“Skateboarding saved my life, skateboarding saved my life - it saved my life, I tell you!”

It’s the narrative we hear all the time. Yes, I know for a fact that there are incredible things that come from skateboarding; the fun, the friendships, the way it enables the expression of individuality, the perseverance, and the comradery. It is great. But no one talks about how being a skate nerd ruins people’s lives like it ruined mine, a twenty-three-year-old flow skater from the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, who right now refuses to skate anywhere but my local park  

So how did it ruin my life?

Let’s begin.

When I think about how much I know about skateboarding – its culture, history and even all the nerdy technical bits – I reflect on how useless this knowledge is in the grand scheme of things. I couldn’t even do well in a pub quiz with it. Imagine how much better off I would be if I applied that emphasis and care to something useful. Maybe I could be an environmental scientist working in renewable energy trying to save the planet, finding a cure for cancer, helping create an invention that allows blind people to see, or even have my own Instagram meme page.

I barely passed high school, I failed maths in year ten, and I fell asleep in my final Legal Studies exam, but I can tell you the name of Ronnie Creager’s short-lived shoe company (Nadia), every Sonic Youth song Ed Templeton skated to (Waist, Mote, Titanium Expose, Karen (Revisited)),  and who had a shared part with Heath Kirchart in Baker 2G, a video came out the year I was born (Terry Kennedy). 

My mind is constantly thinking about skateboarding, even when I haven’t skated in months. 

I will never be able to listen to a song again without thinking ‘Who skated to this?’ or ‘Would this work to skate to?’.

I can never drive around without looking for new spots or thinking about the spots that I am going to go past. My phone is constantly on me ready to take photos of any new spots or fool’s gold spots that I can laugh at later with one of my two friends who care.  

I will never be able to go on a holiday without thinking about the spots where I am going and making a trip out to visit them. Why is a random council estate in South London that Tom Knox and Jacob Elliot Harris filmed a line at in Eleventh Hour a tourist destination? I should be admiring Big Ben, posing for photos with the funny-looking guards at Buckingham Palace or mindlessly walking down Oxford Circus with all the other tourists.

I don’t even need to be on holiday to think of spots in other cities. I was having a conversation with someone the other day and I could reference tricks and lines that people have done in their city, Portland, a city I’ve never been to, that’s in a country, the United States of America, that I’ve also never been to. I could talk about spots, knowing what they’re called, what is there and who skated them. This isn’t chill. I should not be able to tell you about Magic Five and what tricks have been done there. I don’t even know the name of the premier for the State of Victoria where I live.

How do I know what fit of pants someone is wearing just by looking at them but not know how to open the bonnet of my car that I’ve been driving for five years?

Why can I play a full game of pool without sinking a single fucking ball but varial heelflip on flatground every try? It would’ve been more beneficial to play Miniclip’s 8ball pool with my friends on Facebook than skate every day. 

Wheelbases. Don’t get me started on wheelbases. For someone who cannot do basic maths, I sure am picky about what the length and wheelbase are of my board. I don’t want to skate a board under 31.9 inches long with a wheelbase that isn't 14.25 inches. I refuse to skate any trucks but Ace and any wheels but Spitfire Formula Fours that are in the conical full shape, it’s been like this for seven years now. I will not be changing, don’t ask. 

Being a skate nerd has even ruined skateboarding.  

Imagine that instead of spending my youth watching Jeff Grosso’s Love Letters, Epicly Later’ds, every single skate video and going on Slap, I had instead read the classics, tried harder in school or learnt how to play an instrument. That would’ve and could’ve been a better use of my time. I can reference skate videos that came out before I was born, ‘About to attack this double set, YO!’ and know what spots are in basically any city in the world. The latter is actually pretty cool, but I’m not even that good at Geoguessr. 

Even though this is my life, I would want it no other way. I can’t really count or understand science so there’s no way that even if I didn’t skateboard, I could cure cancer or be an environmental scientist. I am glad that I am a skate nerd and things turned out this way. I have got a cool job being a skate writer. I can out-nerd basically all my friends. I can be an ABD encyclopedia, I can tell my friends where almost every spot in Melbourne is and I’m super opinionated about something that I care about most, skateboarding. Oh, isn’t it lovely?