Writing Assiagnment

Mini Essay D

Long hair, ripped clothes, tight pants, skate shoes and a cigarette in the mouth. In many cases this is the basic mold of a skateboarder. Is there an easy definition of a skateboarder? No, all individuals of any group are different then others in many ways, but if you go to a skate park or ask someone in the mall with these traits it is almost a sure thing that they own a skateboard.
Considering myself a member of the skateboarding group it can be hard to accept some of the stereotypes put onto the group. The difficult part about stereotypes is that they can be true. For the most part, just like gossip, stereotypes are started biased on some fact. The problem is that these facts aren’t true for everyone. For example after interviewing five people, all not inside the group of skateboarding, four out of five people stereotyped skateboarders as smokers. To put that into percentages, 80% of people think of skateboarders as smoke. Does that mean that skateboarders make up a majority of cigarette companies profit? Smoking cigarettes is not the only stereotype associated with skateboarding.
Several of the people surveyed also made a point to mention long hair, now everyone that skateboards can’t have long hair but this is a very common in the skateboarding scene. The problem is a lot of these people setting the trends and wearing the clothes spend more time on this then actually skateboarding and getting better at it. People get too focused on setting themselves apart and looking different take away from actually going out and working at progressing. “Drinkers, smokers, grungy and long hair.” This is true for many.
The main negative stereotype that skateboarders have to deal with is that the idea that they are only out there to destroy property and cause trouble. Do skateboarders look at themselves as destroyers of property? Or is skateboarding, skateboarding and nothing else? Police, property owners and some everyday people have it out to get skateboarders. Most of them think that skateboarders are just out to cause trouble and break things. Are skateboarders thinking that way or are the focused on learning new tricks and having a good time. “I think the common stereotype that I hear, is that skateboarders are rude inconsiderate, hateful, destructive, I think that a lot of people see the worst in skaters because the majority are really like that, but like always with any group of people you have your good ones that love the sport.” It’s the negative ideas that have kept skateboarding from being accepted in normal culture. Instead skateboarding is forced to create its own culture although it is no different from any other group of people. All people in it are individuals who chose to make their own decisions. Some skateboarders chose to follow the common stereotypes and that’s what continues to let the stereotyping live. There are countless amounts of people that just go out and skateboard because they love doing it. Not because of what is associated to it, not because of the status attached to it just because of the joy that comes a long with the feeling of the ground moving with two feet on a piece of wood.