This is Thrasher, also known as, the Bible of skate.
You've probably seen kids rocking Thrasher T-shirts, but Thrasher's
popularity isn't centered around hypebeast trends like Supreme or A
Bathing Ape. Since the early 1980s, Thrasher Magazine has been coveted by
the skate community for its authentic take on the subculture.
After all, the magazine was created for skaters, by skaters.
But as skate culture move from the fringes of pop culture to the
mainstream, the Thrasher logo became a widespread signifier of "cool."
Some people don't even know what it is.
They think it's like a rock band or something like that.
But when people look at Thrasher, they know that there's a lot of heritage
behind it. A lot of respect that comes with it.
But some Thrash er die hards have taken offense to "posers" who rep
Thrasher gear, but don't actually skate.
Thrasher is so OG and so tied to old school skate culture that I don't
think skaters were ever able to fully dismiss it.
Here's how Thrasher helped take skate culture from the fringe to
mainstream. This is Suddenly Obsessed.
Modern skateboarding traces its roots back to Southern California in the
1970s, when a few kids from Dogtown ditched their surfboards and started
skateboarding in empty swimming pools.
Photographers and writers began documenting their antics, and soon
magazines began covering the new scene.
Skateboarding was actually its place in pop culture.
In January 1981, Fausto Vitello and Eric Swenson launched Thrasher, a $1
magazine dedicated to professional skateboarding, gripping photography,
influential music, skate culture and skate park reviews.
The magazine was originally started as a marketing platform for Swenson and
Vitello to promote their skate brand, Independent Trucks, but it garnered
outside attention due to its punk rock attitude.
Thrasher's mantra: Skate and destroy.
Thrasher was always a little bit grimy, a little bit dirty, a little bit
interested in showing you what skateboarders did outside of just
skateboarding. People are attracted to not only their commitment to
skateboarding, but, you know, seeing that authentic skateboarding
lifestyle there, too.
Experts say Thrasher appealed to skateboarders around the country because
of its insidery take on skate culture.
I grew up in Wichita, Kansas, the middle of America, not exactly known for
being a hotbed of skateboard activity.
I just looked at it as my channel into learning everything I could about
skateboarding. Not only were the magazines omnipresent even when we were
little kids, but the merch, the Thrasher T-shirts, Thrasher stickers.
That stuff was already all over the place and really well known and really
iconic, you know, by that time in the late 80s.
Thrasher stood out amongst its competition because it grew in tandem with
California's punk and hardcore music scenes, giving the magazine an edgier
appeal. In 1990, the magazine created one of its most popular features,
the Skateboarder of the Year award, which is still coveted to this day.
The first winner of the distinction was a 22 -year-old up -and -comer named
Tony Hawk. At the time, Hawk was riding the wave of popularity due to his
success in Vert. But in April 2020, Park went on The Joe Rogan Experience
and said the cool kids were turning away from the halfpipe and heading to
the street. The streets became the skate park because there's nowhere else
to go. There were a few key skaters that figured out how to use, like, the
urban landscape as a skate park.
And then that was it, like, it was...
All bets are off. Skating kind of took off in the underground as the street
culture, a street sport.
In the early and mid 90s, skateboarding took somewhat of a different turn.
It became a little more interested in hip -hop culture as did the culture
at large. So Thrasher was a little less in touch with your average
skateboarder all during that time period.
But even as the magazine shrunk throughout the 90s, Thrasher is able to
keep its community of skaters highly engaged.
Once I got into the culture of skateboarding, i t's like, these are my
people, you know? These are the other kind of people who don't want to do,
you know, the same thing that everyone else is doing.
The outcasts. Back in 1988, Thrasher began hiring photographers to produce
guerrilla -style skate videos, giving its audience a true to life window
into the culture. But one photographer in particular caught the attention
of Thrasher's editor -in -chief, Jake Phelps.
That photographer would help lead Thrasher into the digital age.
