deem
it fit to organise their own DIY religions. In most cases these consciously
created religions eschew the label of religion, yet embrace a host of ethics,
rituals, and communalism that parallel both organised religion and con-
temporary invented, fictive, or mock religions (Cowan & Bromley, 2015;
Cusack, 2010, 2013; Sutcliffe & Cusack, 2013; Taira, 2013). In other
examples these are personal constructs, akin to new-age spiritual practices
(Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 2008; Heelas, 2006) and
attempts by individuals to make sense of what they find meaningful and
instructive in their lives. While representing very different levels of organ-
isation and self-identification as religions, these practices all conform to
attempts in establishing a repertoire of meaning in skateboarding that has

© The Author(s) 2020 237

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_10
238 P. O’Connor

received little attention. I read these expressions of DIY religion as exam-

ples of organisation, particularly with regard to how they attempt to reify
a worldview or cosmology of skateboarding.
This chapter draws heavily from the influential work of Carole Cusack,
who has explored a variety of iterations of invented religions. These have
typically emerged from popular culture, been influenced by films, and
found in literature. She describes these as ‘exercises of the imagination
that have developed in a creative (though sometimes oppositional) part-
nership with the influential popular cultural narratives’ (Cusack, 2010,
p. 7). Invented religions such as Discordianism, Jediism, Matrixism, and
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti are all united in presenting a critique of
religion while conforming to the fundamental tenets of a host of aca-
demic definitions of religion. By being reflexively self-aware of their own
fictitious nature, these movements challenge us to consider what is really
important about religion. In Cusack’s (2013) research a focus on invented,
intentionally and self-consciously fictive religions is shown to also engage
with the importance of joyful play. She states that these religions view ‘the
ludic and play as legitimate sources of ultimate meaning; in no sense
inferior materials upon which to base a religion than factual accounts,
attested experiences or historical events’ (2013, p. 371). Taking this
notion of play seriously seems to be a key tenet of skateboarding. Lefebvre’s
(1991, p. 118) argument that ‘toys and games are former magical objects
and rituals’ is applied in Borden’s (2001, p. 97) analysis of skateboarding.
In various ways Borden shows that skateboarders, and their media, exper-
iment with notions of spirituality, joy, and play. Thus, I suggest, in a
scaled down version of Cusack’s invented religions, that skateboarders are
both parodying religion and fostering a space of community and spiritu-
ality in invoking religious language and symbolism.
But I also argue that examples of DIY religion in skateboarding are
part of a negotiation of rights and recognition. As skateboarding has
become a legitimised sport, a fashion, and a referent in popular culture,
it has also fragmented. The various cultural worlds of skateboarding all
serve to disrupt not just the practices and organisation of skateboarding,
but also the identities of its veterans. Thus, DIY skateboard religion can
also be seen as a way to preserve and sanctify parts of the culture held to
be meaningful to some individuals. It can also be argued that DIY
 10 DIY Religion 239

r­eligion, as Taira (2013) has claimed, is a means to access recognition,

rights, and power. It may in turn be feasible to imagine that skateboarders
could one day champion cultural and religious rights to claim entitle-
ment to freely skateboard city streets, particularly at a time of festivity
such as the annual ‘Go Skateboarding Day.’ With reference to the Barrier
Kult (Ba. Ku.) group, it is evident that their ritual practice is also a mode
of resistance to the commercialisation and celebrity of contemporary
skateboarding. Their religion is one of defiance personified in their com-
mitment to only skate one type of apparatus and claiming it as the arche-
type of skateboarding objects. Ba. Ku. may also be understood as a
response to the organised Christian involvement in skateboarding, par-
ticularly in establishing their own dogma, ritual, and satanic imagery.
In the examples of individualised religious practice I also see connec-
tions to the work Heelas, Woodhead, Seal, Szerszynski, and Tusting
(2005) have performed on the spiritual revolution. My informants speak
of their subjective well-being and spiritual experiences. Skateboarding is
something that keeps them happy, gives them focus, clears their mind,
and puts life into perspective. It is clear that skateboarding, as part of
their practice and identity, contributes to their broader worldview. These
practices connect to the processes of pilgrimage observed in Chap. 5, but
go one step further in seeking to connect to imaginative and experiential
elements of skateboarding that are not physically tangible. Skateboarding
operates as a way for these people to make sense of the world in ways that
are culturally appropriate for them. Some examples clearly conform to
what has also been described as ‘religious individualism’ (Bellah et al.,
2008, pp. 232–233). In turn, they represent ethics that are either derived
or connected to skateboard culture, highlighting once more skateboard-
ing as a cultural field of communication.

Skateboard Cults
The season finale of the 2018 Viceland television show Post Radical fea-
tures a variety of skateboarders who are described as ‘fetishists’: individu-
als who have a quaint fascination with some part of skateboard culture.
One segment explores the Ba. Ku. group. They take their name from the
240 P. O’Connor

ubiquitous modular concrete Jersey Barriers that line roads and highways
throughout the world. Common as these elements are, the name of the
concrete object is little known beyond highway construction workers and
skateboarders. A Jersey Barrier stands at a metre in height with slanted
sides that make it an appealing object to street skateboarders. Yet it is also
an object notoriously difficult to skate. Established in Vancouver in 2003,
the Ba. Ku. invoke a variety of ritualised practices. They are committed to
only skating Jersey Barriers and protecting their anonymity with balacla-
vas while doing so (Fig. 10.1). They have produced zines, videos, branded
skateboards, and maintain a blog in which all writing is presented in
block capital letters (Nieratko, 2015). The Jersey Barrier is used to repli-
cate the tight transitions of ramp and pool skateboarding from the 1980s.
Focusing on this one form of obstacle, they declare, is an act of militancy
to the ethos of skateboarding fostered by the elliptical transition of the
barrier. The Ba. Ku. skateboard videos are also peppered with pentagrams,
inverted crosses, and the occult. Photos of the Kult and some of their
skateboard graphics include the use of long knives. These are a symbol of
stabbing and again relate to the way skateboards interact with the Jersey
Barrier. The front nose of the skateboard tends to stab into the concrete
as the board is ridden into the tight transition.
More fascinating is the underlying doctrine of Ba. Ku. which is oppo-
sitional to the celebrity and commercialisation of skateboarding. In vari-
ous accounts, Ba. Ku. members express distaste in the way skateboarding
has become a celebrated aspect of popular culture. They emphasise that
professional skateboarders are not idols or heroes, and cannot be regarded
as role models (Craig, 2018). One Kult member claims that they believe
skateboarding should be anti-notoriety, glorifying the act of skateboard-
ing, not the professional doing it. Curiously this mirrors the principles of
some Christian skateboarders who skate not for their own triumphs but
for the glory of Christ. It is a central motif represented by Ba. Ku. mem-
bers donning balaclavas—these symbolise the belief that skateboarding
should be an anonymous act and skateboarders per se should not be cel-
ebrated. Ba. Ku. has a global reach and has become a celebrated brand in
its own way. Kult members refer to this as plague spreading, more readily
understood as the growth in recognition and support of Ba. Ku.’s ethics
and aesthetics. Ba. Ku. has released its own skateboards in collaboration
 10 DIY Religion 241

Fig. 10.1 Barrier Kult member ritually skating a Jersey Barrier. (Photo: Anthony
Tafuro)

with brands such as Skull Skates and Heroin Skateboards, sold its own
DVDs, T-Shirts, and knife-shaped plastic rails. They have even collabo-
rated with Emerica shoes and Gullwing trucks and released Ba. Ku.
branded products. Clearly, they are not against the commercial aspects of
skateboard culture, but instead resistant to certain forms of mainstream
celebration.
Yet, despite the efforts of Ba. Ku. to preserve their anonymity, as their
movement has grown in popularity, so has interest in the real identities of
their members. One post on their blog urges followers to stop trying to
242 P. O’Connor

figure out who they are (The Barrier Kult, 2013). My contact with the
Kult was strictly anonymous and maintained a form of ritual purity with
all communications being in capitals and using Ba. Ku. ritual language
such as ‘plague,’ ‘stabbing,’ and ‘militancy.’ Browsing through their blog
emphasises these elements and the reader has to attune themselves to the
style of Ba. Ku. communications, typically termed ‘attacks.’ Skateboards
are referred to as ‘knives,’ and ‘hordes’ are groups or sects of Ba. Ku.
spread across the globe. Each Kult member takes on a ritualised name
and the list of members sounds dark and arcane with monikers such as
Deer Man of Dark Woods, Vlad Mountain Impaler, The Black Glove of
Internal Combustion, Beast of Gevaudan, Muskellunge of Dark Island, and
Rotting Dog in Black River. Each name is chosen by the putative leader of
the group Depth Leviathan Dweller and caters to the interests and style
of each member. The dark tone of the Kult is evident in their videos, the
first of which, Horde, was released in 2004. Throughout the 17-minute
video, barrier skateboarding is interspersed with excerpts from satanic
horror movies and demonic imagery. The music to all of their videos is
black metal, a genre which lyrically emphasises the bleakness of the natu-
ral world, paganism, and morbid mythology. During the video candles
are occasionally placed on barriers that are being skated and a Church of
Satan flag is used intermittently. In one segment between skateboarding,
we see wolves feasting on a carcass in the wild. I read this imagery as
being both oppositional to the popular tone of contemporary skateboard-
ing and also a means to invoke the danger and risk inherent in skate-
boarding. Ba. Ku. rituals and paraphernalia play on sociophobics in a
similar way to horror movies, using satanic imagery and music to unsettle
and unnerve. While these images may be cool in their own way, they are
indeed a departure from the clean-cut, Nike–Adidas/energy drinks face
of skateboarding.
In framing the doctrine and ideology of Ba. Ku. it is readily apparent
that there is a political aspect to what they are doing. In one interview
their purpose is framed as the desire to ‘protect the integrity of skate-
boarding’ (urbanrushshawtv4, 2010). Fundamentally they wish to unset-
tle the mainstream popularity of skateboarding and are invested in a
creative form of culture jamming. The Blackspot shoe from Adbusters
(2018) is a corresponding example. This was designed as part of the
 10 DIY Religion 243

a­ lter-­globalisation movement to challenge the commercial clout of Nike

and their use of sweatshop labour. The Blackspot evolved out of the
debate surrounding Naomi Klein’s (2010) influential No Logo book. The
shoe ultimately moves the focus away from the fetish of the brand, label,
or logo, and its surrounding celebrity endorsements and suggests that
shoes should be simply ‘shoes’ and not a contributor to inequality.
Similarly, Ba. Ku. attempts to reorient people’s understanding of skate-
boarding and in so doing invokes religious symbolism and ritual.
The Kult provides a curious example of an invented or DIY religion.
All of their activities are deeply ritualised; they venerate the Jersey Barrier
and have their own doctrine. Yet while adopting religious elements they
intentionally refute the label of religion. When interviewed in Post Radical
(Craig, 2018), Depth Leviathan Dweller invokes religion and then stops
short of adopting the label.

Depth Leviathan Dweller: We don’t need to skate anything else all we need
is these altars.
Rick McCrank: So, there is sort of a religious aspect to it?
Depth Leviathan Dweller: I would say more of a code.

The deference to code rather than religion is one that Cusack (2010,
p. 127) notes with regard to Jediism. In one example a Jedi temple in
Texas registered as a non-profit group and adopted a stipulated code,
creed, and oath. In my own communications with Depth Leviathan
Dweller a similar position is adopted. I challenged him on the fact that
Ba. Ku. has a following and is similar to a variety of movements that
Cusack has identified as new religions. He acknowledged (writing only in
capitals) a ‘belief structure’ but again stopped short of using the
word religion.

THE BARRIER KULT DEFINITELY HAS A FANATICAL

FOLLOWING DUE TO [ITS] UNWRITTEN VARIOUS ‘RULES’
AND MANDATES THAT OTHERS WHO TRULY UNDERSTAND
LIKE TO EMULATE. SO YES, A BELIEF STRUCTURE FROM
REPEATED INTERVIEWS AND VIDEOS THAT GRIND INTO
PEOPLE THE DECONSTRUCTION OF SKATEBOARDING
ITSELF.
244 P. O’Connor

Depth Leviathan Dweller explained to me that skateboarding is a sport

that ‘accidentally’ has its roots in punk rock and deviance. He argues that
skateboarding is at an ‘apocalyptical moment’ where ‘brand hype’ and
‘pro worship’ has become destructive. The goal of Ba. Ku. is to strip
‘skateboarding back to its purity’ in pursuing physical manoeuvres that
invoke the essence of the sport.
The success of Ba. Ku. can be measured in various ways. Firstly, in
terms of duration, this rather arcane group has managed to acquire a
global reach. Nearly 15 years after their first video, they continue to pro-
duce merchandise and release new videos. Various smaller Ba. Ku. ‘hordes’
have emerged across North America, Asia, and Europe. There have also
been at least two movements which, influenced by Ba. Ku., have turned
their focus to the parking block. This object is akin to a pavement or
sidewalk curb but constructed to be placed in parking lots to demarcate
where cars should park, preventing them from rolling away. Two different
Parking Block Kults have existed: one Canadian, which released a video
in 2011 and then largely disappeared; and another more recent group in
the USA which began in 2016 and maintains an Instagram account (@
parkingblockkult, 2017). Images on their feed show members skating
parking blocks, but also include various designs of parking blocks, and
Satanic imagery in which parking blocks have been inserted. In an inter-
view on their blog they adopt a similar aesthetic to Ba. Ku., writing only
in capitals and referring to parking blocks as ‘low-lying altars’ (Parking
Block Kult, 2016). They similarly are an anonymous group who take a
critical stance of the celebrity and sportification of skateboarding, stating
that ‘televised contest stunts are poison.’ Interest in these practices indi-
cates that some skateboarders are invested in preserving some form of
meaning that they derive from skateboarding. Turning attention to social
media one may find a variety of skateboard communities that are on the
periphery of the skateboard cult movement. Facebook groups such as
‘The Jeff Grosso Kult’ and ‘The Lance Mountain Cult’ along with other
curb fraternities on Instagram such as ‘Fellows Union Curb Club’ and
‘Curb Crushers Grand Order’ are some examples which are not yet dis-
cernible as quasi-religious beyond their adulation for either specific pro-
fessional skateboarders or a skateboarding object. The Fellows Union
Instagram has over 6000 followers and its own website which sells
 10 DIY Religion 245

