Alternative Media in Alternative Sport: Platforming Working Conditions in Professional Skateboarding

Abstract

Alternative media enable marginalized people to voice their experiences, challenge dominant ideologies, and circumvent mainstream gatekeepers. Podcasts are an alternative medium that can be counterhegemonic, foregrounding such issues as antiracism, Indigeneity, LGBTQ rights, socialism, and workers’ perspectives. This article expands on alternative-media research by transporting it to the skateboarding subculture. I first depict the skateboard outlets Thrasher Magazine (1981) and The Berrics (2007) website as hegemonic and mainstream. By contrast, I depict podcasts The Bunt (2016) and Vent City (2019) as counterhegemonic and alternative. I then ask: To what degree do skate podcasts acknowledge professional skateboarders as workers? And: Do such shows allow skaters to express grievances with their industry? A discourse analysis of Thrasher and The Berrics demonstrates that they often mystify freelance work, class, and skaters’ working conditions. An analysis of The Bunt and Vent City suggests that podcasts offer unique and radical perspectives, though attention to working conditions is uneven. I find there may be too much overlap between the case studies for an alternative/mainstream distinction to be meaningful. Political currents within skateboarding are still promising, however, and digital media will be essential in making the subculture and industry more inclusive.

Professional skateboarders are freelancers (i.e., independent contractors) who sign with sponsoring brands, such as Adidas, Mountain Dew, Nike, Red Bull, or Spitfire Wheels, among a myriad of others. ¹ Skaters receive money to promote the companies they ride for, such as by wearing branded apparel at contests, appearing in magazines, and posting content on their social-media profiles. The job of professional skaters is more complex than this, however, as they are simultaneously “athletes, competitors, creative[s]… entrepreneurs, freelancers, human advertisements, and self-promoters” (Nichols, 2021, p. 5). ² As this article will argue, dominant media in the skateboard subculture largely ignore the working conditions of pro skateboarders. This is a problem, because avoiding talk of labor impedes attempts to address the exploitation of workers in the skateboarding industry. Alternative media within skateboarding have the potential to fill this gap and foreground the struggle of making a living as a pro skateboarder.

This article builds on previous research on the labor of professional skateboarders (Bastos & Stigger, 2009; Nichols, 2021, 2022a; Snyder, 2011, 2017). It is further concerned with the following three concepts: The professional skateboarder’s job and relation to class, the avoidance and mystification of skaters’ labor in dominant skate media, and alternative media’s potential to raise awareness of exploitation in the skateboard industry. Given this, I first provide definitions for: independent contractors as a class segment, the skateboard industry and its corporate media, and alternative media, which historically give voice to marginalized groups. After defining these concepts, I explain the methods used in this article, which include content analysis (Bailey & Hackett, 1997; Titscher et al., 2000) and discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995; Friedman, 2008; Van Dijck, 2005). Lastly, I present case studies of hegemonic skate media (Thrasher Magazine and The Berrics website) and counterhegemonic skate media (The Bunt and Vent City podcasts). The case studies support my main argument that dominant media mystify the work that skaters do, and that alternative media can correct for this. However, The Bunt and Vent City podcasts are not perfect, and more work needs to be done to raise consciousness about contracting, class, and exploitation in the skate industry.

Professional Skateboarders as Freelancers

Though different conceptions of class exist, I ground this article in the tradition of Marx et al. (1967) and recent theorists who fit freelancers into a class schema (Cohen, 2012; Wright, 2015). Researchers alternately label freelancers as gig workers (Kacher & Weiler, 2017), temp workers (Grey, 2015), and the “precariat” (para. 9)—a “portmanteau of proletariat and precarious” (para. 9). Precarity is therefore a defining feature, with the precariat facing “insecure, often part-time and disorganized low-paid labor” (Harvey, 2013). This employment paradigm is permeating urban life (2013) and becoming a more common way to work (Srnicek, 2017). In addition to pro skaters, many other jobs fall under the rubric of independent contracting, freelancing, and the precariat. Among these are copyeditors, “cabinet-makers, nannies… artists, translators” (Grey, 2015, para. 27), journalists, writers, media workers (Cohen, 2016), Uber drivers (Chan, 2019), stand-up comedians (Trusolino, 2023), bloggers (Duffy, 2017), and social-media influencers (Duffy et al., 2021). Everyone engaged in these jobs is a worker who enters into a class relation that is “dichotomous” (Ossowski, as quoted in Edgell, 1993, p. 31). Rather than who supervises them or where they fall in the “division of labor” (p. 24), what distinguishes their class is that they are exploited by capitalists. ³

