Professional photographer and part owner of American Football House, Atiba Jefferson, recently shared an important perspective on skateboarding due to the rise of online hate on social media.
In an interview with The Bunt Live, the podcasting duo Donovan Jones and Cephas Benson asked him about the worst trend in skateboarding. Jefferson responded, saying it's "people just being haters to be haters."
"I always thought that was corny as f*ck," he said. "You can only hate if you're really good at what you do. If you're like really got good style, you can talk sh*t, if you're really good at skating you can talk sh*t but if you're not?" He then proceed to smirk after.
As we previously reported, Switch God Paul Rodriguez expressed his frustrations about the rise of robotic skateboarding, where kids don't know anything about style.
P-Rod acknowledged that the tricks being done these days are similar to those seen in video games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, which makes them quite difficult. However, he feels that modern skating is less about style and more about executing robotic, technical maneuvers such as triple flips and quadruple rotations.
While he understands that it's impressive, but he said it's like a f*ckin asshole. "It looks like ass," he said.
This means P-Rod gets a pass since he is the originator of flip-ins and flip-outs.
Gifted Hater can also be an exception to the rule since he is technically skilled at skateboarding the streets and has backed up his trash-talking with a gnarly video part. Hence, according to Jefferson, if you are just a regular Joe Shmoe, then you are not it.