­ erchandise such as stickers and T-shirts. The focus of this group is the
m
skating of a long sliding curb in a parking lot and the development of a
community around it (@fellowsunioncurbclub, 2019). Devotion for
curbs and other objects is, however, not particularly unusual. In an issue
of one skateboarding zine a writer states that ‘a simple curb is a church. A
ditch is a cathedral’ (Czarski, 2016, p. 7).
Beyond Ba. Ku. there are other nascent forms of religious organisation.
The Worble skateboard collective hailing from Vermont have emphasised
a connection to the wild and Nature in their often innovative skateboard-
ing. In their 2018 video Toxic Planet, a character referred to as a skate
monk bequeaths aphorisms between segments of skateboarding. Dave
Mull of The Worble suggests that their group is less of a religion and
more of a spiritual collective. He states that in The Worble ‘everything is
about adventure and experiencing the world around us as wild and free,
testing our physical capabilities and, really, overcoming fear with a kind
of faith’ (Glenney, 2018). Mull claims that skateboarding is a humiliating
act where the practitioner is always failing in some form. This in itself
becomes a motivation, providing a burst of adrenalin that allows you to
achieve the ‘impossible.’ In Toxic Planet the skate monk declares that
‘[w]e mistake our flying for falling. We mistake our falling for flying.’
These statements in the video are juxtaposed with footage of various
members of The Worble falling off their boards and injuring themselves:
a slam section. It is a peculiar feature of skateboard videos that failures are
not entirely erased during production. Painful falls, or slams, are repre-
sented not just as entertainment, but also as an act of honesty and authen-
ticity. Everyone falls off their skateboard at some point.
Building on a previous discussion of ritual in Chap. 8, I propose that
this is another instance of the ‘lowly’ that Turner (1977) identifies as a
feature of the liminal status of communitas. In the ritual act of humilia-
tion, we supposedly achieve parity with all others and experience a cathar-
sis that has a community enhancing and liberating effect. Unlike Ba. Ku.,
the focus of The Worble is on freedom and being wild in the wild, yet
they also appear to be pursuing some kind of ‘essence’ to skateboarding
and constructing a doctrine, or lifestyle religion through it.
Another example is the Cardinal Sins Skate Cult based in the
USA. Initially founded by a dozen skateboarders who collaborated to
246 P. O’Connor

rent a warehouse space in which they could build an indoor ramp. One
of the members explains that the title of the group has multiple meanings:

The idea of referring to ourselves as a cult was partially in sarcasm, but it also
had two intentional effects. First, it acted as a bit of a buffer to outsiders. The
local community was quick to shutdown these type of spaces so we had to be
somewhat wary of who was allowed to come skate. Calling it a cult made
strangers reluctant to assume they could skate without an invite. Second, it
made most of us treat the place with a little more reverence than just another
warehouse to skate in. We jokingly referred to weekly sessions as “going to
church” and members as “sinners”. I think that this buffer from outsiders,
respect for the bowl, and ritual sessions are all part of why it not only still
exists, but has doubled in size - both in square footage and number of members.

Cardinal Sins play with the title of cult in both a humorous way and
in an instrumental fashion as a form of boundary construction. They
have invested time and money into creating a place to skate, and they do
not want it abused and put in jeopardy. Strikingly one member informed
me that skateboarding was a serious pursuit that required practitioners to
engage in cosmological reflection—the practice necessitates people being
involved in the moment, present, and aware. Echoing the comments
made in the Worble video he also stated that ‘you must not be afraid to
fall in order to not fall,’ highlighting that Cardinal Sins is more than a
sports club, a collaboration of like-minded skateboarders in a ritual pro-
cess. In fact, the moniker of cult was adopted intentionally to distance
the group from sports groups and clubs. As my informant reports ‘club’
has connotations of bowling and softball which ‘leaned too hard towards
the middle-aged suburbanization they spent their lives rebelling against.’
Similarly, pushing back on the sporting notion of a club, the cult was
constructed to ward off casual skaters and the uncommitted. Members of
the cult signal their inclusion by wearing patches, diacritic marks to the
initiated about their participation and piety in skateboarding (Fig. 10.2).
In organising these cults, members are seeking to move beyond some
form of spiritual identification and make distinct ritual and ideology.
This has broader implications about claims to an authenticity and essence
in skateboarding that they appear to be seeking to preserve. While there
is much about Ba. Ku. that is gauche and absurd, there is also reflexivity
 10 DIY Religion 247

Fig. 10.2 Patch for Cardinal Sins Skate Cult members

in acknowledging this. By establishing a militant skateboard faith, they

also parody what skateboarding has become. Professional skateboarders
are cast as false idols, and the hero worship and adulation of them is
revealed to be as absurd as the practice of skating a vertical piece of con-
crete adorned with candles while wearing a balaclava. Thus, Ba. Ku. and
Cardinal Sins Skate Cult are engaged in serious parody (Mäkelä &
Petsche, 2013), which clearly has an ideological and political edge. The
satirical power of invented religions should not be dismissed as it is
instructive not only on the passions of popular culture but also on the
boundaries of our spiritual lives.
Ba. Ku. also urges us to address the tension between new religions and
cults. In refuting the label of religion but adopting the mantle of ‘kult’
Ba. Ku. is arguably constructing an invented cult. Yet this is a paradox, as
typically the notion of cult is used as a way to challenge and discredit new
248 P. O’Connor

religious movements. As Cowan and Bromley identify, cult is for many

people ‘just a four-letter word for any religion someone doesn’t like’
(2015, p. 11). Indeed, Ba. Ku. appears to have constructed a deliberately
oppositional movement as a form of boundary construction around
skateboarding. In using black metal and Satanism it plays directly into
the rhetoric of anti-cultists who claim that all cults are evil in some form,
exploiting their adherents financially, emotionally, or sexually. Yet in
truth, many of the new religious movements that crop up every year are
no more pernicious than established and traditional religions; it just hap-
pens to be that most people only learn of them when there is a scandal
like the Heavens Gate suicide pact or the Branch Davidian crisis in Waco
(Cowan & Bromley, 2015). For all its posturing Ba. Ku. seems indifferent
to exploitation and only really cares about its message, rather than expo-
nential growth. On reflection, the issues that Ba. Ku. is resisting in skate-
boarding culture, that is, celebrity and commercialisation, may just as
easily also be understood as cults, particularly for Ba. Ku., which feels as
though skateboarding is being desecrated in its contemporary transfor-
mations. The issue of ‘cult’ may have further significance in the compel-
ling nature of skateboarding, itself a tight-knit and often arcane
community. Moreover, skateboarding can be a socially exclusive bubble
to some people. One of my respondents in his fifties spoke about how,
despite his love for skateboarding, it might have held him back from
doing other things. He stated that ‘I was a bit of a skateboard fundamen-
talist when I was in my late teens and twenties. And I think that I did it
to the exclusion of everything else.’ While this may be a typical trait of
youth, it does additionally indicate that skateboarding can become all-­
enveloping. This resonates with the argument that skateboarding is in
itself a cultural world, that it is a lifestyle (Wheaton, 2013), and that in
some manifestations it can be regarded as a cult-like unhealthy obsession.
These cults may not be solely male expressions of community and spir-
ituality. Recent years have seen the development of a number of women-­
only skate crews that are visible on social media, many having their own
zines, and merchandise. The Skate Kitchen hailing from New York is
arguably the most well known of these women skate crews. Members of
the Skate Kitchen became the subject and stars of a full-length dramatic
feature film (Moselle, 2018) highlighting the popular interest in women
 10 DIY Religion 249

skateboarding subjectivities. Another group, the Seattle-based Skate

Witches, formed in 2014 as entrants in a skateboard competition. They
have subsequently grown in popularity and organise an annual scavenger
hunt, similar to the Thrasher King of the Road event, in which teams of
women skateboarders must perform a series of tasks, many of which are
zany and absurd. Founding member Kristin Ebeling chose the name of
the group in reference to a film skit from the 1980s that she came across
on YouTube (Plotnick, 1986). This short comical film depicts a group of
three skater girls dressed in punk attire who harass male skateboarders. It
concludes with a call for more skater girls and stipulates that they must
all have pet rats. The twenty-first-century Skate Witches have no such
requirements, but do have a savvy website where you can buy shirts, vid-
eos, and zines that document the activities of women skaters associated
with the crew (Skate Witches, 2019). The term witch, although used in
jest, similarly plays on occult ideas of subversive and arcane ritual prac-
tices, while also being evocative of esoteric feminine spiritual and sexual
powers. Similarly, the term skate kitchen subverts the sexist assumption
that women ‘should be in the kitchen.’ In a similar critique, the logo of
the Jerusalem Skater Girls is that of a stiletto heel shoe on a skateboard.
Harnessing the symbols of femininity and recasting them in satirical ways
is in part a process of claiming power. It is similar to how skateboard
graphics have played with religious and political iconography. Despite
the fact that groups like the Skate Witches and the Skate Kitchen are
focal on providing spaces for women skaters, these groupings as a by-­
product can also facilitate spiritual reflection. As we have seen through
this text, the religious side of skateboarding is not simply a male preoc-
cupation. Sophie Friedel (2015) writes a searchingly honest account of
the impact skateboarding has had on her soul, and refers to the joy, com-
munity, and freedom of skateboarding as ‘gifts.’ Various women respon-
dents in my research have spoken about bodily affect, how skateboarding
gives them somatic freedom. Some liken this to yoga, others talk of bliss
and self-expression that women often feel socially restricted from openly
engaging in. Perhaps most powerfully women skate crews offer a space of
friendship beyond typical notions of femininity surrounding c­ ompetition
for male attention and approval (Kelly, Pomerantz, & Currie, 2006;
Pomerantz, Currie, & Kelly, 2004).
250 P. O’Connor

A further tangent that does not quite fit with previous discussions on
religious organisation is the way in which some professional skateboard-
ers have courted what is perhaps the most famous of modern cults, the
Church of Scientology. Most noteworthy is professional skateboarder
and owner of the Berrics skatepark and website, Steve Berra. He explains
how Scientology has helped him with his career and life, providing a way
to check his emotions and mental state. He also confesses that when he
was first introduced to Scientology via a girlfriend, he saw it as bad, but
having explored it and finding it helpful he now thinks people are naive
to dismiss it as some peculiar cult or networking group (Ware, 2013).
Rumours have circulated that other professional skateboarders such as
Eric Koston and Jim Greco have also dabbled in Scientology. Founder of
the popular YouTube channel and skateboard company Braille
Skateboarding, Aaron Kyro is also reportedly involved in Scientology
(Scientology, 2009). He appears in one video talking about how
Scientology actually helped him learn skateboard tricks quicker and
faster. Scientology is interesting to note because it may be one of the most
widely recognised and acknowledged invented religions that has assumed
some level of popular legitimacy and institutional recognition. It is a reg-
istered faith in the USA and exempt from paying taxes. It is also widely
recognised as a cult and has received a vast amount of criticism for bully-
ing and pressuring members who have left the church (Cowan & Bromley,
2015; Urban, 2006).
It may also be prudent here to consider that skateboarding may simply
be regarded as a cult. This fact was relayed to me during one skateboard-
ing event that I held at Lingnan University in which professional skate-
boarders Candy Jacobs and Margeilyn Didal participated. One of my
colleagues commented that ‘when I hear people very enthusiastic about
skateboarding, it sounds like a cult to me … that it has some mystical
quality that you can’t define, you can’t describe it.’ She went on to ask
more generally whether it is possible to be only half a skater, to not be
committed, to not be passionate. I think a response to this question is the
prevalence of religious notions of skateboarding and the development of
niche cult-like groupings. If anything, these affiliations appear to be
shielding themselves against the ‘partial’ or non-committed skateboarder
who represents an existential threat to the lifestyle and culture of skate-
 10 DIY Religion 251

boarding that is cherished by so many. The half a skater is arguably a

product of the mainstream popularity and sportification of skateboarding.
I recognise Ba. Ku. and its derivatives as conforming to the features of
the invented religions that Cusack (2010) discusses. Ba. Ku. does not
attempt to identify itself as a religion as that would involve it in the messy
process of seeking some form of recognition and legitimacy. Presently it
has no interest in pursuing the rights that Taira (2013) sees many new
religious movements as desiring. Its battle for recognition and rights is
within the world of skateboarding itself. Yet what it has constructed is
clearly conforming to the blueprint of religion, involving doctrine, ritual,
and community. Skateboarders have mobilised for cultural heritage
(Blayney, 2014; Borden, 2015; Brown, 2014; Pratt, 2015; Ruiz, Snelson,
Madgin, & Webb, 2019; Skateboarding Heritage Foundation, 2016;
Trotter, 2017); it is feasible that they may at some stage begin to pursue
cultural rights that attend to their ritualism, identity, and self-expression.
At the heart of all these practices are individuals who, as skateboarders
and consumers of skateboard products, are involved in the discursive
practice (or corresponding culture) of reifying skateboarding. We must
also be mindful that movements like Ba. Ku. emerge from personal prac-
tice. Religious movements begin with individuals and this is our
next focus.