The paradigm of working precarious gigs originated in the cultural industries (Grey, 2015). Predicated on creativity, this sector produces “‘aesthetic’ or ‘symbolic’ goods and services” (Banks, as quoted in Cohen, 2012, p. 141). Professional skateboarders are cultural workers in that they produce digital content for their brands and communicate style to their subcultural clientele through displays of clothing and gear. They are also athletes, which means they straddle two broad areas of labor scholarship: the cultural and creative industries (De Peuter & Cohen, 2015), and the world of professional sports (Schiavone, 2015).

To be sure, professional skateboarding is not organized like Major League Baseball or the National Football League. Skaters are neither represented by powerful players’ associations, nor are they classified as employees who enjoy a guaranteed minimum wage, workers’ compensation, sick leave, and overtime (Mah, 2015). Pro skaters also make considerably less money than pro baseball or pro football players, with one estimate placing an average salary at only USD$24,000 a year (Dobija-Nootens, 2015). A more recent article likewise reports that “sponsored skateboarders… spend much of their skate careers making just enough money to cover basic expenses” (Dobija-Nootens, 2019, para. 2). Their lack of employee status also means that pro skaters “are on their own for everything” (Rad Rat Video, 2019, p. 8:33). However, skaters are similar to traditional athletes in that they are “the equivalent of the working class in sport [who] have very little significant control over any aspects of the sport they play” (Sage, 1990, p. 40). Contracts can randomly appear and disappear, meaning skaters have little control over what sponsorship opportunities come along. And they may also be told what to do by company sponsors, such as to wear a specific hat (Rice, 2012) or to post certain content on an Instagram page (The Bunt, 2016).

Individual skateboarders hail from various class backgrounds (Snyder, 2011). A small contingent of pro skaters has risen to the top—its elite members becoming millionaires (Snyder, 2017) and enjoying celebrity status. Meanwhile, most professional skateboarders make just enough to get by (Dobija-Nootens, 2019). This lopsided condition is common in other sectors of the cultural and creative industries, such as fashion blogging (Duffy, 2017), which suggests that precarity does not feel the same for every freelancer. What is important for this article, however, is that pro skaters are precarious creative athletes who experience exploitation due to their classification as freelancers. When I argue that dominant skate media mystify skaters’ working conditions, I mean that they ignore discourse about pro skaters’ struggle to make a living without benefits, health insurance, pensions, or a union. Skaters simply appear in ads, photos, and videos. How their labor is reproduced each day remains a mystery.

The Skateboard Industry and Its Media

Recent studies suggest that the global skateboarding industry is valued between USD$2 billion (Tighe, 2020) and USD$5 billion (Snyder, 2017). Comprising it are international supply chains, manufacturers, multinational corporations, small brands, warehouses, distributors, shops and the like, each of which produce, distribute, or sell apparel, gear, accessories, and media that give life to the skate subculture. Snyder (2017) reports the many jobs within the industry: “pro skaters, filmers, photographers, designers, team managers, marketing folks, web engineers, and social media experts” (p. 72). Professional skater Ryan Lay describes the industry as “incredibly fickle” (Dobija-Nootens, 2015, para. 7), marked by the turmoil of companies “grow [ing] and shrink [ing] (para. 7).

According to Borden (2001), “Skateboarding has undoubtedly relied on specific professionals to popularize the activity and, above all, to sell equipment” (p. 110). The media that showcase apparel, brands, and equipment are skateboarding videos and monthly magazines. The relation these media have to the skate subculture is a commercial one, in which they grow the industry, distribute advertisements, and showcase skaters’ talents. With this as their mandate, magazines like Thrasher, and websites like The Berrics, are less keen on discussing exploitation in the industry.