I feel a lot of their success is due to bringing Michael Burnett on in
early 2000s and then also their adaptation of the Web in creating a
space to launch videos for skaters and just how proactive they've been in
creating a successful website that complements their print side.
Thrasher's ability to maintain its readership throughout the 90s, primed to
take full advantage of the coming marriage between competitive
skateboarding and the music scene.
As punk rock and rock and roll sort of came back in style among skaters
around the turn of the millennium, Thrasher really, really picked up.
Two events epitomize that boom: ESPN's X -Games and Vans Warped Tour.
Thrasher was a huge influence on this whole culture of music and
skateboarding. And my band was fortunate enough to play the Vans Warped
Tour, which was, you know, kind of a skate, surf, you know, motocross kind
of thing. Every day I'm playing on stage and I see behind me, like, Steve
Caballero on a ramp doing all kinds of crazy tricks.
It was just a really awesome combination of things in a culture
combination. The success of those events showed how widespread skate
culture had become. Then tragedy struck Thrasher.
First in 2006, when Fausto Vitello died of a heart attack, and then in
2011, when Swenson took his own life.
Vitello's son, Tony, took over after his father's death and has been
running the magazine ever since.
In 2011, Thrasher went from a niche skateboarding magazine with over a
reported 250,000 monthly subscribers to a hypebeast fashion staple when
the company landed a collaboration with Supreme.
The collab caught the attention of an up -and -coming rap star who had an
outsized influence on hip -hop culture.
In conjunction with that Supreme collaboration, t he rap crew Odd Future
and their leader, Tyler, The Creator, came out there around 2011 and they
were seen wearing the Thrasher's Supreme stuff and regular Thrasher stuff
all over the world.
And from then, Thrasher just skyrocketed in popularity.
In 2016, pop's biggest music artists were seen rocking the brand.
Sales took off.
We would get a Thrasher order in every season and it's already gone
already. Like, first week.
Like, we got it and we posted it onto Instagram and everyone bought all of
it. I guess we'll have to order more next time.
The more Thrasher collaborated, the more popular it became outside the
skate community, to the ire of Thrasher diehards.
I think that's where the attitude comes from.
Like saying, "Hey, you didn't work for that.
You never even stood on a skateboard, but yet you're wearing the logo."
I think that's where the anger, all the reaction we're getting currently
about the logo itself or the shirts itself is coming from.
The resale market isn't as profitable for Thrasher as it is for Supreme, A
Bathing Ape or Anti Social Social Club.
That's because Thrasher's more widely available and cheaper than its
counterparts. But vintage Thrasher T-shirts can easily sell for a few
hundred dollars on the resale market.
We have seen a 100% increase year -over -year on Thrasher demand.
The older the item, the higher the resale price.
If it's one of a kind or if it's not made anymore, like a vintage Thrasher
T-shirt, the demand is so high that prices can go up because people want
them so much and supply is limited.
The iconic logo became a huge hit.
So big, in fact, retailers H&M and Forever 21 started mimicking the banco
font logo without permission.
Thrasher threatened to sue for copyright infringement, but never pursued a
lawsuit. Thrasher's popularity is creating two types of fans: Hypebeasts
who want to be seen in Thrasher gear and skateboarders who want to be
featured in the magazine.
Although a lot of skaters don't wear Thrasher, like, they just don't wear
it. They want to be in it.
The fashion world is what, you know, they hopped on to it.
They hop on to everything and we kind of make it into something that fits
with this idea of what is cool.
As Thrasher took over skate wear fashion, it endured yet another tragic
loss. In 2019, longtime editor -in -chief Jake Phelps passed away
suddenly. His impact and attitude are still prevalent in between the
pages. I feel like everything has taken 30 years is always going to have a
moment in history and I think this is the time for Thrasher.
Even with the collaboration's, poser debates and hypebeast attention,
Thrasher remains one of the most respected names in skateboarding.
When this fad is over of, like, you know, Thrasher being, like, as popular
a Thrasher t-shirt is.
Like, we are still going to be here for the Bible of skateboarding.