When Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, the skateboard video game, launched two decades ago, it opened the skateboard culture to a whole new audience. Kids around the world who had never picked up a skateboard in real life spent hours trying stunts like McTwist, Madonna, Impossible, and Stalefish, and they did it in some of skateboarding’s most iconic spots.
The developers of the game series recreated historic skateboarding spots like Wallows, a drainage ditch in Hawaii, that were frequented by skaters in the 1970s and 1980s, and Carlsbad Gap, a high school spot in southern California that became famous in the 1990s. At each level of the game, an ode to the rich history of skateboarding was hidden from the naked eye.
In the video above, Tony Hawk and Iain Borden, the author of Skate and the city, tells the story of skate history through its most beloved places.
You can find this video and all the Vox videos on YouTube. If you are interested in supporting our video journalism, you can become a member of the Vox Video Lab on YouTube.
Support Vox explanatory journalism
Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience worldwide, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is right now: empowering you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism requires resources, particularly during a pandemic and economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but will allow our staff to continue offering free articles, videos and podcasts with the quality and volume required at this time. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.