Personal Practices
In reflecting on the idea of where new religions come from, we can iden-
tify charismatic personalities as being instrumental. At the same time, I
would argue that a new religion also needs individuals primed and recep-
tive to these incipient ideologies and movements. My following examples
look at a collection of individuals who are already open and receptive to
the idea of skateboard religion and spirituality. To begin with, I return to
the notion of skate gods that I explored in Chap. 3 with regard to vener-
ated professionals; I now explore how the term is recast as a notion of
benevolent luck or guidance. God is used here as a notion of both power
and fate that orchestrates fortunes in the skateboarding world. This
can be read as suggesting a skateboarding worldview or cosmology, an
252 P. O’Connor

ordering of reality and its constitutive elements. This phrase is often

reproduced in offhand remarks, with no elaboration. As a result, the
notion is fraught with ambiguity. It is, however, significant that the
phrase is used at all.
My first example of the phrase comes from professional skateboarder
Anthony Shetler who produces his own podcast on skateboarding. In one
episode he provides commentary on a series of short skateboard videos
from the Helaclips website. Referring to one clip, he reports that the
skateboarder is having a battle landing a trick down a triple set (three
flights of stairs). Shetler explains:

The whole time he is talking there’s just slam after slam and some are
sketchier than others. And some he’s like bolts, like I was saying, he just
can’t ride away. It’s like the skate gods won’t give it to him. (Shelter, 2016)

We might infer that Shetler is referring to a notion of luck, that despite

the best efforts of the skateboarder in question, he is being denied his
prize. Thus, when individuals are lucky in skateboarding, it is not due to
their own skill and agility, but perhaps also some larger divine provi-
dence. This is of course only a turn of phrase, but mixed in with other
elements of skateboarding vernacular I recognise it as part of DIY reli-
gion. Early on in my research I diligently recorded such phrases, noting
down every time they occurred, but due to the frequency of their use in
everyday exchanges, magazines, and videos I stopped keeping notations
simply due to data saturation. The popularity of such phraseology may
also be indicative of emerging religious identification and should not be
dismissed as simply superficial.
A very distinct example of the imagining of skate gods comes from an
artistic feature in the March 2013 issue of Thrasher skateboard magazine.
Four deities are depicted sophisticatedly blending elements of skateboard
culture and religious iconography (see Fig. 10.3). These are invented
hybrid gods and each has a name provided and a brief explanation of
their divine powers (Callahan, 2013). The four gods Space Viking, Poser
Annihilator, Shred Possessor, and Our Lady of the Follow Through draw on
Norse mythology, Hindu polytheism, and the Catholic cult of Our Lady
of Guadalupe. What can be made of such a feature? In conversation with
 10 DIY Religion 253

Fig. 10.3 The Skate Gods, James Callahan

254 P. O’Connor

the artist James Callahan, he confesses a deep interest in skateboarding

and the religious imagination. Originally, he created these images due to
his fascination with polytheistic religion and folklore. He states:

For me personally, skateboarding has always had a meditative quality, and for
many others it inspires a devotion and sacrifices that can be difficult, if not
impossible, to articulate. It seemed like an excellent arena to create some char-
acters that represent some of these indescribable sensations, fears, and urges.

Each of the deities has a variety of symbolic detail. The character

named Space Viking has a sword in his left hand which has a hilt con-
structed out of a ‘skate tool.’ Other motifs include wheels, trucks, and a
tattoo of an iconic skateboard logo. It would not be difficult to write at
length about each character and the meanings they personify. Callahan’s
fascination with religion and skateboarding has led him to do a variety of
different works that fuse the two. In another feature for Thrasher maga-
zine’s website, he illustrated a webcomic Ditch Diablo (Callahan &
Creagan, 2017) in which a skateboarder had to make a series of decisions
as they skated obstacles in a drainage ditch. The ‘choose your own adven-
ture’ style of the webcomic plays heavily on the danger and sociophobics
of skateboarding, eliciting the notion that skateboarding courts not only
injury, but deviant spectres. In order to triumph in the story, you must
choose a path that relies on good judgement, skateboard knowledge, and
intellect. This conforms to Callahan’s opinion that ‘skateboarding has a
punitive aspect when the focus on meditation is lost’; thus it is not simply
a sport or hobby, but a ritual enactment of focus and concentration. Here
we can link Callahan’s understandings to both the sociological notion of
edgework and the concept of flow. What is teased out in his artwork is
the fear and danger associated with the commitment to skateboard, and
this in turn connects to both a way of life and philosophical outlook.
In another interview focused on the topic of being an ‘older skate-
boarder,’ Matt from Kansas brought up the subject of religion at various
times in our conversation. When I asked him if he was religious, he gave
the following response:

Like, if I’m religious, I’m religious about skateboarding. And if I were to

refer to a God I’m referring to like, the skate god[s] and they don’t really
 10 DIY Religion 255

have a name, I consider them like preachers guiding me along my journey.

And as far as all the other religions go, [i]t doesn’t bother me if you’re reli-
gious, I just don’t want to be preached to. Skateboarding kind of showed
me that religion is needed and that all those atheists telling people that
religion is stupid are kind of wrong because … Christian Hosoi, [i]f he can
quit doing drugs because of the Word of God, then yes we need religion
because it made him change his ways and even though he’s a little different
now and he’s not as good as he used to be, he’s off drugs and he’s still skating.

For another one of my respondents, Archie from the UK, there was a
very clear association that Mark Gonzales is a living quasi-god whom he
proudly idolises. We got on to the subject of his admiration for Gonzales
by discussing social media and skateboarding message boards. Archie dis-
missed online trolls and asserted that as a mature skateboarder, he was
comfortable with his own preferences and choices.

I’m 41 years old now and I can’t afford to waste anymore of my life worry-
ing about this little prick from fucking Sheffield. You know, telling me that
Mark Gonzales is an overrated hack, it’s like well you know, that’s your
opinion, you know. I personally think the man is as close to a divine being
as I’ll ever experience in my life … he’s kind of like the skateboarding
equivalent of Yoda. So yes, he’s just one of my inspirations in life non-stop
and I wish he was my dad.

Archie’s comments are worthy of reflection at a variety of levels. Firstly,

it is evocative that a mature man places such admiration towards another
man who has found fame simply through the practice of riding a skate-
board. This would clearly be antithetical to the Ba. Ku. ideology. Secondly,
by invoking Yoda and the Star Wars universe, Archie aligns his spiritual
and philosophical understanding of skateboarding firmly within popular
culture (McDowell, 2012). Thirdly, in wishing that Gonzales, a man only
seven years older than Archie, was his father, he echoes the paternalism of
monotheistic religion. In contrasting this account with the concept of
invented religions, it is worth noting the manufactured faith of Iglesia
Maradoniana. With its origins in Argentina, but claiming a following of
more than 120,000, it is a devotional religion to the footballer Diego
Maradona (Cusack, 2019). In a further elaboration of Archie’s devotion
to Gonzales a ritual practice emerged. Referring to one short video
256 P. O’Connor

a­ vailable on YouTube called ‘Weekend with the Gonz’ (GetmeoutofVA,

2011), Archie confessed that he liked to watch this video at least once or
twice a week. Repetitively viewing this enabled Archie to be mindful of
the playfulness and creativity that Gonzales applies in his skateboarding
and life in general. Archie can also be understood as performing a calen-
drical media ritual, observing what to him has become a religious text on
a weekly basis. This emphasises once more that media aids in suturing the
divide between personal practices and communitas.
Moving beyond the notion of gods, some individuals have sought to
reify such notions into ritual practice. One of my informants, Gavin in
his early forties, has a shrine to a parking curb in his bedroom. He places
candles around this in an act that is both satirical of religion and evoca-
tive of his emotional engagement with skateboarding. He elaborates on
the circumstance surrounding the shrine by referring to an evening skate-
boarding with friends:

We were getting a couple parking blocks to put together at this one spot,
and one of them broke. And it broke off into this like little, I don’t know,
nine-inch piece, and I was like, ‘that needs to go in my bedroom.’ … My
room is filled with, you know, things that I’m passionate about and I
thought it would be kind of a kitschy, kind of a fun, kind of ‘not an entire
thing.’ And then when I got it back in the house I was like, well, I’m obvi-
ously going to put a candle on it and make it into a little altar. So, it’s
something I’m serious about, but at the same time there’s an element of fun
and play and, you know, a bit of sarcasm in it as well.

Gavin is in no way alone in such activities and attitudes to skateboard-

ing. I have come across skateboarders who have held on to old boards, a
perished set of wheels, or a cracked pair of Independent trucks. These
items become fetishes, a way to celebrate skateboarding experiences, and
keep them near. Fun and play are also central in Gavin’s account, recog-
nising something serious in the way he feels about the parking block and
something absurd at the same time.
The theme of fetish is also adopted in the Post Radical television show
when professional skateboarder Frank Gerwer is interviewed. Frank keeps
a collection of mundane chunks of concrete at his apartment. These,
however, are tokens from iconic San Francisco skateboard spots such as
 10 DIY Religion 257

the Hubba Hideout and EMB. One of Frank’s mementos is a chunk of a

handrail from an office plaza that was adjacent to the city’s Union Square.
The handrail is known as Cardiel’s Rail due to the fact that John Cardiel
was known to be the only skateboarder to land a trick on the object. Rick
McCrank holds the chunk of handrail in his hand, looks into the camera,
and states that to skateboarders it is ‘like holding a holy thing, the energy
of that moment in time is still in these objects’ (Craig, 2018).

Nascent and Furtive

In concluding this chapter, I wish to focus on the way in which these DIY
skateboard religions are both nascent and furtive. These qualities, the
emergent and the secretive, seem to be particularly prevalent in the previ-
ous examples. A popular trope is that of the cult which signifies both a
small arcane group and also something deviant that others should be cau-
tious of. The use of the phrase cult in many of the examples mentioned
resonates with the sociological practice of boundary construction, signal-
ling difference and the cultivation of a distinct ‘in-group.’ Some skate-
boarders are organising religious activities for themselves replete with
doctrines, rituals, and community. Yet they consistently stop short of rec-
ognising or labelling what they do as religious. More typically these activ-
ities might be framed as spiritual and personally meaningful. Thus, these
DIY religions conform to the subjective spiritual milieu that Heelas et al.
(2005) address in their research on the spiritual revolution occurring in
the West. The reticence to be recognised as religious is furtive, wanting to
be disassociated with what religion means, while continuing to replicate
it. In part, this connects to an earlier attraction to skateboarding in that
it was not organised, controlled, or even approved of. Thus, embracing a
religion of skateboarding is an ambivalent activity, with individuals want-
ing at once to express and share the depth of meaning they get in their
practice and similarly wanting to distance themselves from activities they
feel excluded from or distaste for.
In being both nascent and furtive we return to the issue of creative
play. The bond between religion and sport begins with the recognition of
play as an important creative and spiritual process, one to be taken
258 P. O’Connor

s­ eriously precisely because it provides a space to throw off inhibition and

social mores. Some of my respondents enjoyed Ba. Ku. because they
believed the group was simply being sarcastic and making fun of skate-
boarding. This is indeed one legitimate reading of the Ba. Ku., and a
reading that resonates with the idea of playfulness. This reading also pres-
ents as a further example of resistance to the ‘religious’ within skateboard-
ing, seeing such connections as purely comical parodies rather than
serious social movements or commentary.
Thus, the question that becomes apparent in this discussion is why
skateboarders are so resistant to religion. Broaching this issue with my
respondents inevitably comes back to the same motifs. Religion is organ-
ised and skateboarding is not. Veteran skateboarder and artist Pete from
California states:

Religion has a lot of sets of rules. Skateboarding thrives because it’s very
anti-authoritarian in and of itself. Once you start to attach rules to it, it’ll
just kind of like phase out. I don’t think that skateboarding can be a reli-
gion. I mean you can have religious experiences with it. But I don’t think
it’ll ever be a religion because it’s always breaking off from itself and like
reinventing itself at the same time.

I argue it is precisely these dynamics of rules, control, and order that

are increasingly being imposed and adopted in skateboarding as it profes-
sionalises. I believe that these instigate nascent forms of religious identi-
fication as a form of resistance, and an example of how little institutional
control skateboarders have over their pastime, culture, way of life, and
identity. At the root of all the practices we have explored in this chapter
is an attempt to capture and represent something that is unique and
meaningful in skateboarding, and to arguably raise it above other repre-
sentations. In response to commercialisation and sportification move-
ments Ba. Ku. is making a space for the practice of skateboarding as it
understands it. The fact that, as Pete claims earlier, skateboarding is mov-
ing and fluid, that it reinvents itself, is all the more reason to establish
practices that seek to capture what is poignant about skateboarding.
While some might pursue this in terms of religion, it may also be the case
that the ethics and principles of skateboarding become a focus around
which to organise activities that come to personify what skateboarding ‘is
 10 DIY Religion 259

all about.’ This, as the following chapter explores, dovetails with the cul-
tural notion of religion and can be seen as a further attempt to exercise
some form of control over the continued development of skateboarding.

