TF at 1: Ten Years of Quartersnacks

 TF at 1: Ten Years of Quartersnacks
By Quartersnacks
Published by
To be released: December 2015
This PDF of TF at 1: Ten Years of Quartersnacks
is only a partial preview of the book.
Lifting images from mechanical files is strictly prohibited.
To see the complete version, please contact Miranda Wonder,
Publicist: miranda@powerHouseBooks.com
TF@1
Ten Years of Quarter Snacks
TF@1
10yrsqs
Brooklyn, NY
I’ve been on your site before…
there were too many words on it.
TF@1
10yrsqs
I. Red Benches
I.
Red Benches
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I. Red Benches
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There isn’t a clear record of how
skateboarding came to find
itself on the internet. We went from
obsessing over every frame of
a VHS tape, to complaining about
the overload of skateboarding
shared on social media, overnight.
Aging skaters fetishize analog
technology, so what happened
in-between is often forgotten. There
were pioneers of the skateboard
internet, just as there were pioneers
of skate videos themselves.
I. Red Benches
Introduction
The City was one of the first skate websites
online. It began as a school project by
Bryan Chin, a Queens, New York native.
Hosted off a college server, the site
contained nothing more than a New York
spot list and point-and-shoot photos
of his friends. What started as homework
developed into a hobby, and eventually
The City became one of the first websites to
post videos of skateboarding online.
Bryan ballparks this around 1996. Early
search engines sent a lot of traffic to The
City, as there was barely any competition
from other skate websites posting
videos—even three-to-five-second Quick Time
files took up a lot of bandwidth back then.
The site bounced around on rogue SUNY
College hosting until it got shut down for
exceeding bandwidth one too many times.
Bryan purchased Metrospective.com and
moved his website to a paid hosting service.
unauthorized, but loving homage to that
endlessly rewound segment.
The title “Metrospective” came from 411
Video Magazine. While working at New
Deal Skateboards in 1993, Josh Friedberg
created a series of VHS tapes that were
mailed to subscribers and skate shops four
times a year. They contained recurring
segments that now resemble blueprints
for most skateboard content on the
internet: video profiles with professional
skaters, early looks at up-and-coming
talent, demo and contest coverage, spot
checks—everything. The “Metrospective”
sections were four-minute showcases of the
skate scene in a particular city. The New
York “Metrospective” appeared in a 1994
issue and was one of the first cohesive
montages featuring that generation of NYC
street skaters. Metrospective.com was an
expansion of that concept: “What if that 411
montage never ended?” The title was an
8
New York was not the only underrepresented
city with a story to tell online. Beyond
crude Angelfire and Geocities pages run
by kids who all posted the same clips
of Jamie Thomas attempting the Leap of
Faith, and trick tips plagiarized from
magazines, the first wave of skateboard
websites was largely regional. There
was PacificSkateboarding.com (a Vancouver
based website), WiSkate.com (Wisconsin),
Hardflip.com (“Twin Cities Skateboarding”),
50-50.com (a Hawaiian website),
HoustonSkateScene.com, Conform.tv (a
New England-based website), Eboarding.
net which later became SkateNC.com, and
several others lost to unrenewed domain
names in the early 2000s. These websites
were the first push towards widespread
de-California-ization of skateboard media.
411 accepted submissions, but it was
a tough hill to climb. The video parts had
standards set by the steady hands of
California-based filmers, and 411 sold
advertising to companies accustomed
to the higher production values found in
industry skate videos. Not just anybody
could film a few friends on their parents’
Hi-8 camcorder and end up in 411. The
“Metrospective” segments acknowledged a
need to shine a light on underrepresented
skate scenes, but oftentimes awarded them
to places fortunate enough to have a wellknown eye behind the lens.
In his early days of filming, Bryan might
have considered making that long-shot bid
and submitted his footage to 411. But
Metrospective.com was an outlet without
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II. Training Facility
II.
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TF
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II. Training Facility
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The less money someone has in their
bank account, the more likely
they are to win a game of S.K.A.T.E.
42
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II. Training Facility
43
T.F. is the safest place in
the world right now.
TF@1
—Billy Rohan,
August 14, 2003
(The day of the most widespread blackout in history)
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II. Training Facility
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II. Training Facility
The Bench
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II. Training Facility
The Bench
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II. Training Facility
The Bench
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III. Hamburger Featuring Cheese
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III. Hamburger Featuring Cheese
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You guys are the most
disorganized idiots I know.
TF@1
10yrsqs
– Alex Dymond
TF@1: Ten Years of Quarter Snacks
Text, editing, and compilation
© 2015 Quarter Snacks
First edition, 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any manner in
any media, or transmitted by any means
whatsoever, electronic or mechanical
(including photocopy, film or video recording,
Internet posting, or any other information
storage and retrieval system), without the
prior written permission of the publisher.
All images © their respective owners
and used with permission.
Library of Congress Control Number:
TK
ISBN 978-1-57687-786-9
Design by Eric Timothy Carlson
Published in the United States
by powerHouse Books,
a division of powerHouse Cultural
Entertainment, Inc.
37 Main Street,
Brooklyn, NY 11201-1021
Managing editor: Will Luckman
Printing and binding by Midas Printing,
Inc., China
telephone 212.604.9074
fax 212.366.5247
e-mail: info@powerHouseBooks.com
website: www.powerHouseBooks.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound in China
208
TF at 1: Ten Years of Quartersnacks
By Quartersnacks
Published by
To be released: December 2015
This PDF of TF at 1: Ten Years of Quartersnacks
is only a partial preview of the book.
Lifting images from mechanical files is strictly prohibited.
To see the complete version, please contact Miranda Wonder,
Publicist: miranda@powerHouseBooks.com