I love this, I work from home, and live alone, but always look forward to the weekend so I can hit the skatepark. Im always glad I went.

This is fantastic & an accurate representation of my own experiences as someone who's been skating since the 80s & also as a dad of a young adult daughter who has taken up skating a few months ago. She was an amazing athlete as a kid but got burned out during that critical time of development that you mentioned. Then her teen years were extremely difficult. She came to the skatepark with me a few months ago to check out our new vert ramp. I encouraged her to give it a try & she reluctantly did & what has unfolded in the months since could be a case study for everything this video is about. She is starting to really rip! I had to send her this. Thank you! Keep on truckin'

I recently started skating again for the first time in 5 years(i'm 30). I'm from a small town, so me and my friends were the skate culture growing up. After I left home I never found that culture again. After starting skating again a month or so ago, I can feel the third space forming for me at the park. There is a vibrant skate culture in the city I live in and I want to be part of it. I think there is a true beauty in skateboarding as well as the community around it and your video absolutely hit the nail on the head. ❤❤

Thank you for making this video!!! Such important topics to address at this point in time. The skatepark is my third place for sure, but I still really struggle with connecting to the community within them. I’ve never once in my 3 years of park rollerskating met another rollerskater at the park and never made a friend. I still feel like being a woman outcasts me from joining in on banter in masculine groups. Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed more racism (twice this week teenagers were screaming the N word so horrendously and unnecessarily) and bad apples than I have good people. I am an absolute advocate for skateparks and the potential they have to bring us back together. I get so much joy skating by myself and it is my biggest outlet, but sometimes I just wish I had a friend to talk to or skate with and felt more included. Thanks for listening to my ted talk🤭

shocked this is your 2nd video - this is so well put together and you nail alot of the things that make skateparks such important places! even including how skateshops matter as well (especially when they're smaller ones, not larger ones with corporate limitations where $$ is the most important thing) - great vid!

Just found out about this channel and insta subscribed. Very interesting topic. Skateboarding has been my happy place where I spent my "me time" for about 3 years now.

Well said, 100% Facts. Skate parks are an amazing place. Sadly my local skate park I help build in 2003 lost it's special vibe when the original skaters got old and moved on. now it's more of a daycare than a community. I'm hoping the next Gen will rebuild the third place vibe, with help from videos like this.

This is such a great deep dive on why the skatepark is an amazing third place. Thank you. Great video.

Really solid analysis! Agree 100%

Dang - well said! You're freakin' good at this!

Thank you. This really hit home.

Completely amazing and complete video!!! Keep going :D

This is a really well put together video; I’m commenting so I can come back and watch this again.

Love the outro. Life is indeed about having fun and expressing your soul

🔥🔥 this is one of the best things I’ve seen on skateboarding. Great job 10/10

Great video, I agree with everything you said 👍

Really well made video! Love it

what a wonderful video essay!

Great research

Excellent presentation!

I love learning new things!

Great Video been skating since 1973 and couldn’t agree more . 😊

hell yeah. great talk. keep skatin!!!

Love this video :)

hello. when i first saw this video and watched it i thought it would have hundreds of thousands or evven millions of views, but it only has 3.3k! it is incredibly wwell made and thought out. i liked this video and hope you continue to make more like this. very good much love

Lovely video 👊🏻 thank you 🙏

Thank you for this video

Thank You

this was a amazing video. Idk my third place aymore it used to be the skatepark or the bookstore.

I've been saying this exact thing. Means I dont really know where else to hang out tho if I'm not skating. End up just wondering around abandoned places if i wanna chill alone for free

here in san antonio tx skate parks have been a huge percentage of what makes life worth living. even though ive had several concussions, a couple broken bones and countless cuts and bruises. i regret nothing, but i do worry about the day i cant ride anymore.