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 11
Self–help

Skateboarding saved my life is a popular refrain. This is the phrase used

in the opening to Mike Vallely’s Drive video which documents his phi-
losophy with montages of him skateboarding and travelling around the
USA (Jeremias, 2003). He goes on to clarify that skateboarding ‘gave me
a creative outlet and in turn self-respect and hope … empowering me
with a very physical but productive form of self-expression.’ Fundamentally
Drive is a skateboard video, but it is also an important document cham-
pioning the prosocial positivity of skateboarding. The video is unique in
that it is only about Vallely; it emphasises the individual and with it self-
reliance, commitment, and discipline. In the years since its release the
recognition of skateboarding as a positive pastime has boomed. A series
of high-profile NGOs and charities, the visibility of female skateboarders,
ethnic diversity, a range of sexual identities, have all contributed to the
popular appeal and greater acceptance of skateboarding. Drive is by no
means antecedent to this movement, but merely a distinct example of
its growth.
In the video Vallely celebrates skateboarding but makes a pointed criti-
cism of the way the skateboard industry is changing, and the big business
enterprise skateboarding has become. In no small part this video responds

© The Author(s) 2020 263

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_11
264 P. O’Connor

to the growth in popularity of skateboarding, the post X-Games moment

of ESPN coverage and sports drinks endorsements, and the popularity of
the Tony Hawk Pro Skater (THPS) video game. These transformations
are noted by Lombard (2010) as bringing new opportunities to skate-
boarders, while also being issues of contestation and conflict over owner-
ship. For example, Vallely critiques the changing industry, but also profits
from being included as a playable character in the fourth instalment of
the THPS video game. Skateboarders increasingly have to navigate an
ambiguous commercial world, making choices about paying bills and
remaining authentic. Many skateboarders have responded by choosing to
do good works which they see as communicating the essence of skate-
boarding in response to its potent commercial and corporate clout.
In no small part mobile technologies and social media have further
facilitated the dispersal and sharing of prosocial (Gilchrist & Wheaton,
2017) messages and afforded new opportunities for skateboarders to acti-
vate democratic and inclusive projects. The ascent of skateboarding as a
uniquely malleable tool for personal development and social inclusion is
poignant. Skateboarding appears to have codes, ethics, and rituals that
transcend many social obstacles of class, ethnicity, gender, and age. At an
organisational level there has been a tremendous amount of work sur-
rounding philanthropic endeavours associated with skateboarding. These
represent a form of religious work that fit our third typology of organisa-
tion and are demonstrated in institutions providing a worldview, collec-
tive action, and ideology. I read Mike Vallely’s Drive as an attempt to
preserve skateboarding as he understands it—to assert a worldview and
set of ethics as a form of cultural conservation in an era of rapid
transformation.
In this chapter I explore how skateboarding can be understood as self-
help. I recognise that this has a religious component in that, in a rather
secular way, skateboarding has been used to do the developmental and
philanthropic work that has traditionally been the role of religion, or the
state. The fact that skateboarding NGOs now engage in activities as
diverse as clothing the homeless, bringing fresh water to communities, or
educating youth in a war-ravaged nation says something bold about eco-
nomic liberalisation, globalisation, and neo-liberal politics. It also says
something subtler about the role of religion and morality in the
 11 Self–help 265

t­ wenty-first century. Responding to this complexity, my argument about

self-help is layered. I begin by addressing what I call skateboard philan-
thropy, which demonstrates various forms of self-help. Take, for example,
the message that skateboarding contains: ‘get up and try again,’ or the
fact that NGOs are often skater-started grass-roots initiatives, or more
cynically the argument that philanthropy is self-interested and ultimately
glorifies and promotes skateboarding (O’Connor, 2015). All these are
distinct instances of self-help. Skateboard philanthropy is, I argue, quasi-
religious and tied to broader movements of Sports for Development and
Peace building (SDP) and Action Sports for Development and Peace
(ASDP) initiatives. I move beyond skateboard philanthropy and explore
self-help literature and its religious and spiritual connections. I show how
a variety of books, videos, biographies, and blogs further promote skate-
boarding in a self-help ethos. While covering a diverse array of approaches,
like philanthropic organisations, the texts are similarly infused with the
recognition that skateboarding is prosocial. The texts are often confes-
sional and spiritual, or even new-age in content. They provide philoso-
phy, aphorisms, and guidance to initiates. Moreover, they appear to be
more tacit examples of the DIY religiosity explored in the previous chap-
ter, underlining once more that skateboarding has a set of beliefs, ethics,
rituals, or, more simply, a worldview.
While occupying very different spaces and roles in skateboard culture, I
see both philanthropy and the prosocial literature on skateboarding as ideo-
logically connected. More worrying is the way such ideology has been
embraced by the machinations of rapacious neo-liberal capitalism. This is
astutely described by Gregory Mitchell (2016, p. 91), who argues that ‘the
excruciating elegance of neoliberalism is that the system appears so natural
and inevitable that we seldom notice when late capitalism is at work in our
lives.’ Indeed, the fact that Mitchell’s comment is so fitting, and yet lifted
from a context in which he explores gay tourism in Brazil, only serves to
highlight the insidious workings and reach of the market. Fundamentally,
the social benefits of skateboarding deliver the best economic rewards for
those who promote and recycle such images. Under the neo-liberal schema
these translate as board sales, funding, sponsorship, subscribers, retweets,
and likes. By promoting skateboarding, either for your brand, community,
YouTube channel, university, or book, you can be seen to be helping yourself.
266 P. O’Connor

Skateboard Philanthropy
Skateboard philanthropy comes in a variety of incarnations. My first
involvement with it was in the UK in 1998 when I worked with my local
skateshop in Exeter to raise money and obtain land to build the city’s
first skatepark. The grass--roots initiative involved a mix of ‘older’ skate-
boarders pooling their knowledge, resources, and social capital to raise
awareness and organise events. At its foundation there was a self-help
sentiment. We wanted our own place to skateboard. At the same time,
we promoted the benefits of skateboarding: ‘it keeps youth occupied,’ ‘it
is exercise,’ and, perhaps more dishonestly, ‘a skatepark would keep us
out of the city centre.’ In many ways, fundraising and campaigning for
skateparks was one of the first instances of organised philanthropy that
skateboarders got involved in. It is no surprise that these movements
began in the 1990s as this was the era of the criminalisation of skate-
boarding and the development of architectures of exclusion, or skates-
toppers to move skateboarders out of urban centres. Another very
distinct example of skateparks and self-help is the DIY movement of
funding and building your own skatepark. The most well-known and
earliest example of this is the Burnside project in Portland, Oregon
(Borden, 2001). Subsequently the DIY movement has spread across the
globe (Gilligan, 2014) and has been embraced in some settings as a social
good bringing with it gentrifying consequences (Howell, 2005; SOLO
Skateboard Magazine, 2017). The DIY initiative is seen to be so central
to skateboarding culture that the skateboard company Deluxe distribu-
tion provides small grants for DIY projects of US$200 up to three times
a week (DLXSF, 2018). Operating at a much larger level is the Tony
Hawk Foundation which has helped fund more than 609 skateparks in
the USA and provided guidance and advocacy for thousands of skate-
park projects globally. The Tony Hawk Foundation champions the self-
help ethos because it only engages in projects which have been activated
by local skateboard communities. It collaborates with grass-roots move-
ments and provides co-funding with the local government and organisa-
tions in dialogue with the needs and requirements of skateboarders (The
Nine Club, 2018).
 11 Self–help 267

Since the early 2000s skateboard philanthropy has manifested in

Skatepark Builds (Tony Hawk Foundation), funding boards for under-
privileged youth (Board Rescue), helping youth with autism (A Skate
Foundation), raising involvement of girls and women in skateboarding
(Skate Like a Girl), educating youth in Afghanistan (Skateistan), and
helping young people in Palestine (SkatePal). Generally, these organisa-
tions are secular, but the non-profit One Love is the work of a Christian
family that has built the first skatepark in Tonga after emigrating from
the USA to follow the call of Christ (One Love, 2018). A comprehensive
list of organisations can be found on the ASDP website, which also pro-
vides filters to differentiate the type of work they are involved in (Action
Sports for Development and Peace, 2018). The ASDP categorises initia-
tives as working in areas relevant to youth, education, empowerment,
justice, community, environment, health, and recovery. Similarly,
Atencio, Beal, Wright, and ZáNean (2018) explore the relevance of
ASDP in skateboarding and the relationship such initiates have to neo-
liberal ideology and practice. More broadly, academic work on skate-
board philanthropy stems from the sociology of sport where a robust
discussion on SDP has emerged.
The United Nations Office on Sports for Development and Peace
building is an initiative introduced by then UN secretary general Kofi
Anan in 2001 (Thorpe, 2014, p. 3). Further connections have been noted
during the early 2000s by Giulianotti (2004), with sports programmes
being used by the likes of the International Commission for the Red
Cross (ICRC), International Labour Organisation (ILO), and the United
Nations High Commissioner Refugees (UNHCR). The timeline of these
activities highlights that skateboard philanthropy has been developing in
concert with broader social movements surrounding development and
sport. It is also relevant that this era coincides with the growth in collabo-
ration between religious organisations and development initiatives
(Haynes, 2007). In no small way these connections are part of a broader
movement of self-help development characteristic of the neo-liberal age.
Indeed, Thorpe and Rinehart (2013) link their critique of action sport
NGOs to the global processes of neo-liberalism. They importantly
­highlight that the legitimacy of such work often rests on cooperation and
268 P. O’Connor

collaboration with governments and commercial enterprises. This is a

broader process that can be seen across a range of NGOs and grass-roots
organisations seeking to make change. Take, for example, the work of Kohl-
Arenas (2015), who argues in an ethnography of farmworkers in California
that many self-help initiatives ultimately end up reinforcing dominant
power mechanisms and disguising power differentials when focusing phi-
lanthropy towards those who are marginal and with least agency. Within
the SDP movement there is an extant critique that sport is seen to be a
saviour in itself, and that the groups targeted by SDP programmes are
somewhat helpless when it comes to manifesting their own versions of
sport. Here the critique is on the ‘deficit’ model, that youth in war-torn
areas, for example, are helpless victims passively waiting to be rescued by
football, parkour, or skateboarding (Spaaij, 2011; Thorpe & Ahmad, 2013).
Critique is also levelled at the way certain groups and individuals promote
sports in ‘evangelical’ terms, as a quick-fix remedy to a range of social ills
(Giulianotti, 2004). This approach is deconstructed by Coakley (2011),
who argues that too often SDP programmes are adopted, funded, and facil-
itated despite the absence of evidence of their benefits. He identifies that
when programmes fail to succeed, they can still receive funding with the
assumption that sport is always good. Most interestingly, failures to engage,
rehabilitate, or improve the life of young people through sports programmes
‘has led scholars to conclude that the relationship is contingent,’ that sport
is not some magical tool for development (2011, p. 309).
These assumptions are interesting to contrast with regard to skate-
boarding. Many skateboarders are still starkly aware that their pastime
has and continues to be associated with criminality and deviance despite
the recent mainstream and Olympic acceptance of skateboarding.
Similarly, our exploration of skateboard ministers with their critique of
the ‘dark culture’ highlights that the ‘sport’ of skateboarding is not uni-
versally regarded as a social good. The litany of professional skateboarders
that have served time in prison, that are recovering alcoholics, or sub-
stance abusers, and their sometimes violent crimes, raises the question of
the blanket prosocial benefits of skateboarding and other sports. The life-
saving qualities of skateboarding are also increasingly questioned as a
number of notable professional skateboarders have committed suicide in
recent years. Mental health is becoming more widely discussed and was a
key focus in the 2019 Pushing Boarders conference (Pushing Boarders,
 11 Self–help 269

2019). Yet Gilchrist and Wheaton (2017, pp. 4–5) recognise that the tide
has turned; popular imaginings of skateboarders as antisocial and rebel-
lious appear to be outweighed by the positive examples and their benefits.
This critical edge of sports sociology recognises that SDP and ASDP
initiatives must work with local knowledge, existing sports interests, and
grass-roots initiatives in order to carry on the work that they do (Coakley,
2011; Spaaij, 2011; Thorpe, 2014; Thorpe & Ahmad, 2013; Thorpe &
Rinehart, 2013). This fundamentally returns to the theme of self-help.
Philanthropy, in order to be successful with sports initiatives, needs to be
hands off in certain demands and impositions. Yet, at the same time,
philanthropists must also navigate a problematic relationship with neo-
liberal and commercial interests for public and private levels of funding.
One would not be cynical in assuming that the greatest beneficiaries of
skateboard philanthropy end up being the skateboard industry, and
increasingly the multinational companies that own large swathes of skate-
boarding brands. This fits with the arguments of Kohl-Arenas and sug-
gests that skateboard philanthropy ends up being self-help for
skateboarding above and beyond any other result. The fact that self-help
is an apposite metaphor for neo-liberalism, ontological individualism,
and the DIY ethos of skateboarding is not lost. Self-help is part of what
Heelas, Woodhead, Seal, Szerszynski, and Tusting (2005) recognise in the
‘supposed’ spiritual revolution of individuals pursuing their own philoso-
phies and therapeutic lifestyles.
Sophie Friedel’s work in this area is particularly important. As a pas-
sionate skateboarder she enrolled as a volunteer in Skateistan and also
pursued a Master’s degree in Peace. Her book The Art of Living Sideways
(2015) is a love song to skateboarding, an academic treatise on peace
studies, and also a thoughtful and informed critique of SDP. She argues
that SDP is imposing institutional control over skateboarding, and that
there is a thin line between providing space for youth to engage with
sports and cultural imperialism. Indeed, it is not hard to see promotional
material about skateboarding in Afghanistan, Nepal, and Ethiopia as part
of an unfolding neo-orientalism narrative. These new SDP initiatives are
not Christian missionaries, but they do possess ethics and politics that
they are clearly transmitting and importing into new cultural contexts.
Friedel (2015, p. 71) interprets the work of Richard Giulianotti in iden-
tifying four tendencies of SDP as neo-liberal, development ­interventionist,
270 P. O’Connor

