I suppose sincerity is the defining factor that preserved Hawk’s position within skateboarding culture as opposed to his name simply becoming shorthand for “famous skateboarder” within wider pop culture at the expense of his hard earned legacy. Hawk’s relationship with skateboarding has never had an air of the exploitive about it. He come across a man that really loved what he does and has loved it ever since he was a kid. This reputation of everyman likeability really speaks volumes about young Hawk’s nerdom. As he explains in Peralta’s new film at the peak of 80’s Hawk mania he was still in high school, not home schooled or attending some sort of X-men style academy for talented youths but a proper secondary school.
And he wasn’t even massively popular at that. From his career’s get go in earnest Hawk was living a bizarre double life of being one part international youth culture superstar and other part awkward somewhat unpopular teenager. His engagement with skateboarding was for his benefit alone and once he entered into his second wave of wider success in the early 00’s he may well have associated himself with big brands who’s motivations for appealing to a skateboarder as a brand ambassador are somewhat questionable but Hawk himself never seemed to be taking advantage of skateboarding as a whole. Hawk allowed “Tony Hawk” the brand to exist somewhat outside the realm of traditional skateboarding culture but never at the expense of skateboarding as a whole. He never misrepresented the culture itself.
As you watch the new Indy introduction clip and see a 44 year old Hawk fall a good 20 odd feet from the top of a ladder to the strains of Devo’s “Fresh” one cannot help but think that for a man of hawk’s age and considerable means to still be putting himself through that at his age he could only be doing for love of the game. Even the decision to use a Devo track from their most recent album, reminiscent of their 80’s peak brings to mind the weedy teenager that inspired a thousand ludicrous haircuts as opposed to the international icon that sold a million happy meals.
Hawk’s position in pop culture is surely secured at this point and I very much doubt any other professional skateboarder will ever achieve the same level of name recognition but there really is something satisfying in seeing that a man like himself who pushed the widespread commercial understanding of what skateboarding to places that could still be understood as negative really, truly loves what he does still. For many people of a certain age (myself included) their first real exposure to skateboarding was through the Tony Hawk’s pro skater video game series (how many people used to think his name was Tony Hawks?) and Hawk’s continued desire to do padless inverts in back-yard pools while genuinely seeming like a nice old lad in sense legitimizes his capturing the imaginations of so many youngsters that are now jaded, negative twentysomethings. We all want to like Hawk and thankfully he keeps giving us good reasons to.
