- Hey what's up everybody, I'm Tony Hawk
and I am going undercover on the internet.
It's Actually Me!
Twitter.
Chris Hoggan, @CyberFreakChris asked,
"Tony, what is the scariest trick you have landed?"
Scariest trick I ever landed was probably doing
the full loop ramp because no one had ever done
it completely before I tried it
and I didn't really even know if it was possible
and so when I finally got the chance,
I wasn't as confident as I usually am with tricks, boom.
@Wilson006 said, "yo Tony, what's your favorite
"skate game you've created?"
Well obviously the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series
is the one I'm known for and I would say,
the second one of that series is the one I'm most proud of
because it was everything we wanted the first one to be
and it was also what put us on the map,
like what created skateboarding as a genre of video games
and so that's the one I'm most proud of, post it.
@TheMostFunThing says, "Given the incredible growth
"of rural skateparks, how does the industry leverage
"this presence into legit growth or education?"
That's a good question, that's pretty lofty.
We try to educate people that want to get skateparks
through our foundation in terms of giving kids
a place to go, a sense of self confidence,
a sense of belonging and a sense of purpose and I think
that that can help kids grow quite a bit, posted!
@Kattism said, "Why is skateboard in Olympic Games program?
"It's gonna kill the culture and lifestyle around the sport.
"When the money comes in, the respect goes out
"as we say in Sweden."
Well I think that it's funny you say when the money comes in
skateboarding is already hugely popular
in a lot of countries and professional skateboarders
already have huge corporate sponsors
so the money has already come in to skateboarding,
I would say if anything, it's only allowed skateboarding
to grow further internationally but at the core
and the reason people skating, the culture of it,
won't be affected at all, I mean, the Olympics will be
another skateboard competition in that year of many.
But it's also just one facet of skateboarding,
there's still a whole underground group
that will continue to skate, that will continue
to hop fences to hit the biggest handrails
and none of that will change, if anything
people will be more interested in that aspect
once they are introduced to skateboarding
through the Olympics, reply.
@BenDotWatson, "So Tony Hawk was supposed to do Skate Jam.
"Now they're doing "Space Jam 2" and still no Skate Jam?
"Retweet for Skate Jam with Tony Hawk."
That's one of those ones that got away,
I mean I don't have, you know my life has been incredible
in terms of opportunity and success
and things I never dreamed I'd get to do,
stuff like the Simpsons and stuff like doubling
Will Ferrell in a movie but I feel like Skate Jam
was the one thing that got away, 'cause that would have been
super cool, although who knows, it could have been
terrible memes for the rest of my life, reply.
Facebook.
[keyboard clacking]
Facebook's a little more scary sometimes.
I don't know why, it's a different vibe out there.
Jo Kuykendall says, "Hero to so many, what was it like
"behind the scenes with the Bones Brigade?
"How about your time with Parelta
"and hanging out with Ca?"
I think he means Cab.
It was awesome, we were a group of friends
that got thrown together because we had the same sponsor,
we were all roughly the same age
and suddenly we were thrust into the spotlight.
All of us were skating because we loved it,
skating was not a cool thing to do,
it was the furthest thing from cool that you could do
at my high school, I used to have to hide my skateboard
because I would get beat up, literally, bullied, boom.
Mark Alan Lebowitz says, "You've probably done every trick
"in the book, what trick challenged you the most Tony?"
The trick that I never could do that I really wanted to make
on a vert ramp at some point was an Ollie 720
which means you come up backwards,
spin around twice on a vertical axis
without grabbing the board and landing it.
I just could never get that last half a turn so
that was the trick that had challenged me the most,
I stopped trying it ever since so wah.
Instagram.
[keyboard clacking]
Here we go.
Triturtleshauna11 says, "When you're on the ramp
"and you're with other people and crossing over
"and under each other, do you prefer to be
"over or under person or does it depend
"on who's out there with you?"
This sounds like it could have a double entendre.
I am comfortable either going over or under people,
it all depends on what they're planning to do under me
if I'm going over them, and I'm not trying to
turn this into some weird sex talk.
If they're gonna do something where their arms are raised up
or their body is higher than the coping,
then I have to reconsider what type of aerial works
going over that trick and if I know
what they're going to do above me,
that gives me a sense of what I can do under them
so I'm comfortable either way, it's just a matter
of what trick is the choice there, posted.
Kmajers says, "What lip trick was
"the hardest for you to learn?"
There is a trick I learned about 10 years ago
that I only did once and it's basically a 360 shove-it
to backside lipslide, I guess you'd call it a bigger spin
backlip but it was super hard for me and it took me
hundreds of tries, I'm guessing because your question
is so specific that you do skate
so you know how scary backlips can be
and to 360 shove-it into backlip, super scary.
