Skateboarding is vandalism, but so much more than that!

Since we've been out on the street again filming our new video, we keep running into all kinds of people whose opinions on skateboarding are pretty interesting!

A big misconception is that skateboarding is so dangerous for other passers-by. In relative terms, our own risk is of course much higher. How often has someone rolled their ankle while skating? Compared to how often I've seen a passer-by actually get hurt... Hmm... That's probably similar to the injury rate for airplanes versus motorcyclists. So let's scratch that point. We look out for the people around us, and it's surely far more dangerous for us than for them...

Another charge is noise disturbance! Well, for one, we live in a city. A city is loud during the day and has many, many downsides. I breathe in the pollutants from strangers' cars, I hear my neighbors' conversations, I hear the noise from the bars, but I like living in the city. I want to experience something. And during the day a certain level of noise should be bearable. Especially since it's not all day when you briefly film a trick in front of a building.

Point 3 is of course vandalism!
And here begins a difficult question we deal with every day. Basically, let's say that usually relatively little gets broken (impaired in its function, at least). Paint and dirt can of course occur. Wax is visible too. But many spots that don't get skated for a while are back to their old state after a few weeks. At least when it's stone.
But the actual point is that we skateboarders don't want to destroy the spots; we just want to make urban terrain usable.
Many architects and artists are even happy about the different use of their structures. Monuments and squares that otherwise often lie fallow gain a whole different meaning for young people this way and often get much more media attention, which might even serve their original purpose. Namely remembrance and homage.

But why does such use even happen, even though city administrations do everything to get skateboarders off the street into fenced facilities where they often feel locked away and set apart?

Skateboarding, of course, isn't just a sport. Natural youthful rebellion meets a sport guided by art, life and inspiration. It's about style, ease and creativity that every single skateboarder has to find for themselves. That's why new paths always have to be taken. You can't always skate just one skatepark, one mostly fixed practice ground. It gets endlessly boring to keep doing the same tricks on the same obstacles. You need the challenges of the street. The passers-by, the security people, simply the friction of the imperfect spot that wasn't built for skateboarding.
That's the real challenge. The crowning of a trick. Progress for yourself.
But how do you reconcile that with the accusation of vandalism?
Every skateboarder does that for themselves. As long as skateparks can't offer all these factors, there's probably no back door for our sport.
So we have to come to terms with it... and live with occasionally breaking something by accident.
Luckily a city has enough open space that belongs to no single person, so it also works without willful destruction.
As said, in most cases something just gets a little dirty. Even if the general public maybe doesn't 100% like it, there are many such things in a society. The grillers who mess everything up, the party crowd who litter our streets with broken glass, the drivers who bring air pollution and burn resources, all the people contributing to global warming and so on and so on.
We're a society that does many things that harm others without consideration, or maybe only with little consideration.
That's why we skateboarders should choose carefully what we can and may actually skate. But still, skateboarding is a sport worth supporting. Few other sports produce so many creative people who see the world with different eyes and then make it more beautiful again.
Few other sports produce new fashion trends that sweeten our lives, or at least make our Bavarian gossip-hearts beat faster.
Which brings me to beer. Why is a brewery allowed to brew beer right in the middle of Munich so it stinks?
Because you have to live with the fact that it's our tradition, and that's a good thing!
Skateboarding makes you tolerant and prepares many, many young people for life.
Whatever... We don't want to harm anyone or annoy anyone, but skateboarding is part of our culture just like football, for example, and here too we have to live with the side effects... Packed subways to the stadium, drunk youths shouting, people peeing on corners and so on.
Everything good has its downsides too.
You can't change everything.
We hereby apologize to everyone we annoy, and also in case anyone ever suffered personal damage.
But we promise to be tolerant and to approve of many things that might not be our personal thing.
We change our society a little and we're glad about it!
- We, all skateboarders -

Skateboarding for life!