Given this, much of the mediated presentation of skateboarding is formulaic, depicting such content as: standard videos of skaters’ performances, tricks done in diverse locales, advertisements for apparel and gear, skate-team van tours, competitions, personal interviews, and vignettes of skaters’ lifestyles. At a textual level, one could say that traditional skate media follow the lead of the mid-twentieth-century “culture industries” identified by Horkheimer and Adorno (2002), which had a pacifying effect on working-class audiences. Similar to earlier media products, skateboarding fare comes packaged with “ready-made cliches” (p. 98) that are present in standardized skate videos and endless magazine stories about predictable topics.

Left mystified in mainstream skate media are the following occupational concerns: Contract stipulations, employment status, unionization, health insurance, pensions, workplace grievances, terminations, and the use of action-sports agents. Four seasons into The Bunt podcast, even two hosts whose job it is to talk to professional riders are unclear on industry details. ⁴ What we hear instead is the occasional and vague insinuation about skateboarders having difficulty in the industry. Details are hard to find about what contracts entail, how much money sponsors pay, and what sponsors expect of their riders. Moreover, it seems that contract stipulations are not standardized across sponsors. Sponsorship opportunities also seem to appear randomly out-of-the-blue, which can lead to feast-or-famine situations for riders.

Alternative Media and Their Potential

“Alternative media” or “alt media” are a contested concept, with communication scholars unable to settle on a universal definition (Fuchs, 2010; Karim, 2012). Synonyms include citizen, community, grassroots, independent, and radical media. Despite the academic uncertainty, we can identify important traits of alternative media in general that relate to the skate industry and its discursive makeup.

Vatikiotis (2005) writes that these media “constitute counter-information institutions, which try to ‘disrupt the silence,’ to ‘counter the lies,’ [and] to ‘provide the truth’” (p. 11). In his view, the common thread among alternative media is that they highlight the lived experience of people who have been denied access to traditional communication channels. Kozolanka et al. (2012) agree, stating that “the social relations, issues, and experiences of groups that are often marginalized or excluded in corporate media are both the focus of and the impetus for alternative media” (p. 3).

Alternative media appear in many forms, such as street theater (Kozolanka et al., 2012), graffiti (Bowen, 2013), guerrilla art (Nath, 2013), culture jamming (Carducci, 2006), cut-and-paste zines (Duncombe, 1997), and radical music (Fuchs, 2010). Most relevant for this article, however, is the potential of podcasting to be counterhegemonic (Barnes, 2020; Higdon & Lyons, 2022; Mirrlees, 2021). Baham and Higdon (2022) for instance write that certain podcasters “confront dominant ideologies through a process of inquiry, critique, and cultural reformulation” (p. 6), which involves telling stories from marginalized positions.

The hope for alternative media in skateboarding reflects the hope of alternative media in the broader society: in both cases, these media display to an audience the “suppressed possibilities of existence” (Fuchs, 2010, p. 173). For example: What if all skaters banded together in a union? What if skate companies engaged in revenue sharing? Since it is common for an injury to end a skater’s career, what if the industry instituted pensions? These are the types of questions often ignored in skate media.

In recent times, activists, creators, and scholars within the skateboard community have expressed progressive politics, producing conferences (Barker, 2023; Pushing Boarders, 2019), academic works (Lombard, 2016), social-media campaigns (Coughlin-Bogue, 2019), street demonstrations (Hernandez, 2020), women and transgender associations (White, 2021) and alternative media. Because skateboarding has been historically “male dominated” (Willing et al., 2020, p. 832), its industry “heteronormative” (Geckle & Shaw, 2022, p. 132), and its media “white” (Williams, as quoted in AFP, 2021), alternative media often highlight women in the sport, such as Skateism Magazine and The Skate Witches zine (White, 2021). Alternative websites such as Jenkem and Yeah Girl Media (Willing, 2019) further foreground political-economic concerns in the sport. The former reported on dismal pro-skater pay (Dobija-Nootens, 2015, 2019), and the latter interviewed the sports agent, Yulin Olliver, who tries to help women skaters and snowboarders make their passion a career.

