Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Skateboarding LA: Inside Professional Street Skateboarding

2018; Oxford University Press; Volume: 97; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/sf/soy069

1534-7605

Jonathan R. Wynn,

Digital Games and Media

My teenaged years were largely spent on my Tommy Guerrero skateboard, looking for the perfect place to grind, pop an ollie-to-tail slide, and just hang out. As a onetime recreational participant of the sport and now a qualitative urban culture researcher, I read Gregory J. Snyder’s new book, Skateboarding LA, with great enthusiasm. Skateboarding LA is an in-depth examination of the $5 billion industry of professional skateboarding in its primary interactional node: Los Angeles, California. Snyder notes that the world of professional skateboarding is dramatically different from the recreational activity I once participated in. While tens of thousands of (mostly male, mostly white) teens participate in the subculture, few enter the world of expert skateboarding that Snyder studied. The author leverages the career of his brother, Aaron Snyder, to provide entrée into the field, giving readers a peek into the life of the professional skateboarder: somewhere between the everyday level and the level of a multi-millionaire professional skater like Tony Hawk.