strategic developmentalist, and social justice–oriented. In a similar way

to skateboard ministry, SDP and ASDP appropriate skateboarding for
their own political narratives. Arguably it is skateboarding’s inherent cre-
ativity and flexibility that make it so open to such differing political posi-
tions. As Weyland (2004, p. xiv) states, ‘skating can be anything.’ It is
precisely this quality which appeals in the current political and social
climate. Skateboarding represents an almost entirely open cultural system
welcoming with only one ardent demand and concern: you must partici-
pate. But participation can be a challenging path for many volunteers
who travel like missionaries to work in foreign countries for skateboard
charities. They can be exposed to traumatic experiences and end up work-
ing closely with vulnerable, disturbed, and abused youth. These skate-
board volunteers become pulled, sometimes haplessly, into a world where
their time, effort, and mental health are made vulnerable by larger sys-
tems of power and oppression.
In June 2018, Oliver Percovich, the founder of the NGO Skateistan,
launched the Goodpush Alliance (Skateistan & Rhianon, 2018), which
is aimed at helping groups involved in skateboard philanthropy be suc-
cessful and sustainable. The reason for this initiative is that a variety of
skateboard philanthropy projects have had short-lived success, or
encountered challenging and frustrating obstacles. Take, for example, the
original Holystoked Bangalore skatepark that was a collaboration
between the NGO ‘Make Life Skate Life’ and the jeans company off-
shoot Levi’s Skateboarding (Smith, 2013). Instrumental in the project
was local skateboarder Abhishek who resigned from his office job to pur-
sue his love of skateboarding. The skatepark received the support of a
group of professional skateboarders who helped build the park and docu-
mented the process for a Levi’s promotional video. Local children from a
variety of different backgrounds were able to transcend social and gender
divisions in the skatepark. Children were getting an education, exercise,
and building a community. Yet within a year a neighbour unhappy with
the skatepark pushed for it to be closed and destroyed (TEDx Talks,
2014). Subsequently, a second Bangalore skatepark has been built
through a new collaboration with Adidas (Holystoked, 2018). However,
the full story of the first Holystoked skatepark is not as well promoted or
as easily accessible as the initial Levi’s-funded promotional video on the
 11 Self–help 271

skatepark build. Levi’s have removed the 17-minute documentary of the

skatepark project from YouTube and their website, though copied ver-
sions are still available for access (Millivanilton, 2013). Of even more
interest is the fact that the Make Life Skate Life website continues to
have photos promoting the work they have done at the Holystoked
skatepark despite the fact it no longer exists (MakeLifeSkateLife, 2018).
Another example of the opaque work of skateboard philanthropy can be
observed in the ‘Skate for Change’ initiative which advocates skateboard-
ers making a positive impact in their community. The Skate for Change
project has sought to bring water, clothing, and food to homeless people
in Lincoln Nebraska, USA. Working with the principle that skateboard-
ers traverse the city and often share space with homeless people, founder
Mike Smith has influenced a movement to make this a positive encoun-
ter. Skate for Change has chapters in a variety of cities in the USA and
beyond. In late 2014 a group of teenagers set up their own version of
Skate for Change in Hong Kong as part of a final-year project for their
high school examinations. They were able to complete a series of outings
to provide goods for the homeless across the city, but after their gradua-
tion the group disbanded as various members left the city to attend uni-
versity in other locations. Similarly, the superb work of Skateistan, which
often promotes its work through images of young women skateboarding,
is ambiguous in its ultimate impact on the fate of these youth. Many girls
who attend the Skateistan school eventually leave and get married, often
while still young. Their new roles as wives and mothers typically bring an
end to their skateboarding and education. These examples are not pro-
vided in order to be cynical about the benefits produced, but to highlight
that the social media buzz surrounding some optics provide only a shal-
low image of the real processes at work. It often appears that the greatest
beneficiaries are those sponsoring these philanthropic activities rather
than the people and communities they are focused upon. This is a point
also suggested by Atencio et al. (2018) in that the boom in skatepark
builds in the Bay area of San Francisco has resulted in a host of private
public spaces. Built on the pretext of engaging and providing for young
people, these spaces often obscure the neo-liberal machinations and val-
ues at work in them, ranging from the companies that profit from these
spaces and the philosophies of child-rearing that accompany them.
272 P. O’Connor

A more balanced response may be that skateboarding in itself embraces

such transience and impermanence. For example, an informant who
received one of the Deluxe grants to make DIY spots in his/her local
town found that within two years all four of the small sites that were
worked on were removed, destroyed, or obstructed in some way. Perhaps,
then, it would be better to highlight that skateboard philanthropy is best
attuned to helping skateboarders rather than being developmental and
educational. This is not to deny the benefit of skateboarding to commer-
cial enterprises, neo-liberal models of governance and education, and
developmental agendas. Rather, some skateboarders seem willing to allow
aspects of their culture to be co-opted if it provides them with more
opportunity to skate, more facilities, along with better health care and
remuneration. Some are arguably naive about the processes at work, oth-
ers are fully aware and see it as a ‘them or us’ scenario where the necessity
to pay bills and fend for themselves becomes a primary concern.
This last point is one that I have previously made (O’Connor, 2015). I
have argued that skateboard philanthropy, while often inspirational, and
undoubtedly beneficial to tens of thousands if not millions globally, is
fundamentally self-help. This I have suggested is a type of prefigurative
politics, by which skateboarders ensure the continuation and preserva-
tion of their culture by placing it as a central component in the good
works they initiate and support. A strong feature of ASDP organisations
is their tendency to embrace the cultural politics of lifestyle sports.
Skateboarding can be radically inclusive, fostering cooperation and par-
ticipation regardless of ability, age, gender, and ethnicity. Skateboard phi-
lanthropy promotes these same ethics and as a result promotes or, to use
Giulianotti’s term, ‘evangelises’ skateboarding itself. The point in critiqu-
ing this is to provide some form of redress to the way skateboard philan-
thropy has become something of an echo chamber, perhaps even a cult,
or an exquisite example of lifestyle religion in itself.

‘Skateboarding Saved My Life’

The phrase that began this chapter can be found in the title to more than
40 YouTube videos. Countless others describe how skateboarding
‘changed my life’ or ‘saved me from despair.’ These videos discuss youth
 11 Self–help 273

who have been made homeless, individuals who have struggled with
ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and autism, or those who have experienced
abuse, imprisonment, or suffered the tolls of horrific tragedies such as
murder and suicide within their families. Consistently skateboarding is
described as a way out, a path for personal growth, and a release from the
sometimes insurmountable challenges of everyday life. In no small mea-
sure the features we have explored through this text come to be signifi-
cant. Skateboarding provides a meditation, a sense of community, a
feeling of power and self-determination. A body of biographical literature
on skateboarding echoes these stories and offers more context. Rodney
Mullen’s memoir Mutt details the strained relationship he had with his
father, his battles with loneliness, and even suicidal thoughts.
Skateboarding is described throughout as a saviour.
Interested in these themes, I have sought to contrast a variety of books
on skateboarding with self-help literature. In what ways are they similar?
How do they provide a guide to weather personal challenges, and ulti-
mately what do they tell us about skateboarding? At a fundamental level
I see these texts as attempts to organise skateboarding around a set of
ethics and principles. The implication is that although skateboarding is
celebrated as having no rules, and is inclusive and open, there exists a set
of principles and behaviours which one should adhere to nevertheless. In
no small way the proliferation of these texts serves as a secular form of
skateboard ministry. They are invested with the self-help ethos of self-
cultivation and ontologies of the self, typical of contemporary explora-
tions of religion and spirituality (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, &
Tipton, 2008; Heelas et al., 2005; Ostwalt, 2012; Palmer, 2017). I read
these as responses to the growth in popularity of skateboarding, main-
stream support, increased sportification, and Olympic validation.
Firstly, what do I mean by self-help texts? Broadly speaking, I am refer-
ring to a body of popular non-fiction work which aims to help people
structure and order their lives more productively and harmoniously.
These books tend to include plain-speaking language, provide personal
anecdotes by authors, and include a mix of popular psychology and spiri-
tual advice. McGee (2005, p. 11) has identified that self-help books dou-
bled in popularity between the 1970s and the year 2000, and Bergsma
(2008) notes that in 2000 Americans spent more than US$563 million
274 P. O’Connor

on self-help books. Woodstock (2005) reaches further back and provides

a content analysis of self-help literature from the 1880s to the 1990s. She
argues that early self-help books embraced religious themes, scientific
reason from the 1940s onwards, and by the 1980s they ‘incorporated
popular psychology approaches into a hybrid “Spirituality”’ (2005,
p. 155). She also notes that throughout the last century self-help books
have remained ‘perennially popular’ and perhaps part and parcel of the
tremendous social change that has unfolded during this era (2005,
p. 156). However, despite this popularity, self-help books have been the
subject of a great deal of criticism and popular derision. These titles are
criticised for being poorly written, fraudulent, ineffective, offering false
hope, and at worse destroying relationships (Bergsma, 2008, p. 349).
Self-help literature is described by Lichterman (1992) as a ‘thin cul-
ture,’ a term he develops borrowing from Geertz’s (1973) notion of thick
description. ‘Thin’ is representative of self-help because such books pro-
vide a schema for self-improvement without requiring any deep commit-
ment from readers. Lichterman frames this as part of their appeal,
recognising that self-help books are part of the radical individualisation
explored by Bellah et al. (2008), and also a response to disenchantment
with religion. Thus, self-help books that provide a secular religious form
of instruction, support, and guidance, are in part popular because they
do not require the commitment or suspension of disbelief that many see
as central features in religious ideology. This interesting argument must
also be understood in contrast with Bergsma’s (2008, p. 437) claim that
self-help books are popular because they are affordable, provide a popular
and accessible way to disseminate psychological theories, present private
forms of therapy, and include exciting possibilities regarding relation-
ships, wealth, and sex.
How then does skateboarding interact with this literature? Firstly, I see
a number of ways in which skateboarding and self-help books are fused.
The most obvious example is the litany of ‘how to’ guides about skate-
boarding. These provide an introduction to the basics of skateboarding
and detail trick tips, explanations about equipment, and even guides on
how to build ramps. Yet, even in these essentially descriptive books there
can be a series of broad instructions that inform readers on the ethics and
worldviews of skateboarding. Take, for example, Per Welinder and Peter
 11 Self–help 275

Whitley’s book Mastering Skateboarding (2012). This provides advice on

how to fit in with other skateboarders which can be summarised as (1)
‘Don’t whine or Bragg’; (2) ‘Have fun’; and (3) ‘Be safe’ (2012, p. 6). The
book is mostly devoted to describing tricks and how to perform them, yet
throughout the words ‘fear’ and ‘stoked’ are often used, connecting to the
embodied experience of risk and transcendence. Many books provide
trick tips for young children new to skateboarding, and adults seeking to
hone their skills (Badillo, 2007; Beal, 2013; Becker, 2009; Gifford, 2006;
Goodfellow, 2006; Morgan, 2005; Stock & Powell, 2010). My previous
arguments about mythology, skate gods, sacred places, and iconic videos
all have purchase in these types of texts. Typically, a potted history of
skateboarding is provided in the introduction to these texts. This history
resonates with the origin myth of California. Similarly, some instruction
on the icons of skateboarding is included, identifying a selection of pio-
neers or legends. Patty Segovia’s children’s book on girl skaters provides
an account of women pioneers and humorously inverts gender dynamics
by asserting that skateboarding is not just for girls: ‘guys are great skate-
boarders, too!’ (2007, p. 22). Goodfellow’s 176-page book explores 36
tricks with more than 500 photos. It is essentially a step-by-step guide to
performing ramp tricks, yet it provides space to discuss The Search for
Animal Chin and its Confucian connections (2006, p. 13).
Moving past these texts, biographies by skateboarders tend to also pro-
vide some form of self-help reflection. I have already mentioned Rodney
Mullen’s (Mullen & Mortimer 2004) biography, and similarly Christian
Hosoi’s (Hosoi & Ahrens 2012) and Tony Hawk’s (Hawk & Mortimer
2001), all contain self-help elements. Beyond the big names of iconic
professionals, the everyman memoirs about skateboarding are also wor-
thy of attention. Take, for example, Jocko Weyland’s The Answer Is Never
(2002) or Sean Wilsey’s More Curious (2014), both engaging books that
speak of the emotional and spiritual meaning of skateboarding, but nei-
ther framed as self-help or instruction. David Thornton’s self-published
work Nobody: Essays from a Lifer Skater (2016) is autobiographical but
focuses strictly on a skateboarding biography. We learn little about the
man off the board. At times through the text he provides advice; this
becomes most instructional in the final chapter where he shares his expe-
rience of skateboarding and parenting. He guides readers in the delicate
276 P. O’Connor

balance between pursuing places to skate and remaining respectful and

considerate of those we encounter whilst skateboarding. It is no surprise
that Thornton has been involved in blogging and making zines for some
years. In the skateboard blogosphere of middle-aged men there is a subtle
interplay between biographical content and motivational posts aimed to
inspire people to get out and skate more. The blog Concrete Existence
provides an evocative mix of these elements, including reviews on the
best hardware supplies to make rough curb stones skateable, a skate-
boarders take on Gay Pride, and a reworking of the Tao Te Ching for
skateboarding (Sedition, 2017). A more explicit exploration of religion is
provided by Rabbi Dovid Tsap (2014), who blogs about skateboarding’s
connections to the Kabbalah. In blogs, and other social media, we see the
opportunity for skateboarders to explore their own interests, and as a col-
lection they provide numerous philosophical detours about skateboard-
ing, religion, and the experiences of older skateboarders (Eisenhauer,
2016; Neverwas, 2018; Sedition, 2017; Tsap, 2014).
Beyond the ‘veteran blogs,’ ‘core biographies,’ and ‘how to’ texts are a
few ‘my philosophy’ books which appear to take on more of the features
of self-help books. Firstly, the self-published work of Neal Unger (Unger
& Earhart, 2018) requires some context. Unger is a skateboarder who has
achieved a cult following as a ‘senior’ skateboarder and has also risen to
prominence via social media. Although well known he is not a profes-
sional skateboarder and is lauded mostly as an evocative example of a
skateboarder in his sixties. He has a striking appearance with long white
hair and a tall slim physique. He has pioneered his own skateboard trick
the ‘Sissy Bounce, Finger Flip,’ which he developed in frustration of his
inability to perform a kickflip. One YouTube video in which Unger talks
about his desire to continue skateboarding regardless of his age has more
than 1.8 million views at the time of writing (Juiceaya, 2014). Unger has
also appeared in numerous videos and websites, and collaborated with
various companies (Old Skateboards, 2015); he even appears in the We
Are Blood (Evans, 2015) video that was discussed at length in Chap. 6.
His book has the rather long title Dude Logic: Skateboarding philosopher
Neal A Unger shares his thoughts on being human, the meaning of life and
whatever else he can think of … Grab your best tricks and go for a ride with
The Dude. While it leverages his skateboard celebrity, the book is a series
 11 Self–help 277