POC skaters have also sought to make the alternative sport more inclusive (Willing & Pappalardo, 2023). For example, Patrick Kigongo shared “The Black List” on Thrasher’s website, which conveniently aggregates Black-owned companies within skateboarding (The Black List, 2020). Karlie Thornton and L Brew founded froSkate, a Chicago-based collective that centers “women, people of color and queer people” (Yassine, 2022, para. 1) and “challenges the narrative of what it means to be a ‘real skater’” (para. 8). They have broken down barriers by being the first Black women to design a Nike Dunk skate shoe. Similarly, Black model and skater, Briana King, started Display Only, which “creates safe spaces for skateboarders around the world” (Preveyor, 2022, para. 2). Like froSkate, King has worked with renowned brands, such as Apple, DKNY, MINI, Nike, Prada, and Zappos, therefore helping to change the conception of a skateboarder while making new career opportunities possible.

Methods

In this article, I examine two podcasts that may be able to galvanize skaters to challenge barriers, discrimination, and exploitation in the industry. To do so, I draw on critical discourse analysis (CDA), which “studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk” (Van Dijck, 2005, p. 352). Further, CDA investigates how “powerful groups control public discourse” (p. 355). In the context of this article, the public discourse I am interested in stems from Thrasher and The Berrics vis-à-vis their depictions of skateboarding in print and online. The problem with hegemonic depictions of skating is that recipients of those messages “tend to accept beliefs, knowledge, and opinions… through discourses from what they see as authoritative… sources” (p. 357). As I explain below, both Thrasher and The Berrics articulate themselves as the authorities in skateboarding.

While content analysis constitutes its own method, it can be paired especially well with other methods. According to Bailey and Hackett (1997), content analysis “identifies ‘what exists’ after the production process” (p. 3), say, in the context of a news report. It can be defined as “A systematic procedure devised to examine the content of recorded information” (Walizer & Weimer, as quoted in Bailey & Hackett, p. 3). Content analysis is interested in the “manifest content” (p. 4) of what exists in the text, as well as the “presence/absence” (p. 16) of words or themes.

Drawing on these methods, I do the following in this article: First, I content analyze the websites of Thrasher and The Berrics, searching for posts and information related to the working conditions of skaters. The webpages makes this easy, since they provide a search option whereby you can plug in key terms. The search engine combs the website for any posts that contain those keywords. For this study, I searched Thrasher and The Berrics for these 10 terms: agent, contract, independent contractor, freelancer, healthcare, pension, salary, union, unionization, and wage. ⁵

Second, I discourse analyze three recurring sections of Thrasher Magazine: the “Mail Drop,” which features letters to the editor, a tentpole interview with a pro skater (sometimes referred to as the “On Board” segment), and the “Trash” section, which provides the latest industry news. I did this research on 12 issues published between 2022-2023. I also discourse analyze three Berrics videos posted to YouTube (The Berrics, 2023a; 2023b; 2023c). These videos feature interviews with skaters on the USA Skateboarding team who qualify for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The objective for these analyses is to determine what constitutes hegemonic depictions of skating in the current era.

Third, I review 64 descriptive blurbs posted alongside every episode of the Vent City podcast. These blurbs are detailed, providing a layperson with an understanding of a particular episode’s content. ⁶ Similar to the dual strategy above, I also analyze 17 episodes of The Bunt—one episode from each full season, spanning 2016-2023. These steps are meant to discover whether skate podcasts offer a counter-narrative. As noted, the counter-narrative I am interested in is the skateboarder’s lived experience as a freelancer (Nichols, 2021).

Thrasher Magazine and the Berrics

In 1981, Fausto Vitello founded Thrasher Magazine in San Francisco, California (Todd, nd). According to Borden (2001), Thrasher offered a “complete guide to skateboard subculture including articles on rock music and junk food… as well as local scene material, reader photographs… interviews and manufacturers’ advertisements” (p. 163). Today, it produces a monthly magazine and operates a constantly updated website. It claims nearly seven million followers on Instagram and over three million subscribers on YouTube. On the latter site, it labels itself “The Skateboarder’s Bible.” A cursory textual analysis of this powerful concept suggests that Thrasher sees itself as the ultimate authority in skateboarding—that what it deems legitimate in skateboarding is like the word of God. As I will argue, this is a hegemonic articulation. Singling out Thrasher as a case study is sensible given its status as “the world’s premier monthly skateboarding magazine” (Simril & Williams, 2017, para. 8).