100% agree with all of your points - especially the part about how welcoming people are in skateparks. Been an inline skater since the 90's, and skateparks and the skating community have been the only places where I felt 100% comfortable, not having people staring or acting suspicious because there's a "big black guy" in their vicinity; I'm just a guy on skates, and that's it. Also, I think a lot has to do with the change in demographics in skateparks over time. Back in the 90's the typical age range of skatepark users were teens-to-early 20's, plus there was a lot of cliquey-ness between goups of skaters, and types of skaters too. NGL, skateboarders were the absolute worst for this! They hated on everyone (especially bladers!) for encroaching what they saw as their special skatepark spaces made just for them. 😂 Roll on 30-odd years and the demographics have changed a lot; a much wider range of ages, ethnicities, and genders all use the same space. The cliquey skaters have long since fallen off, or grown out of it, and most of the people who skate/ride genuinely love what they do, and have the mental maturity to get on with others around them and appreciate what they do. Nothing is perfect though, and there are still some cliquey attitudes to be found. In my experience, these days any toxic attitudes tend to come from a very small minority of quad skaters (all of a very specific demographic) who've gotten into quad skating purely because they see it as the trendy, cool thing to be seen doing right now. Fortunately they really are a minority of quad skaters, and they tend to fall off quickly when they realise nobody has time for their nonsense. Skateparks tend to be quite self-regulating in that way.

Very good take on this. Unfortunately, I survived a shooting at my local last year and haven't really been able to go back since.

Once a skateboarder always a skateboarder ❤❤

This was an incredible video I ROLLERBLADE and I really did your channel new sub! : )

Lovely video, very informative!!

Great video...but aahhh I wanted to see ya skate. Were you in the rollerskating group?

What a beautifully made video. My wife and I reflect on all of these same topics, “less scrolling/ more rolling” essentially. We both mountain bike and then my wife got me into BMX bikes and the local pump track. I just got a new bike and I’m headed to a new skatepark in Vancouver WA this morning. My wife and I are in our 50’s, which makes me feel kind of proud.😂 Having fun throwing your body through space is the whole point of living in these meat sacks.

It’s a trip.. I haven’t been to my local skatepark in 5 years ever since Covid started & I was going there frequently 2019 but I was kind of driven away by some of the people there who vibed me out for being new & skating good there so it really depends on the skatepark you go to where the locals would be welcoming to you or not. I haven’t been to that park since but I’ve been thinking about going back up there since I kind of turned into a hermit recluse over the years. I had another local skatepark I used to go up to but ever since I moved, it’s been hard for me to get up there so it’s been a minute for me when it comes to skateparks but luckily I have jersey barriers around my house that I skate every now and then so I don’t really trip too much.

This is a wonderful video 🛹💕

Skatepark 8 hours a day minimum those summer days

Daily, I try to post up at a local cafe with three books, a chess set, and a sketchpad. Traveling or at home. Met a ton of cool people this way! Third places rule :)

i used to go to this skatepark in plano TX called "eisenbergs" and it had live music, contests, and lock ins for the kids. its not open anymore but i loved it when it was open

Well said!

I'd put hanging out with mates,skating,socialising way ahead of work,to me work's the "third place",anything thats good for the soul beats the shit out of work all day long. Ps, big up for quoting bobby&Ocean real OG'S.

I posted this on another video of a similar topic. I never had substance abuse issues until I was a 9 to 5'er from home. Started skating again after 5 years and I'm finally feeling like its all worth it again.

i need me more of them 3rd places

Interesting video...enjoyed it... hey im in greeley colorado lol wow.

I just recently found my old skate sticker.... stuck to my old Sprint Flip Phone! 😂

I'm 38 now and I miss skating

I skate, therefore I Am❤

So this was great, but some dickish part of my brain still wanted yell “Do a kickflip!” Lol. Ignore that, this channel will blow up if you keep it up.

Yes

This was really interesting . I go to a park that has multiple things to do other than the best park I’ve ever skated. Duncan Creek Atlanta. We have a great little Skateshop owned by a really good family that all skate. This is great info because our loved park isn’t getting the love it needs. Parks need love just like people. As for racism I’m 51 and when I saw another skater it was like yo ! What’s up do you wanna hang. Color never factored into it only D…..S acted like that and they would get put in their place if not ejected from said place. Yea there’s idiots in skateboarding but as an elder skater of skateboarding I challenge them to this ethos whenever I go and I’m always happy to hear for the most part skate boarders are just chill. Peace y’all I’m going skating it’s stopped raining.