of anecdotes in which Unger shares his philosophy on life which extends

to advice on how to be a considerate lover and to recognising the validity
of religion in all aspects of life. Much of the text discusses Christian reli-
gion, god, and spirituality but always through anecdotal reflections and
never in a sustained manner. Skateboarding is a rather shallow element in
Unger’s book while guidance and advice are the most prominent features
of the text.
Similar to Unger is Doug Brown, who is also considered to be periph-
eral to the world of professional skateboarding, yet has achieved some
notoriety and success through a partnership with the Gravity Games
competition in 2002. Brown has promoted himself as a professional
skateboarder, rock musician, and motivational speaker. He has even
endorsed a brand of extreme sports deodorant called ‘X-Air.’ Brown has
written books about his life that seek to provide a guide and inspiration
for his readers. His book The Bliss of the Unwind (2014) conforms to the
‘thin culture’ argument of Lichterman in that it is just a series of anec-
dotes about his life and how he became a professional skateboarder
through commitment and belief in himself. Brown declares that ‘my
skateboard has led me to unbelievable places, but I’ve always been more
than just a skateboarder in my career.’ Speaking about how he helps
young people he goes on to explain that ‘I encourage them to find in
themselves what will lead them to connect with others, in turn making a
difference in people’s lives’ ( 2014, p. 168). The book reads not as an
evangelical treatise about skateboarding, but about the author himself
and his pop-culture passions. In my analysis I came to the conclusion
that this was a self-help book without any method or ideology. Its pri-
mary frame is to inspire through personal stories of adversity and deter-
mination. Skateboarding, although referred to and pictured on the front
cover, is again a superficial part of the text.
What appears to be emerging is the adoption of skateboarding as an
adjunct part of new-age philosophy and self-help, buoyed and propelled
by the visibility of skateboarding in prosocial and philanthropic pro-
grammes and SDP/ASDP philosophy. Take, for example, Chris Grosso’s
self-help text The Indie Spiritualist (2014), which includes on its front
cover an endorsement from Tony Hawk. The text picks up a selection of
themes in which the author talks about his battle with substance abuse
278 P. O’Connor

and depression. His argument can be summarised as an affirmation that

you can be spiritual while also having tattoos, piercings, enjoying pop
culture, and listening to heavy metal and hip hop. Grosso sees spiritual
lessons in rock music, Donnie Darko, and skateboarding. He speaks
about the philosophy of professional skateboarder Mike Vallely, celebrat-
ing individuality and having the strength to walk one’s own path (2014,
p. 63). Grosso describes how skateboarding changed his worldview as a
youth: ‘Growing up, things like punk, movies, art, and skateboarding
touched my heart, they were my spiritual teachings, and continue to be a
large part of my spiritual growth to this very day’ (2014, p. 35). His book
guides his readers with references and weblinks to his own music. The
final parts of the book also give readers a guide on mediation techniques
and suggestions for films and music that the author loves and finds spiri-
tually uplifting. Grosso is an example of the hybrid mix of religion, spiri-
tuality, and pop culture. His marketing of spirituality and pop culture
can be regarded as analogous to commercialised Christianity (Steinberg
& Joe, 2018; Twitchell, 2007). Once more the book has a wholly super-
ficial engagement with skateboarding; it is used almost in a decorative
manner to flag the points Grosso wishes to make. In his most recent book
Dead Set on Living (2018) with Alice Peck, this time endorsed by Bam
Margera and reviewed in Thrasher magazine, Grosso peppers his spiritual
talk with references to his skateboarding identity. Just as Christians have
appropriated rock music (Flory & Miller, 2008) and skateboarding for
their own ends, new-age spirituality is doing the same. In doing so, it
provides an alternative understanding of self-help, in that these appro-
priations ultimately appear to be self-centred, pleasing, and serving
themselves.
While Grosso’s works are clearly both self-help and spiritual explora-
tions, they are the most superficially involved with skateboarding, with
Doug Brown and Neal Unger appearing somewhere in the middle.
However, Grosso’s writing can be framed with a distinct genre of self-
help and spirituality books which focus on ‘alternative’ lifestyles and
‘punk spirituality.’ Buddhist Noah Levine makes numerous mentions to
his time skateboarding in his book Dharma Punx: A Memoir (2003).
His follow-up book Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual
Revolutionaries (2007) makes no mention of skateboarding, but engages
 11 Self–help 279

with the theme of alternative spirituality. Similar texts have been writ-
ten by Brad Warner with titles such as Don’t Be a Jerk: And Other
Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan’s Greatest Zen Master (2016), and
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality
(2003). Both Warner and Levine speak of Buddhist spirituality through
a pop-culture frame. Their works are relevant to our discussion not
because they touch upon skateboarding, but because they are examples
of an expanding and fluid relationship between pop culture and religion
(Clark & Clanton Jr, 2012; Cowan, 2008; Cusack, 2010). Just as there
has long been an association between sport and religion, I predict we
shall see more associations not just between skateboarding and religion,
but also amongst other lifestyle sports as they become more entrenched
in popular culture, commercial life, and everyday activities. These pat-
terns complement the discussions of Heelas et al. (2005) that chart a
rise in alternative spiritual practices, and also of Ostwalt (2012), who
argues that the secular is becoming more sacred and the sacred more
secular (Table 11.1).

Table 11.1 Skateboarding and self-help literature

Representation of
Self-­ Religion/
Genre Examples help Skateboarding spirituality
How to Becker (2009) Badillo Strong Strong Weak
(2007)
Goodfellow (2006)
Gifford (2006)
Stock and Powell (2010)
Core Hawk & Mortimer (2001) Weak Strong Mild
biography Mullen & Mortimer (2004)
Hosoi & Ahrens (2012)
Weyland (2004)
Veteran blogs Sedition (2017) Mild Strong Mild/
Eisenhauer (2016) Strong
Neverwas (2018)
Tsap (2014)
My philosophy Unger and Earhart (2018) Strong Weak Mild
Brown (2014)
New age Grosso (2014) Strong Weak Strong
Levine (2003)
280 P. O’Connor

Skateboarding as Self-help
This chapter has focused on two seemingly divergent themes: one skate-
board philanthropy and the other self-help texts. My argument is that
these themes dovetail in that they are all responses to the changing cul-
tural world of skateboarding. Skateboard philanthropy seeks to promote
the prosocial benefits of skateboarding in a myriad of ways. A variety of
books on skateboarding similarly represent how skateboarding is being
preserved in its ethics and worldview, and also co-opted in the wide-
ranging new-age philosophy of spiritual growth. Both celebrate skate-
boarding as a prosocial activity. I see these developments, like increased
religious identification surrounding skateboarding, as efforts to preserve
and control skateboard culture in the face of rapid change within the
social world, industry, and sport of skateboarding.
I view skateboard philanthropy organisations as crypto-religious,
embedding and activating a series of moral codes and ethics in their
mission statements. These in turn conflate skateboarding with a par-
ticular worldview, attitude, and disposition regarding inclusion, disci-
pline, and hard work. While seldom being religious programmes,
skateboarding charities and NGOs can be seen as secular religions, or
lifestyle religions. They have organisation, funding, mission statements,
personnel, and merchandise. Some, like the Tony Hawk Foundation
and Be the Change—The Sheckler Foundation, draw on the celebrity
status of their founders. At their core these philanthropic endeavours
reproduce a worldview and ideology surrounding skateboarding and its
positive effects. Indivisible from the good works these activities per-
form is the fact that they also promote skateboarding. Skateboard phi-
lanthropy initiatives are organised secular self-help. As we have seen,
some SDP and ASDP programmes are open to critique as imperialist
ventures, co-opting skateboarding for an alternative agenda and poli-
tics. This can be juxtaposed with skateboard ministry, which ultimately
uses skateboarding as an evangelical tool for the church, not for skate-
boarding itself.
In contrast, the notion that skateboarding is able to save lives is
explored in a variety of videos, literature, and blogs. I have shown how a
collection of books can be understood as a body of self-help literature on
 11 Self–help 281

skateboarding. This is a diverse field where works range from ‘how to’
perform tricks to new-age explorations of Buddhist philosophy. These are
not a cogent collection of work; some appear to be focused on skate-
boarding, others purely on self-help spirituality. I argue that these books
are in no way unrelated to skateboard philanthropy, but are direct
responses to the new social climate in which skateboarding is deemed
prosocial and a positive influence on individual well-being. Moreover, I
believe that there will be further integration of skateboarding self-help
philosophies. These are not unrelated to the field of skateboarding and
religion, but they do appear to lean towards secular organisation. Like
many self-help books they are written to be accessible, ‘thin’ in the neces-
sity of commitment by their readers, and aligned with the primacy of the
individual as the arbiter of spiritual development.
As the final chapter dealing with organisation, self-help can be con-
trasted with the earlier themes which deal with invented religions and
skateboard ministry or dawah. All three topics demonstrate an ambiva-
lent relationship between skateboarding and religion. Religious organisa-
tion stresses the importance of faith above and beyond any real spiritual
connection to skateboarding. This in itself elides the embodied spiritual
experience of skateboarding. Invented or personalised religions demon-
strate both a political project and a radically individualised spiritual
approach. Skateboard philanthropy engages in good works stripped of
spirituality, in sum being an exquisite vehicle for neo-liberal ideology.
I feel uneasy making these points as I feel so much of skateboard phi-
lanthropy makes a positive impact. But I am all too aware that
­skateboarding is for me a rewarding and enjoyable activity in itself. What
I am sceptical of is the capacity for skateboard philanthropy to overturn
the ideological architecture which it is subsumed and promoted under:
neo-liberal capitalism. Take, for instance, the notion that failure is an
acceptable part of skateboarding. In neo-liberal thinking this is valid, but
only under the rubric that some final success or triumph is achieved.
Many skateboarders deal mostly with failure and I would argue that the
ethic of accepting and tolerating failures, both ours and those of others,
is currently lost in the promotion of skateboarding. Failure is seen too
often as only a step in a final process of triumph. While I do believe skate-
boarding can manifest change, it is rapidly becoming aligned with a form
282 P. O’Connor

of liberal politics that is increasingly exclusive. I am also critical of the

way in which the purported positivity of skateboarding can be myopi-
cally read as an endorsement of all activities and personnel involved in
skateboarding. To be more explicitly blunt, the promotion and syphon-
ing of skateboarding into a prosocial inclusive activity runs the risk of
alienating those whom it may hold the most potential for.

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 12
Conclusion

I began skateboarding at the age of 11, but by the age of 17 I had all but
stopped. A convergence of changes resulted in a few weeks off my board
slowly turning into months. Basically, my skateboard crew split up, I
moved to a new school, my local skateshop shut down, I became short-­
sighted, and I contracted glandular fever. But my identity was still that of
a skateboarder. I remember, when I was 17, coming across a zany indi-
vidual at the Glastonbury festival who would sell you a postcard of your
tribe. He stopped me and a friend and identified us as ‘Indie Kids.’ I was
horrified. I was wearing Skate Rags, a Krux T-Shirt, and scuffed Vans
Half-Cabs. How could I be misread? Over the next two years I faced
some personal challenges and started to pursue ways to gain spiritual
fulfilment. I practised Kung Fu, Tai Chi, and Chi Kung. I studied phi-
losophy, experimented with self-help books, and meditated. I pined for
skateboarding but forgot why I had stopped. One day my girlfriend
bemused at my melancholy when observing a group of skaters suggested
I buy a board. At age 20, anxious that I was already far too old, I began
skateboarding again. A gaping void had been filled in my life and I started
to wonder if the previous years would have been simpler and less full of
angst if I had never ceased to skateboard. Despite all of my enquiries into

© The Author(s) 2020 287

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_12
288 P. O’Connor

religion and new-age lifestyles, for me, this was the most therapeutic. I
was content and happy, and the answer was so very simple: a skateboard.
Skateboarding is the most religious of all contemporary sports and yet
hardly anyone notices. It is a perfect example of the concept of lifestyle
religion. It is a ritual practice, political, playful, and open to all manner
of articulations and interpretations. Skateboarders worldwide recognise
an origin myth to their craft, and their boards regularly pay homage to
sacred symbols and also create them anew. I have argued that skateboard-
ing makes holy places out of overlooked street corners, while skateboard-
ers praise a host of icons that liken their culture to a polytheistic
cosmology. I have demonstrated how skateboarding religions are emerg-
ing, and how organised religion seeks to harness and work with the com-
munity of skateboarders. I have also put forth the argument that
charitable works have sought to make skateboarding a secular faith,
replete with a philosophy complementary to neo-liberalism, underpin-
ning a motive of self-help and personal accountability. I have structured
the text in a manner that facilitated discussion of practices that were both
nuanced and explicit in religious terms. I have shown how skateboarding
can be both hostile to and wary of organised religion while also being a
vehicle for its promotion and the articulation of alternative religious sub-
jectivities. In this final chapter I make a closing argument that religious
identification in skateboarding is part of a broader social process in
which, as Ostwalt (2012) has argued, the sacred becomes secular and the
secular becomes sacred. Moreover, the religious identification that skate-
boarders find in their activities can be likened to what Heelas, Woodhead,
Seal, Szerszynski, and Tusting (2005) have observed in increased spiritual
exploration premised on subjective well-being. My analysis indicates that
skateboarding has been swept up in these transformations. Here, I argue
in conclusion that there will be increased religious identification in skate-
boarding in coming years and this will similarly be observable in other
lifestyle sports which have developed vibrant and discernible cultural
politics in their practice. Furthermore, I see a continued engagement and
growth in lifestyle religion, attending to both strong notions of individu-
alism central in contemporary globalised mediated society and the deep-
seated need for human bonds and recognition fostered via communitas.
Before exploring these arguments in more depth, I shall begin by sum-
marising the arguments and terrain we have covered up to this point.
 12 Conclusion 289

