Over the past three decades, skateboarding has become a mass-market behemoth whose influence extends to the worlds of fashion, gaming, TV, and film. As of 2021, it's even an Olympic sport. In 1999, The New Yorker published "The Birdman," a profile of skateboarding's grand master, Tony Hawk. As the writer Mark Levine follows Hawk ("the Baryshnikov of the half-pipe") to skate parks and professional competitions, the profile reads as much as a snapshot of the pro skater's life and superstardom as an exploration of the sport's rise, appeal, and late-nineties proliferation. "Hawk, like most top skateboarders, is now a virtual billboard on wheels for his sponsoring firms, and his clothes and skate gear are plastered with logos," Levine observes. Levine uses Hawk's story to comment on the tension inherent in the transition of skateboarding—a sport with an "antisocial" reputation and an "outlaw past"—to the forefront of pop culture. "There are skaters who don't want anyone to penetrate their world," Hawk tells Levine. "But if my role is to be skateboarding's link to the mainstream, I'm willing to accept it. My business card . . . gives my title as 'Media Whore.' " |
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