The brainchild of pro skaters Steve Berra and Eric Koston, The Berrics website launched in 2007, in the early days of Web 2.0 and participatory media. Like the early Thrasher internet boards (Borden, 2001), the Berrics predated Instagram and debuted on the heels of YouTube. This suggests that skaters are nothing if not technologically savvy, and that they are early adopters of digital technology for promotional purposes. Early fare at theberrics.com featured skateboarders occupying and performing tricks in a designated warehouse space that the founders converted into an indoor skatepark. Therefore, The Berrics is at once a physical and digital place. While it maintains a regularly updated website, it may receive most of its traffic on YouTube, where it has secured 1.44 million subscribers, produced almost 5000 videos, and has amassed tens of millions of individual views. Geckle and Shaw (2022) call the website “one of the most significant skate media outlets” (p. 144). Similar to the slogan adopted by its competitor Thrasher, The Berrics calls itself “The Home for Skateboarding,” yet another hegemonic articulation. The slogan suggests that the Berrics is the most legitimate outlet for skateboarding writ large. What it produces is what skateboarding is. Just as there is no labor in the skateboard Bible, there is no labor in its home either.

Building on prior research (Geckle & Shaw, 2022; Nichols, 2011), I argue that Thrasher and The Berrics represent dominant media forms within skateboarding. They act in ways akin to mainstream media, which Kozolanka et al. (2012) say “reproduce the everyday legitimacy of domination” (p. 1). Mainstream media are privately owned, supportive of powerful interests, and friendly toward advertisers. They tend towards sensationalism, celebrity, and shock. Of course, corporate mainstream media can provide thoughtful analyses, critical fare, and investigative journalism, but they tend towards commercialism because of their historical legacy. In the U.S. and U.K., commercial media muscled anarchist, radical, and working-class publications out of circulation in the 19th century (Dixon, 2020; Herman & Chomsky, 2002). Those subversive voices are less prevalent in contemporary news media due to the prohibitive costs of competing with big media companies. While labor news is “sparse, superficial, and framed in a way that regularly favors management” (Parenti, 1993, p. 93), news today focuses more often on “corporatism… careerism” (Hedges, 2010, p. 131) and “ways to feel or become a success” (p. 132).

In the remainder of this section, I provide textual support for mainstream skate media’s general neglect of exploitation in their industry. A qualitative discourse analysis of a year’s worth of Thrasher Mail Drops, interviews, and Trash sections (between 2022 and 2023) yields the following themes that are germane to this article: a default towards positivity, a logic of individualism, and a mystification of the skate career. I show how The Berrics reinforce these themes as well.

As noted elsewhere with respect to the Berrics (Nichols, 2022b), skate media tend to be optimistic and positive. Thrasher’s one-page Trash section appears at the end of every issue, where it details the latest industry news. It is stocked full of skate-company boosterism, PR for skate brands, advertising, new video releases, injury reports, and congratulatory announcements, such as a pro skater’s new baby or an amateur skater picking up a new sponsor. It is common to read celebratory statements about a skater’s new shoe on Adidas, for instance, or the latest team riders welcomed to a sponsoring company. For example, one page informs readers that “Nike SB rolled out their new recruits via social media” (Trash, 2022a, p. 228), and that “Lakai is bringing back the Rob Welsh shoe” (p. 228). A discourse analysis reveals these sections to be reflexively positive. Examples include: “Anyway, we just want everybody to be happy” (Trash, 2022b, p. 206), “More happy stuff…” (Trash, 2022c, p. 206), “This happy news comes at the same time as some even grander… developments” (Trash, 2022d, p. 222), “In happier news…” (Trash, 2023a, p. 228; Trash, 2023b, p. 206), and “Happier times… (Trash, 2023c, p. 192). I argue that a fixation on happiness pre-empts and displaces antagonism, such as that represented by skaters’ position as freelancers.