Observation, Performance, Organisation

The sections of the text, observation, performance, and organisation, all
speak of different ways in which the connections between skateboarding
and religion can be explored. Firstly, we observed the origin myth of
skateboarding, recognising how a globally reproduced narrative has
emerged, placing California as the homeland of skateboarding. Through
the celebrity of skateboarding we saw how certain individuals had been
attributed superhuman, sage-like, and godly status. Then addressing the
iconography of skateboard art I demonstrated how skateboarding has a
fascination with religion and indeed how the physical, material space of
the board provides a canvas for expressing and critiquing notions of the
divine. Here I also argued that skateboarding’s visual culture disturbs and
undermines a clear distinction between the profane and the sacred. I also
suggested that religion was observable in skateboarding in ways that sim-
ply do not translate to other sports. In this first part religious motifs are
distinctly observable; religion surrounds skateboarding even if at first
glance it is seen to be superficial.
The performance of skateboarding became the second focus of the text
and encompassed the way skateboarding has been captured and repro-
duced in media. In the analysis of two skateboard videos filmed 30 years
apart the journey of skateboarding was likened to a spiritual path. Each
of the videos suggested a meaning or ethic to skateboarding, one being
the pursuit of fun, the other being community. While not distinctly reli-
gious, these features pertain to how skateboarding is performed, con-
sumed, and understood. The factors were all shown to contribute to
feelings of communitas, transcendence, and an engagement with a
notion of ritual quest, or skateboarding as a life journey in itself. The
relevance of video became much of the foundation for my discussion on
pilgrimage. Here I explored how skateboarders have engaged with space
to fulfil and complete meaningful sojourns often propelled by skate-
board media. In the testimonies of various skateboarders these trips were
shown to have emotional and spiritual significance, building on the
experience of communitas, and also being a ritual expression. The final
chapter to address performance explored the vibrancy of ritual process in
290 P. O’Connor

skateboarding. It detailed a variety of instances where rites of passage,

festivity, and politics are all invoked in skateboarding to communicate
meaning and sustain community. It was here that I argued more com-
pletely that skateboarding is playful, and perhaps best understood as a
performance of ritual play.
The final part of the book took the topic of religion in its most recog-
nisable form and addressed the various ways in which religion and skate-
boarding have been organised. The first of these explorations came in the
form of evangelical skateboard ministry which I argued appropriated
skateboarding to further religious outreach. I also demonstrated how
skateboard ministry was a distinct and overlooked element of skateboard
culture that has seen considerable growth and promotion via social media.
The second treatment of organisation adopted the paradigm of invented
religions to address how some groups and individuals had sought to con-
struct their own self-made religious cults and practices centred on skate-
boarding. I argued that these were in part a response to the popularity of
skateboarding and were for many attempts, both tacit and overt, to keep
skateboarding special and meaningful. The final chapter of organisation
explored philanthropy and self-help literature to argue that the celebrated
ethics of skateboarding are prefigurative methods to help and sustain
skateboarding, highlighting that it is both more than a sport and an activ-
ity to be entrusted and managed by skateboarders. Here I argued that the
promotion of skateboarding as a prosocial activity is actually a further
form of religious organisation in which skateboarding has become a sec-
ular faith.
In order to tie these disparate threads together I committed to a poly-
thetic definition of religion and structured this in response to Clifford
Geertz’s (1973) understanding of religion as a cultural system. From this
foundation I proposed a concept of lifestyle religion which was open and
malleable to popular culture, heterodox ideas, consumption, and subcul-
tural practices. This allowed me to suggest that sometimes religion can
simply be observed and at other times it can be practised even when
practitioners do not readily recognise what they are doing as religious,
and in other scenarios religion is organised around institutions, extant
traditions, objects, and ethics. By looking at skateboarding through a
 12 Conclusion 291

polythetic understanding of religion I have attempted to provide a rubric

to address all manner of connections between skateboarding and religion.
This I hope has given scholars and enthusiasts new ways to conceive of
and consider skateboarding, and also some alternative examples of reli-
gion, sport, and popular culture. It is my hope that this schema, along
with the concept of lifestyle religion, will also be helpful in delineating
the relevance of religion in other lifestyle sports.

Lifestyle Religion
I have proposed that lifestyle religions can be understood as physical
expressions that are subcultural, consumptive, and individualised.
Accordingly, a lifestyle religion includes ritual practice and action that
facilitate community. This is clearly visible in skateboarding and other
lifestyle sports, but it could also be analogous to video game enthusiasts,
airsoft practitioners, vegans, and perhaps fashion bloggers. A central
motif in lifestyle religion would be the capacity to demonstrate commit-
ment while never really having to become dedicated to a theology, dogma,
or sacred text. Lifestyle religions do not demand exclusivity or the rigid
moral and ritual strictures that can be found in traditional religions. But
their most salient features would be an orientation around some pop-­
culture elements that have been captured and disseminated on mass
media. Indeed, Taylor (2007) argues that the increased spiritual identifi-
cation in surfing in recent years is propelled by media. As we have seen
throughout this book, media is of central importance in skateboard cul-
ture, providing rich text to build community and understanding, to con-
struct and maintain identities. The salience of social media in new cultural
articulations of skateboarding—be that women skateboarders, alternative
sexualities, social justice pioneers, health gurus, middle-aged and senior
participants, the disabled, or the religious—serves only to underline the
power of media.
It is the fusion of these components with an individualised philosophy,
the values, freedom, and autonomy that distinguish the importance of
both lifestyle and identity. Countless skateboarders reminded me that
292 P. O’Connor

skateboarding could never really become a religion because it rejected

organisation. A key component, they affirmed, was that skateboarding
was about freedom. As skateboarding debuts as an Olympic sport it is no
longer simple to dismiss the charge that skateboarding refutes organisa-
tion. This is a fallacy. But much like the alternative philosophies explored
by Heelas et al. (2005), skateboarding is malleable for articulation—an
empty vessel in which to project notions of the sacred. It is precisely
because skateboarding is considered free that it is so accessible as a life-
style component on which to graft ideas about identity, spirituality, and
therapeutic fulfilment.
Lifestyle religion is thus one way to understand the meaningful way
people engage with pop-culture practices in individualised ways signifi-
cant to their own identities and foster connections and communities with
like-minded others. The attraction of lifestyle religion is that it is non-­
committal, and holds no control over individuals to conform to a set of
rigid social structures and moral obligations. At most there are subcul-
tural codes and contracts which can be rescinded upon with ease. I argue
that lifestyle religion is a nascent development which can be observed in
elements of skateboard culture, and in other lifestyle sports. Moreover, it
relates broadly to the religious and spiritual identification people have
been exploring in popular culture, through film, literature, music, and a
host of alternative lifestyles (Clark & Clanton Jr, 2012; Cowan, 2012a,
2012b; Cusack, 2010, 2013, 2019; Cusack & Digance, 2009; Digance
& Cusack, 2008; Scholes, 2012; Wilder & Rehwaldt, 2012).

Looking Beyond Skateboarding

I believe in skateboarding scholarship precisely because it provides a rich
context by which we can understand more about society, space, and cul-
ture. Skateboarding is not a niche concern; it presents valuable lessons to
us in its multiple forms. The insights from this research are thus relevant
to the sociology of religion and the growth of lifestyle sports.
Transformation in religious practice is largely noted to be taking place
in the Global North (Heelas et al., 2005, p. 49). These are similarly the
same parts of the world in which lifestyle sports have emerged, and
 12 Conclusion 293

despite rapid global growth continue to have their largest impact

(Wheaton, 2015, p. 636). The draw of new forms of spiritual practice as
subjective life projects also mirrors the attraction that many have to hedo-
nistic, informal, and risky lifestyle sports. Activities like surfing, snow-
boarding, and parkour require no formal membership and have no
national affiliation, in contrast to traditional sports like baseball and foot-
ball that developed in concert with national identity (Thorpe, 2014b,
p. 4). While spiritual practice and lifestyle sports in their new forms are
often imagined to be individual pursuits that resist control, rules, and
organisation, both have become highly integrated into the new (post-­
Fordist) economy and thrive in ‘niche markets’ (Wheaton, 2015, p. 635),
often propelled by ‘New Media’ (Dart, 2012) and user-generated content
(MacKay & Dallaire, 2014; Thorpe, 2014b, p. 70). New spiritual prac-
tices and lifestyle sports are seen to be attractive to policymakers and
governments because they replicate a set of values that promote individ-
ual responsibility, healthy lifestyles, and consumption (Gilchrist &
Wheaton, 2011; Lombard, 2010; Thorpe, 2014a; Wheaton, 2015).
A connection between lifestyle sports and the values of the neo-liberal
economy has been identified by a variety of scholars (Howell, 2008;
Thorpe & Rinehart, 2013; Wheaton, 2013). Individual responsibility,
entrepreneurial ethos, and responsible risk-taking are all seen to be values
central to success in lifestyle sports and the post-Fordist economy.
Gilchrist and Wheaton (2011, p. 121) speak of a ‘political shift’ in which
‘risky, counter-cultural, deviant lifestyles’ are recast as ‘inclusive’ and
‘anti-competitive,’ and become tools for social and urban development.
Their research speaks of the training regimes and healthy eating of park-
our practitioners. In a similar way skateboarding, long associated with
rebellion and anarchy, has incorporated an embrace of healthy lifestyles.
In one of the leading skateboard magazines professional skateboarder
Manny Santiago speaks of his vegan diet as a way to maintain and pro-
long his career (Transworld Skateboarding, 2015, p. 88). Santiago
explains that he changed his diet after being influenced by other skate-
boarders and speaks of the ills of chemically altered food, yet stops short
of criticising the energy drinks that sponsor him and other skateboarders.
With this interplay between healthy pursuits, commercial interests, and
neo-liberal ideology in lifestyle sports, it is relevant to ask how new
294 P. O’Connor

s­piritual and new sporting practices interact. My discussions in various

chapters foreground this. Take, for example, Bayer Pharmaceuticals’
appropriation of the Lyon 25, skateboard philanthropy, and its connec-
tion to new-age self-help philosophy, or the emergence of skate cults. The
key argument here is not simply the connection between skateboarding
and religion. More centrally this discussion highlights how skateboarding
has become an increasingly appealing vehicle for religious and spiritual
ideologies. This replicates the general features of lifestyle sports as activi-
ties that are both inclusive and flexible.

What Comes Next?

Although the scope of this work is broad, it is by no means exhaustive.
Readers will note that many topics have been omitted. I have not, for
instance, explored the religious biographies of certain professionals such
as Lance Mountain and his quasi-religious skateboard team, The Firm. Or
the more contemporary example of Beatrice Domond’s Christian faith
and study of Hebrew. I have also not discussed the professionals who
have become born-again Christians such as Steve Caballero, Ryan
Sheckler, Lennie Kirk, and Salman Agah. There is room for a treatment
of other religions in professional skateboarding such as Jordan Richter’s
conversion to Islam, Guru Khalsa’s Sikh heritage and increasing religios-
ity, Steve Olson’s psychedelic travels, Josh Stewart’s conspiracy-oriented
Theories of Atlantis, and a host of professionals connected to
Rastafarianism such as Jef Hartsel, Lewis Marnell, and Nyjah Huston.
I have similarly not explored numerous threads in religious studies,
such as the psychology of religion, sexual practices, conversion, heresy or,
for instance, theology. More than anything else this has been a first step
in opening a space for academic discussion on skateboarding and reli-
gion, and more generally lifestyle sports. I do hope that this work is com-
plimentary to other works on religion and popular culture and
contemporary transformations in new and alternative religious practices.
I am particularly interested in exploring how religion and skateboard-
ing interact in non-Western contexts. I have touched on skateboarding
and Islam in Malaysia and Indonesia. These are areas ripe for further and
focused enquiry. Similarly, the emerging skateboard culture in the Indian
 12 Conclusion 295

subcontinent is already showing signs both of incorporating religious

symbolism and importantly transgressing longstanding barriers of faith,
caste, and gender. In all of these scenarios the online world stands out as
an important space where skateboarding and religion are combined, jux-
taposed, and explored. Again, I anticipate similar developments in other
lifestyle sports while remaining mindful that skateboarding’s versatility
makes it arguably more potent for reimagining than other sports.

