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> in the 1960's it was ... a simpler time and the outcasts looked like normal kids having fun compared to today Seems like some sort of gatekeeping and old-man

> in the 1960's it was ... a simpler time and the outcasts looked like normal kids having fun compared to today Seems like some sort of gatekeeping and old-man shaking his fist at youth to me. The overwhelming majority of people skateboarding today are regular kids and young adults who are just in it to have fun. If their techniques are more advanced, its probably because technology has improved and also because they're emulating the things they see professional or otherwise experienced skaters do, but what's the problem with that? They're still having fun, aren't they? That's the point of it all, isn't it? And buying a shirt means you don't have personality? Is personality all about happening to know a guy who does custom T-shirt printing? What makes one more authentic than the other? Seems like nonsense.

_DeadFred_ 2y ago
You didn't 'happen to know someone who made t-shirts' if you were around the scene. If you went to the skate park regularly, Bennie was always there, and Bennie hustled struggled by doing things like make t-shirts to support the scene. Bennie always had decks/trucks/stickers/t-shirts for sale out of the back of his car. If people were working on a park or a ramp or something Bennie let everyone know when and where. So you couldn't not know Bennie if you regularly were around. Hence not knowing Bennie meant you weren't regularly around.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Sounds like it was a lot more about where you lived and a lot less "whether you had a personality". I was never a skater kid and never pretended to be one, but I knew plenty and they wore shirts from Kmart because in rural PA kids aren't going to have access to the whole "authentic punk social infrastructure" or whatever it is that supposedly grants kids access to "personality".
  - finnthehuman 2y ago
    >supposedly grants kids access to "personality". You have it backwards. The shirt is neither necessary nor sufficient. sporkydistance was dogging on poseurs. deadfread was explaining why a t-shirt was ever an indicator (and even when there's someone handmaking shirts for your thing they're taking as many sales as possible). The shirt validating the identity is a wrong interpretation of what was written. But it's also a normal perspective these days, one core to social criticism this conversation is getting at.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    Bennie sells discs at the disc golf course. Bennie is the guy who arranges timed skiing races up on the mountain. Bennie is just the placeholder of 'if you do this a lot locally, you know XYZ who is always around' and hence you are 'part of the scene' IE you have actually engaged with it on some level. Nowadays that might be substituted with 'do you watch XYZ streamer'. The t-shirt didn't represent having a personality. It represented than 'I am around this community enough I have at least interacted with Bennie'. Someone wearing a Kmart t-shirt saying 'ah did you get that from Bennie' would be the exact cred/personality as having a Bennie shirt.

_DeadFred_ 2y ago

You didn't 'happen to know someone who made t-shirts' if you were around the scene. If you went to the skate park regularly, Bennie was always there, and Bennie hustled struggled by doing things like make t-shirts to support the scene. Bennie always had decks/trucks/stickers/t-shirts for sale out of the back of his car. If people were working on a park or a ramp or something Bennie let everyone know when and where. So you couldn't not know Bennie if you regularly were around. Hence not knowing Bennie meant you weren't regularly around.

lupusreal 2y ago
Sounds like it was a lot more about where you lived and a lot less "whether you had a personality". I was never a skater kid and never pretended to be one, but I knew plenty and they wore shirts from Kmart because in rural PA kids aren't going to have access to the whole "authentic punk social infrastructure" or whatever it is that supposedly grants kids access to "personality".
- finnthehuman 2y ago
  >supposedly grants kids access to "personality". You have it backwards. The shirt is neither necessary nor sufficient. sporkydistance was dogging on poseurs. deadfread was explaining why a t-shirt was ever an indicator (and even when there's someone handmaking shirts for your thing they're taking as many sales as possible). The shirt validating the identity is a wrong interpretation of what was written. But it's also a normal perspective these days, one core to social criticism this conversation is getting at.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  Bennie sells discs at the disc golf course. Bennie is the guy who arranges timed skiing races up on the mountain. Bennie is just the placeholder of 'if you do this a lot locally, you know XYZ who is always around' and hence you are 'part of the scene' IE you have actually engaged with it on some level. Nowadays that might be substituted with 'do you watch XYZ streamer'. The t-shirt didn't represent having a personality. It represented than 'I am around this community enough I have at least interacted with Bennie'. Someone wearing a Kmart t-shirt saying 'ah did you get that from Bennie' would be the exact cred/personality as having a Bennie shirt.