The skatepark is where I’ve met some good friends over the last year or two

In my opinion skateparks are way different now compared to when I was growing up. Social media has had negative effects on people even when they are interacting in real life

I do feel like I am cheating sometimes bc it is so easy to make friends at the skatepark. In university I struggled making friends and meeting people, even w people in my major or the ones who played nintendo. I thought thats just how life is. At the skatepark someone is always down to talk to me and chat. It is too easy to make friends there I feel like an imposter sometimes

yall wanna hear some shit, so i work a job that makes me work thur-sun- off mon-wed i have tried to get up to a public skatepark each week, but wouldnt you know, maintenance on grounds no entry (escorted out) Attempt 2 Rained out attempt 3, public facing outlets used for charging my ebike, ticketed attempt 4 rained out oohhhhhhhh

This is interesting and might have been valid a decade ago, but depending on your age bracket, its just as lonely at a skatepark as anywhere else. Where I live skateparks are mostly overrun with moms and tots during school hours, and I'm talking 10 and under age bracket, aimlessly roaming around on scooters and sometimes boards and bmx but mostly scooters. Then the after school crowd is mostly teenage kids divided into two groups, one that actually skate and are usually a decent vibe but mostly under age 16, and then there are the afterschool hangout kids, this age bracket is also mostly under 16 but alot either just have a skateboard to get two and from the park, and most just walk and stand around there, they use the skatepark as a drug trafficking hub and pot smoking and underage drinking location, and or nearby forests or other areas. Other than that, adult skate park users are few and far between, and when encountered, if they didnt know you from the age of everyone interacting as teens when skateparks were actually busy, they wont talk to you and will be mostly quiet and anti social, sure some might be friendly but they are just there to do their activity and not be social other than when a group of already established friends are skating together. For me, skateparks became extremely lonely in the last decade, especially with the fact that in BMX which is what I ride, most friends I had either turned to drugs (some lost their lives, I blame rap as they all obsessed over that music and emulated that culture) or they got families and quit or moved away. Either way, everyone I grew up riding with eventually disappeared in one form or another, and I never encounter anyone my age on a bike, and skaters still just dont really associate with bmx riders, the few skaters I ever encounter my age are very quiet and or stick with their buddies, its just not a place to expect to socialize or make friends unfortunately.

Im pretty sure you made this video for me ha

Hey i know her. I met her at Memo skatepark.

It’s wack when you go to the skatepark every day for months only to have some grown ass man start showing up daily n harassing you by getting hella close n saying weird shxt to me or when peeps always wanna fight me. Cali is a trip I swear

Skateparks are for kids primarily and me going there alone as a 28 year old just makes me look like a creeper

Hi! Im a architekt and focus on urbanism und cityplaning and i wanted to warn you and everybody of using the term "third place" so lighly. According to the definition of third places by the creator of the Term, Ray Oldenburg, skateparks (happily) are not third places. In fact, third space theory stemms from a micure of misogyistic, homophic and neoliberal concepts of how mainly males should spend their time and money for their wellbeeing, stemming from Oldenburgs personal political views, whitch are pretty problematic. A little video which explains this problem better would be this: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bqtlgMiY1L2WoHU.htmlfeature=shared I hope this helps and still a verry good video! Greetings frlm Germany

a girl talking about loneliness is like a rich person complaining about having too much money

Thank you for making this interesting video! But I have to disagree on your point that what Marx would be among the first to call "capitalism" (an ancient economic system known as a market economy, or the free market) greatly contributes to the loneliness epidemic in society. How can that be, if a private mall can be an excellent place for socializing or hanging out with friends? Yes, private third places such as cafeterias and cinemas require people to spend some money to be there, because that's how a transaction works: I give you money in exchange for a good or service. But privately-owned parks also exist, so there you have it. And I think plenty of private skateparks exist in the world, also, don't they? Sure, the government can build a skatepark and maintain it with taxation, but it probably won't be as good as a private skatepark.

You need a reality check. The skateparks where I live you cannot hang out there for long unless you want to buy drugs or get robbed

all technology did was give women instant access to the best and highest earning men leaving the rest of us to go extinct while we scream into the void so yeah loneliness is predominantly a male problem and if anything technology makes it easier to make connections and form relationships but it just doesnt work for many because of the reasons i stated people especially women thrive off social media because they thrive in real life and the ones that are depressed are not thriving in real life or on social media it is what it is

Find Jesus! The Devil is behind all of this madness.