A Sense of Meaning
Professor Iain Borden concludes his 2019 work ‘Skateboarding and the
City’ by reflecting on how skateboarding can provide practitioners access
to ‘a magnificent life.’ My observations throughout this research and the
testimonies I have collected all point to the fact that skateboarding is
incredibly meaningful to many of the people who practise it. I have wit-
nessed people overcome heartbreak, fight addiction, combat loneliness,
and get in shape via their skateboards. I have spoken to grown men who
have tried to communicate with tears in their eyes just how important
skateboarding has been to them. It has provided ritual process, text, and
community to so many individuals; it has acted like a religion.
I have tried to delineate the reasons why this has taken place.
Skateboarding is not like other sports. I cannot think of another sport
that emphasises fun in the same way, or values critical art as part of its
culture, or one that has such a comparable romance with mundane archi-
tecture. But I do see parallels in other lifestyle sports, and I believe that
surfing, snowboarding, and parkour are moving in a similar direction.
Heelas et al. (2005) argue that those who derive meaning from new-age
spiritual, health, and well-being philosophies are part of a holistic milieu.
These individuals believe that truth can be found in a variety of practices.
Most importantly, these individuals are hesitant to obey some external
authority. They prioritise finding their own tools for spiritual guidance,
and preferably ones that appeal to their values, interests, and feelings.
They also argue that the holistic milieu is growing.
It is clear to me that skateboarding offers much to those who are in the
holistic milieu. The appeal has also been recognised by various religious
296 P. O’Connor

organisations who seek to harness the enthusiasm for skateboarding and

other lifestyle sports onto evangelical programmes. Skateboarding and
religion are connected, and to many people skateboarding is a religion. I
am emphatic that these same dynamics are observable and emerging in
other lifestyle sports. I close with a final quote that captures much of the
present tension in skateboarding. Many of the people I spoke to recog-
nised something magical or spiritual in their activity, and they were anx-
ious that this evocative quality was somehow being lost in the current
popularity of the sport. Here are the words of climber Kevin Kelly
recounted by Edith Turner (2012, p. 20) on the subject of how the unique
feeling of communitas, its joys, and camaraderie should be nurtured and
respected:

The best you can do is not kill it. When it pops up, don’t crush it. When it
starts rolling, don’t formalize it. When it sparks, fan it. But don’t move it to
better quarters. Try to keep accountants and architects and police and do-­
gooders away from it. Let it remain inefficient, wasteful, edgy, marginal, in
the basement, downtown, in the ‘burbs, in the hotel ballroom, on the
fringes, out back, in Camp 4. When it happens, honor and protect it.

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 Index

A BMX, 8, 71
Action Sports for Development and Borden, Iain, vii, 7, 39, 49–50, 58,
Peace (ASDP), 263–282 59, 116, 140, 154, 155, 167,
Adams, Jay, 76–83 180, 181, 194, 198, 201, 238,
Alien Workshop, 95–98, 107, 142 295
Alva, Tony, 68 Boulala, Ali, 147–151
Anderson, Brian, 82, 161, 165 Buddhism, 5, 25, 74, 77
Armanto, Lizzie, 73 Bufoni, Leticia, 71, 73
Burnquist, Bob, 68

B
Ba. Ku., see Barrier Kult C
Barbee, Ray, 68, 109, 218 Caballero, Steve, 70, 109, 128, 132,
Barrier Kult, 16, 239–259 218, 294
Basketball, 84 California, 6, 15, 48–52, 57–58, 74,
Beal, Becky, 7, 60, 77, 81, 153, 164, 129, 149–152, 155–160, 268,
184 275, 289
Bell, Catherine, 180–184 Cardiel, John, 69, 257
Blender, Neil, 69 China, 70, 133, 135

© The Author(s) 2020 299

P. O’Connor, Skateboarding and Religion,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4
300 Index

Christianity, 5–6, 24, 27, 30, 40, 73, F

76, 84, 85, 95, 105, 109–114, Female skateboarders, see Women
158, 213–234, 278 skateboarders
Civil inattention, 197 Flow, 36, 37, 40, 141, 188, 203,
Communitas, 5, 15, 32–40, 88, 124, 218, 254
125, 127, 136–141, 149, 151, Foy, Jamie, 73
169–172, 183, 203, 245, 256, Friedel, Sophie, 36, 194, 196, 197,
288–290, 296 249, 269
Cooper, Christian, 102–109 Funeral, 1, 29, 110, 158, 184
Cultural heritage, 10, 154, 169–171,
251
Cultural rights, 10, 171, 251 G
Cusack, Carole, 31, 126, 183, 201, Gall, Fred, 69
237 Geertz, Clifford, 25–34, 86, 274
Gender, 8–10, 32, 72, 93, 125, 196,
264, 270, 272, 275
D Glenney, Brian, 3, 6, 51, 156, 245
Daoism, 1, 25, 95, 152 Gonzales, Mark, 68–69, 100,
Dawah, 16, 213, 232, 281 255–256
Death, 1, 92, 140, 181, 184 Graphics, 2, 11, 15, 52, 91–117,
Devil, see Satan, Satanism 128, 158, 211, 221, 222, 230,
Didal, Margielyn, 8, 9, 250 249
Dogtown and Z Boys, 50, 58, 61, 79, Grosso, Jeff, 69, 94, 102–114, 244
162
Do-it-yourself (DIY), 6, 7, 57–62,
70, 85, 134, 150, 155, H
163–171, 185, 198, 237–259, Hadid, Amar, 204
265, 266, 269 Harry Potter, 154
Dubai, 124, 133, 135 Hartsel, Jef, 95, 112, 294
Duran, Mariah, 71 Hawk, Tony, 3, 8, 56, 61, 68–69, 73,
79, 130–133, 156, 158, 190,
232, 233, 264, 275, 277
E Heelas, Paul, 32, 37, 40, 95, 202,
Edgework, 36, 93, 140–141, 179, 217, 237, 239, 257, 269, 273,
254 279, 288, 292, 295
Eliade, Mircea, 28, 49, 150, 151, Hendrix, Neal, 72
203 Hensley, Matt, 68–69
Evans, Ty, 133–136 Heritage, see Cultural heritage
 Index 301

Heterodox, 2, 5, 12, 40, 50, 96, Koston, Eric, 164, 250

290 Kyro, Aaron, 250
Hijab, 232
Hinduism, 5, 21, 106, 139, 187
Hong Kong, 1, 8, 12, 53, 71, 124, L
162–166, 189, 195, 220, 271 Lemos, Tiago, 133–135, 155
Hosoi, Christian, 56, 57, 61, 68, 72, Lifestyle religion, 5, 14–17, 22–24,
76–82, 87, 88, 109, 111, 218, 38–40, 50, 62, 68, 117, 136,
255, 275 137, 143, 181, 245, 248, 250,
Howell, Ocean, 168, 196 269, 278–282, 288, 291–292
Huizinga, Johan, 59, 200–202 Lifestyle sports, 5, 8, 17, 21–24,
Huston, Nyjah, 70, 294 34–36, 39, 79, 117, 135,
143, 153, 183, 185, 202,
216, 218, 232, 272, 279,
I 288, 291–296
Individualism, 28, 29, 31, 39, 71, Lyon 25, 147–149, 158, 161,
75, 239, 269, 288 171–172, 294
Instagram, 71, 115, 125, 155, 164,
187, 191, 193, 211, 212, 223,
224, 230–232 M
Institutionalism, 3 MACBA, see Museum for Art
Islam, 14, 16, 47–49, 52, 62–63, 87, Contemporary Barcelona
105, 106, 116, 182, 230–233, Malaysia, 3, 47–51, 233, 294
294 Marnell, Lewis, 294
Mary, Virgin, 95, 97, 115
McCrank, Rick, 131, 159, 243, 257
J McKee, Marc, 98–101, 112, 113
Jaws, Aaron Homoki, 147–151 Mecca, 51, 52, 115, 134, 137, 151,
Jessee, Jason, 72, 131 152, 159–160, 168–169
Jesus, 78, 82, 85, 94, 95, 105, 109, Methodology, 12–14
111–114, 214, 218–223 Mountain, Lance, 109, 124, 128,
Judaism, 77, 233 132, 244, 294
Muggles, 154, 205
Mullen, Rodney, 51, 56, 61, 68–76,
K 87, 88, 273, 275
Kaupas, Natas, 94, 98–102 Museum for Art Contemporary
Kirchart, Heath, 69 Barcelona (MACBA), 135,
Klein, Jeremy, 112, 131 155, 211, 223, 225
302 Index

Myth, 6, 15, 25, 28, 30, 31, 35, Play, 7, 16, 31, 36, 39, 58–60, 135,
47–63, 67, 71, 73, 77, 106, 140, 149, 166, 179–185, 191,
126–133, 155, 201 195–205, 238, 256–259, 290
Polythetic, 5, 14, 23–24, 31–34, 40,
92, 124, 150, 211, 290–291
N Powell Peralta, 86
Nazi, 58, 72, 92, 108 Prayers, 3, 52, 62, 84, 137, 204
New York, 58–59, 171, 185, Profane, 4, 26, 28, 34, 39, 73,
189–190, 197, 248 94–96, 100, 107, 108, 115,
NGO, see Non-governmental 117, 150, 152, 180, 200, 218,
organisation 289
Nike, 61, 84, 136, 243 Punk, 85, 108, 222, 234, 244, 249,
Nine Club, The, 61, 70, 86, 186 277–282
Non-governmental organisation
(NGO), 3, 16–17, 23, 36, 56,
60, 189, 196, 199, 263–270, R
280 Rastafarianism, 95, 112, 294
Northern Ireland, 199 Religion
anthropology of, 24–26
definition, 24
O invented religions, 31–33, 40,
Olympics, 6, 7, 107 59–60, 237–259
O’Neill, Shane, 164 lifestyle religion (see Lifestyle
Ostwalt, Conrad, 5, 30–31, 40, 78, religion)
83, 88, 95, 116, 126, 137, new-age, 35, 37–40, 294, 295
141, 216, 234, 273, 279, 288 persecution, 115
Otto, Rudolph, 27, 28, 37, 140, 150 popular culture, 2–5, 21–26,
30–31, 290–294
religious studies, 27–28
P social change, 28–30
Peralta, Powell, 91, 101, 105, 106, sociology of, 26–27
124, 127, 130 spirituality, 29, 152, 185,
Peralta, Stacy, 50, 58, 128, 131, 132 218–221
Phantasm, 105 and sports, 22, 34–38, 183, 277
Phelps, Jake, 184 Repo Man, 105, 107
Pilgrimage, 15, 25, 34, 35, 52, 124, Reyes, Jamie, 73
143, 144, 147–172, 181–183, Reynolds, Andrew, 68, 131, 179,
186, 192, 197, 239, 289 180
 Index 303

Rieder, Dylan, 184 early skateboards, 58

Ritual, 179–205 Folk Heroes, 85–87
of affliction, 192–194 gods, 251–257
calendrical, 182, 187–189 language, 54–57
classification, 179–181 ministry, 211–234
of exchange and communion, philanthropy, 16, 17, 189, 190,
188–192 263–282
feasting and festival, 194–197 podcasts, 61
rites of passage, 184–187 as therapy, 74, 269, 288, 292
ritual space, 185, 195–196 tricks, 54–57
ritual time, 188, 203 types of, 8
Rocco, Steve, 73, 91, 100, 101, videos, 123–144
112 Skategoat, 220
Rodriguez, Gabriel, 112–114, 116, Skateistan, 3, 56, 61, 190, 196, 232,
161 267, 270, 271
Rodriguez, Paul, 8, 68, 84–85, Slap, 69, 111, 186
133–136 Snowboarding, 8, 23, 141, 153, 293,
295
Snyder, Gregory, 8, 9, 11, 38, 55, 71,
S 86, 149
Santiago, Manny, 293 Social media, 13, 35, 39, 49, 70, 72,
Satan, Satanism, 2, 52–56, 74, 99, 125, 155, 163, 166, 184,
100, 220–222 186–187, 211–213, 223–226,
Scientology, 74, 250 230, 234, 244, 248, 255, 264,
Search for Animal Chin, The, 124, 271, 276, 290, 291
127–133, 275 See also Instagram
Self-help books, 273–279 Sociophobics, 93–98, 101, 105, 112,
Sexuality, 8–10, 81–82, 152, 161, 114, 126, 242, 254
248, 263, 291 Song, Daewon, 233
Shining, The, 105 Southbank, 10, 61, 169
Sikhism, 294 Sportification, 7, 12, 23, 70, 127,
Skateboard history, 7, 58–60 171, 244, 251, 258, 273
Skateboarding Sports for Development and Peace
apparatus, 6, 60–61 (SDP), 265, 267
books on, 60–62 Sport stars, 87
Christian brands, 109, 215, Star Wars, 126, 255
220–225, 229 Steamer, Elissa, 73
cults, 239–251 Sumner, Brian, 112, 116
304 Index

Surfing, 8, 23, 35–36, 49, 51, Variflex, 91

57–58, 62, 80, 108, 153, 185, Vasconcellos, Nora, 73
192, 218, 292–295

W
T Way, Danny, 68–71
Taylor, Charles, 37, 38, 40 We Are Blood, 124, 127, 133–142,
Tebow, Tim, 85, 96 276
Thomas, Jamie, 3, 68, 94, 109, 113, Wheaton, Belinda, 5, 8–10, 23, 36,
116, 135, 157–158, 165, 218 40, 75, 264, 269
Thorpe, Holly, 36, 140–144, 185, Williams, Neen, 68
267, 268 Women skateboarders, 13, 35, 37,
Thrasher magazine, 61, 67, 123, 147, 48, 71, 73, 76, 82, 133, 152,
184, 188, 193, 254, 278 189, 193, 197, 215, 232,
Turner, Edith, 125, 137, 139, 196, 248–251, 267, 271, 275, 291
296 Woodhead, Linda, 29, 32, 37, 40,
Turner, Victor, 25, 136–139, 196, 51, 95, 202, 217, 239, 269,
245 288
World Skate, 72
Worship, 2, 34, 72, 82, 92, 96, 150,
V 180, 204, 214, 216, 217, 233,
Vallely, Mike, 192, 263, 264, 278 244, 247
Vans, 49, 61, 69, 72, 103, 188, 189,
287