Interviews in my Thrasher and Berrics samples meanwhile yield findings about common-sense sentiments among skateboarders, particularly around individualism and personal responsibility. ⁷ Mariah Duran mentions having to pay “the skate tuition” (The Berrics, 2023c, p. 1:39) to succeed, which involved working at a pizza restaurant after turning professional. Liam Pace expected little in terms of compensation, saying: “I didn’t really care too much about sponsors” (The Berrics, 2023b, p. 3:13), and that all he “really cared about was having shoes that didn’t have holes through the sole” (2023b, 3:21). Nick Merlino’s advice to amateurs is to “find companies that will pay you a lot of money… And don’t let them bullcrap you” (Burnett, 2022c, p. 105). This is not bad advice, but it is still an individual—not collective—solution. Austin Kanfoush voices a similar platitude to the youth: “Live in your own life and accept reality as it comes to you” (Beres, 2022, p. 167). Clive Dixon echoes the same thought regarding the vicissitudes of his career: “I guess the takeaway would just be that you need to take the punches as they come” (Burnett, 2022a, p. 74). Peter Raffin recounts his story of going pro after 15 years as an amateur skater: “if it happens, it happens. I’m not gonna ask for it. That was my thing. I’d never ask. My whole thought process and how I was told from John Lucero was like, You don’t ask” (Shattuck, 2022, p. 90). Lastly, Adam Arunski advises young skaters to consider getting a side job: “Working gives you a better advantage, because you’re gonna be able to pay your bills while you pay your dues” (Schmitz, 2023, p. 53). In my view, the sum of these statements indicates that skaters are not only thinking individually, but that they are conditioned to take what they can get. Nichols (2021) and Snyder (2017) discussed this phenomenon in previous studies, whereby skaters do not want to appear difficult or ungrateful—out of fear that sponsors will avoid them.

The final theme of hegemonic skate media involves a mystification of the skate industry. It is not clear how deliberate this is. For example, Thrasher editors sometimes poke fun at clueless laypersons who write in to their magazine. A contributor to the Mail Drop once asked how pro skater Torey Pudwill could afford the rights to an Elvis Presley song for his video part, as well as the rights to a Rolling Stones song for another project. The writer asks: “How do skate companies afford it” (Weiss, 2022, p. 20)? In response, the editors made a joke without answering. The same thing occurred in another Mail Drop, with a contributor this time asking: “How much does a full page ad in the mag cost” (CV Skateboards, 2023, p. 22)? The editor responded: “It will cost you blood, sweat and tears” (p. 22). I found that this cageyness also applies to skaters when they discuss contract stipulations and industry grievances. Openly talking about money (e.g., salary, transactions, and specific figures) is taboo (Snyder, 2017). Rick Howard intimates that skaters used to be “retired against their will” (Burnett, 2022b, p. 78) without explicating what this meant. Current Thrasher editor Michael Burnett (2022b) mentions that the skateboarding industry is “cutthroat” (p. 74). But again, these are vague insinuations.

I searched Thrasher’s webpage for 10 terms related to the work of pro skaters: agent, contract, freelance/freelancer, healthcare/health insurance, independent contractor, pension, salary, union, unionization, and wage. Exactly zero articles came up in relation to any of these terms. Either there were zero results, or results that did not relate to the work of skating. The one exception is a strange one: The search term “contract” yielded an interview with a pro-skater/novelist named Walker Ryan. The interview only went into detail about contract stipulations by featuring an excerpt of Ryan’s fictional book, which told of a skater losing out on a shoe contract. It is odd that the closest the magazine got to contract specifics is through a veil of fiction.

I searched The Berrics website for these same terms. Similarly, the keywords yielded no posts or articles on these topics. The only results involved the term “union,” though it referred me to a skate video part titled “Union,” a brand called “Union Skateboards,” and various skate spots with “union” in the name.

Skate Podcasts: The Bunt and Vent City

In 2016, Toronto skateboarders Cephas Benson and Donovan Jones founded The Bunt podcast. Currently on season 18, the show features an in-depth interview with a professional or amateur skateboarder per episode. The skater could be in the prime of their career (as in the case of the Bobby Dekeyzer interview), or the skater could be reflecting from retirement (as in the case of Colt Cannon). The goliath shoe company, Vans Footwear, sponsors The Bunt, which means that the hosts intermittently read ad copy for this and other companies. Regarding a strict mainstream/alternative dichotomy, participation by the capitalist entity, Vans, compromises the podcast’s status as an alternative medium. However, communication scholars, such as Fuchs (2010) and Uzelman (2012), allow for looser definitions of alt media. Uzelman (2012), for example, posits the term “autonomous media” to describe radical content that appears on commercial platforms.