Featherphantom, "I may not know how to skateboard
"but I love surfing, Tony will you ever take up surfing?"
"That'd be cool as hell."
Actually I have been surfing as long as I've been skating.
My older brother is the one who got me into skating
because he was a surfer, I'm not nearly as good at it,
in fact I'm not that confident in big waves.
People say like, "well you skate these big ramps,
"why don't you like to surf big waves?"
Because the ramps don't come crashing behind me
and make me drown, that's why.
Posted.
IMDB.
Nicknames, Birdman, Grampa.
Are those my nicknames in IMDB?
That's so sad, wow.
Well Birdman I know that's a name that ESPN
bestowed onto me in the 90s and it stuck
and now I've just come to accept it
but I'm not a grandpa yet, alright?
If one of my kids has a kid then you can call me grandpa.
And you didn't spell it right anyway.
And submit.
Father of Riley Hawk who helped Ashton Kutcher
play a practical joke on Tony for Punk'd in 2003.
The elder Hawk grounded his son for the prank.
The first part of that is true,
we did do Punk'd and Riley did participate in a prank
and they kinda got me but I started to figure it out
and I joked at the end that he was grounded.
In reality, we were going to Disneyland that day
and we were taking his brothers to Disneyland
and he got to go to Disneyland,
so it was the exact opposite of being grounded.
He went to Disneyland that day, boom.
Reddit.
"What's Tony Hawk up to these days?"
Well I'm doing this thing with GQ, right here, right now,
that's what I'm up to and riding my skateboard
and raising kids and building skateparks
in low income areas
and stuff, posted.
Wikipedia.
Oh man Wikipedia is such a bummer.
I've tried to change factual things in my bio
and they're like, the hoops you have to jump through
to get a photo approved and then to get it accepted
in the commons, it's crazy, like it would be easier
to falsify a passport than to make
a different photo in Wikipedia.
But you can write all kinds of [beep] and they'll accept it.
I don't get it, it's just, it's the wild west,
I don't know, I'm gonna skip it, sorry.
We're moving onto Quora.
"Can Tony Hawk still compete with modern pro skateboarders?"
I could if I wanted to.
I mean I could literally jump into a competition.
Doesn't mean I would do well but I am able to.
[laughing]
I don't know, I think if I were to enter a vert competition
I'd be lucky to make the finals but I'd be happy with that,
aged 51 making the finals, boom.
"Why is Tony Hawk considered
"the best skateboarder of all time?"
Maybe people see me as the most recognizable skateboarder
but skating is such an art form, it's so subjective,
no one is the best at it.
It's not a race, no one's the fastest runner,
no one's the highest jumper.
Skating is just so diverse and so eclectic
not one person could be the best or represent all of it,
it's just a matter of what style you like
and what's your flavor.
"What is the most expensive car of Tony Hawk?"
Is that something people actually ask?
Well I have a Tesla model 100 P110D so
it's pricey but it's not a Ferrari, posted.
"How does Tony Hawk stay in shape?"
Skateboarding, plain and simple, chasing kids too.
"As an estimate, how many hours of Tony Hawk's life
"has been", sorry, I can't read it,
"As an estimate, how many hours of Tony Hawk's life
"have been spent skateboarding?"
Wow, that is so hard to calculate.
All right, let's say,
for the sake of argument.
[mumbling]
Like eight to 10 hours a week at this point
would be a pretty good average through my life
so lets go 10 hours a week.
I started skating 42 years ago.
10 times 52 times 42.
What's that?
- [Man] 21,840.
- Alright let's go, let's round it off,
25,000 hours and submit.
"Who will be the nest Tony Hawk that will push
"the prominence of skateboarding within pop culture?"
I don't think that's for me to answer
but I hope that skateboarding will continue to be recognized
and will be prominent in pop culture
and that people will recognize the creativity
and the positive effect it has on youth
and I can only hope that someone who reaches
some sort of level of fame or recognition or prominence
will want to use that voice for the good of skateboarding
in general and there are plenty of people that are doing it
I mean I think that the most recognizable name these says
is Nyjah Huston, he's a powerhouse within street-skating
he's an amazingly technical skater, and I hope that he can
turn that sort of fame into a voice for skateboarding.
But someone else could do it, I mean, it's just a matter of,
you know there's a lot of right place, right time.
I'd like to think I was in the right place at the right time
but I had a lot of right place,
wrong time throughout my life.
I was in skateboarding but it was not
the time for skateboarding but I never quit.
Posted.
Well that was it, that was actually me.
And I'm signing off now,
we've reached the end of the internet.
[calm music]