Don't Blame Jamie Or Jaws, Here's The Real Reason For The Scooter Menace

Skating often captures the imagination of those who lack the will, temperament or dedication to take it up. This is why trends like rollerblades, snakeboards, rip-stiks, and razor scooters are always yapping at skaters' heels.

The latest incarnation of this phenomenon, the Razor scooter, has been especially persistent, not to mention obstructive to the modern skateboarder.  More than one skater has placed the blame for the scooter epidemic on the high-impact, highly technical trends in modern pro skateboarding. At a glance, the connection seems plausible: Elite level Skateboarding has developed a more risky dimension than it had in the good ol days, they say. An emphasis on increasingly complex and risky tricks rather than "just rolling", is making kids take up scooters instead of skateboards. The skate world, they posit, has become an all jocks club that welcomes only the most athletically driven skaters.

Take a closer look at skateboarding, and a good hard look at the Razor scooter, and it becomes clear that the kids riding those Razors wouldn't be riding skateboards no matter what sort of stuff was going down in Thrasher magazine.

Skateboarding is Not A Sport

You can take practically any physical endeavor and turn it into a “sport”. Just flip through the cable channels late at night and you’ll see. There is competitive lumberjacking, competitive aerobics, competitive martial arts. There's even professional eating. Turning something into a sport is simple all you have to do is impose limitations on it.  Mark Twain once  joked that the sport of golf was  “a good walk spoilt.”  It was just a smart ass remark, but the essence of sports lies in that little quip. Add in rules about teams, official measurements and require someone to carry a ball, and something as simple as walking from one end of a field to another becomes football.

Skaters have been antagonistic about branding skateboarding as a sport for decades. A lot of this comes from skating's DIY roots and the punk rock ethos it picked up in the 1980’s, but the need to refute and reject all attempts to make skateboarding a sport go beyond simple rebellious desires, it cuts right to the nature of skating itself. Limitations and skateboarding are two entities that always have trouble getting along. Entities that should have trouble getting along.