An additional knock against The Bunt as an alternative medium is how predominantly masculine it is, focusing almost exclusively on male riders. Out of 216 episodes and counting, the hosts have only interviewed eight women. This dismal statistic belies the increasing number of young women who identify as skateboarders (Gordon & Rogers, 2023).⁸ Moreover, it reproduces Thrasher’s own record of placing women on its cover only four times out of 500 issues (2023). It is important to acknowledge that women skaters are also precarious workers who face the additional problem of gender discrimination in the industry, such as receiving lower contest pay (Browning, 2020) and finding that companies are disinclined to sponsor women riders. A study from 2007–2008, for example, found that 77 skate companies sponsored 1173 men but only 38 women (Abulhawa, 2008). Relatedly, pro skater Leticia Bufoni reported to Rolling Stone in 2015 the difficulty of landing a contract, saying: “Some of the big brands we met actually told us they don’t want any girls on their skate teams” (as quoted in Abulhawa, 2020, p. 56).

For this study, I listened to the interview segment of one episode out of 17 seasons of The Bunt (2016–2023). These interviews included Bobby Dekeyzer (Jun. 15, 2016), Brandon Beibel (Nov. 9, 2016), Gailea Momolu (Feb. 1, 2017), Ryan Gallant (Apr. 26, 2017), Morgan Smith/Wade Desarmo (Sept. 26, 2017), Chima Ferguson (Mar. 8, 2017), Wes Kremer (Jul 17, 2018), Colt Cannon (Mar. 19, 2019), Scott Kane (Aug. 20, 2019), Danny Garcia (Mar. 10, 2020), Dennis Durrant (Jun. 30, 2020), Kelly Hart (Nov. 3, 2020), Damian Bravo (Mar. 9, 2021), JT Aultz (Oct. 27, 2021), John Rattray (May 3, 2022), Tyler Surrey (Oct. 25, 2022), and Wade Fyfe (Apr. 12, 2023). The interviews generally comprise 45–70 minutes of each episode.

After hearing these conversations, one gets the sense that skaters feel a bit freer to be critical about their industry. The podcasting medium, allowing for free association and casual dialogue, leads to deeper explications of skaters’ careers—at least in comparison to mainstream skate media. The interviews make clear that connections and opportunities for skaters are made by establishing relationships with industry insiders. But again, how random these opportunities are, and how arbitrary the rules that govern the relationships are, are left open to speculation. Each interview provides interesting insight into the trajectory of the skater’s life. Skaters are able to complain about mistreatment and exploitation due to former companies they rode for. There are also many references to the reality of career-ending injuries. However, any gestures towards unionizing skaters or solving problems collectively are elusive.

Some of the more promising sentiments about grievance and working conditions in The Bunt include the following. Gailea Momolu, a Black pro skater, first recounts getting suspicious looks from white people while skating (The Bunt, 2017a). He also criticizes his former sponsor, Darkstar Skateboards, for discouraging him from talking to other prospects in the industry, only to cut him from the team anyway. Ryan Gallant, looking back on his career, recounts a terrible skate demo he was obligated to attend, as well as the industry problem of being stuck with teammates you do not like (The Bunt, 2017b). Former pro skater Scott Kane expressed irritation over sponsors telling him to progress and improve his skating (The Bunt, 2019). Dennis Durrant states that the worst trend in the industry is pro skaters not receiving payment (The Bunt, 2020). John Rattray cited the unreasonable demands from skateboard companies, stating: “Things ultimately come down to like, I need to pay the rent… and I need to buy food” (The Bunt, 2022a, 44:43). Tyler Surrey likewise complained about bad contracts, low pay, struggling to get by, and receiving a call out of nowhere that boosted his career (The Bunt, 2022b).

Running between March 2019 and November 2023 (its most recent episode), Vent City comprises a rotating series of regular hosts, including Ted Barrow, Kyle Beachy, Kristin Ebeling, Ryan Lay, Ted Schmitz, and Alex White. The podcast is progressive for giving voice and providing space to women in skateboarding—a subculture that has long been fraught with gender discrimination (Abulhawa, 2020; Beal, 1996; Dupont, 2020; MacKay & Dallaire, 2012). An analysis of the 64 descriptive blurbs accompanying each of Vent City’s episodes reveals two primary findings: (1) the podcast is more explicitly political than Thrasher or The Berrics, though it is still light on the subjects of skater pay, contracts, and unionizing. (2) it may be inaccurate to label it entirely alternative given its overlap with mainstream skate media. For example, Ted Schmitz writes for Thrasher, and Kristin and Alex served as guest referees during a Berrics competition.

The first Vent City blurb distinguishes the podcast from typical skate media, stating that its purpose is to “air out some grievances.” Among these grievances are trends within skateboarding that the hosts believe must be eliminated (though they are not necessarily workplace grievances). Nevertheless, Vent City’s political articulations are clearly inspired by a commitment to social justice. For instance, the hosts promote the following issues, among others. They foreground gender parity in the skate industry, along with a transgender skate documentary. They condemn filming homeless people for inclusion in a skate video; they advocate for Palestinian liberation; they denounce the US prison system; they stump for democratic socialism and provide links to Planned Parenthood; they organize food drives, advocate for gendered pay parity in skating, and they speak negatively of “bloodthirsty capitalists” (Episode 27).

Without a doubt, these are radical politics. And while they are not commonly found in Thrasher or The Berrics, they are the standard fare of alternative media in broader contexts. However, out of 64 blurbs, the podcast only examined skateboarders’ pay in one instance. This was in the context of women’s skaters in the X-Games who were paid less than their male counterparts. In its fourth Patreon-exclusive episode, the podcast detailed the fight to end this pay disparity.

Emergent Possibilities in Alternative Media

Podcasting opens the door for alternative viewpoints, and Vent City and The Bunt skew towards the alternative side of the media spectrum. Vent City could do more to foreground working conditions in pro skating, but the hosts convey progressive politics and do excellent work outside of the show. The Bunt gives skaters a platform to voice grievances about their sponsoring brands, but it is male-centric, sponsored by a massive corporation, and does not float collective suggestions about how to assist pro skaters. Where might alternative media in skateboarding go from here to rally attention for health insurance and a skaters’ association?

One possibility may be #SkateTwitter. This is a space carved out on Twitter/X for skate enthusiasts to speak their minds and think critically. On February 27, 2023, for example, the profile @ColonelKSpeaks tweeted the following: “Why is it so difficult to establish a player’s association, or even a union, for skaters. Every month, it’s a new story about some… worker’s rights violation.” Another user named @Quesly2 responded that “one guy thinking [the union is] wack or guys being afraid of losing sponsors could blow it up.” This exchange evinces the possibility of #SkateTwitter becoming a “counterpublic” (Fraser, 1990; Warner, 2002). Comprising a counterpublic are “members of subordinated social groups [who] invent and circulate counterdiscourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs” (Fraser, 1990, p. 67). The problems with this interpretation, however, are that #SkateTwitter exists on a commercial platform geared towards advertising, and that such online exchanges are fleeting and intermittent.

While alternative media in skating will no doubt maintain their momentum, ending industry exploitation should always be a recurring subject. Skaters would do well to acknowledge their shared situation with athletes in other sports, such as Olympic competitors (Zirin & Boykoff, 2020) and students who play in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (Sage, 1990). For this reason, skaters should network with media producers and commentators who analyze other sports from a critical perspective, such as Bomani Jones (Chapo Trap House, 2023), Leslie Lee III of the Struggle Session podcast, and Dave Zirin of the Edge of Sports podcast.

Conclusion

This study examined two dominant and two alternative media forms in the skate subculture. Using critical discourse analysis, I determined that Thrasher and The Berrics mystify the working conditions of skateboarders. I also discovered through content analysis that Thrasher renders invisible the concept of freelancing, which professional skaters must do to reproduce their labor and remain active in the industry. In addition, I interpreted podcasting as an alternative medium before studying two popular skate podcasts for their resistant potential. As noted above, they show counterhegemonic promise despite their focus on labor being uneven. This is not to dismiss them, of course, as alternative and digital media will be essential in making skate culture more equitable.

To be sure, this article is limited by looking at texts alone and not their reception by an audience. For this reason, it is difficult to say whether people consume all four media forms that I analyzed. I would hope, however, that listeners of The Bunt and Vent City will ask industry insiders about health insurance, pensions, and unions for pro skaters, such as in conference settings (e.g., Pushing Boarders), to make that conversation more normalized.