Ride or Die: linguistic and cultural divergence in the skateboarding subculture 

In the skateboarding subculture language, especially naming is closely connected to identity.  The skateboarding subculture finds its identity in differentiating itself, linguistically and culturally, from standard language and practices—difference is valued above normality.  Linguistic and cultural deviation help subcultures to be subcultures, something the skateboarding community very consciously does.  Even within the subculture difference is highly valued.  Skaters out skating with each often feel awkward trying the same tricks.  If two skateboarders are trying the same trick one will either stop trying that trick or ask the other, “Do you mind if I try that with you?” This awkwardness speaks to an identity practice that values difference.  For, if sameness is awkward in the skateboarding community difference is the flow from which identity is safe and secure. 

Using slang and the practice of naming, especially in the skateboarding culture, is a very conscious choice one makes to at once include oneself in a group while excluding outsiders.  This can be seen in other subcultures such as the nerd community in Mary Bucholtz’s “‘Why Be Normal?’: Language and Identity Practices in a Community of Nerd Girls.”  Here nerd girls make a conscious choice, through linguistic denial and variation, and positive and negative identity practices, to “disassociate nerds from non-nerds, and especially from cool teenagers” (Bucholtz 212).  This is very similarly done in the skateboarding community.  The skateboarding community retains its identity through difference, through rejecting the traditional in favor of the aberrant.  One example of this is the use of slang and nicknames— the adoption of naming to accommodate a new identity

Language, practice, and difference are all connected in the skateboarding subculture.  Skateboarding had to come up with new terms to not only define emerging tricks (combining practice and naming) but to differentiate themselves from the mainstream culture, a job that has been difficult in recent years.  The mainstream has been trying to absorb the skateboard culture as the “cute” kid in this example shows: How to talk like a skater.   

Skateboarding had to come up with its own “linguistic market” akin to what the hip hop subculture has done, which “values the subversion of dominant languages through the difference they generate (Park, Wee 244).”  Compare this to the youtube video below and you get two very different images of the skateboarding subculture.  Despite the fact that How to talk like a skater appeals to norms it does show the extents skaters have gone through to differentiate themselves from the norm linguistically.  They have done such an extensive job that one needs a dictionary to understand their conversations.  More skate dictionaries can be seen here: Skate Dictionary 1; Skate Dictionary 2; Dictionary 3.   These lists are extensive and in-depth.  Language and naming is specifically used to differentiate skateboarders from the rest of the world.  This can be contrasted to the academic world where everyone might want to say different things and have innovative ideas, but they all want to say those things in an academic language, in the same way.  Naming has a long tradition in skateboarding beyond defining new terms and feelings.  Naming in the skating subculture especially relates to individual identity.  Naming in skateboarding goes beyond new terms to explain physical activity (kick flip), or expression of emotions and ideas (sick).  It is inextricably related to self-identity and creates a new identity usually unavailable to the outside world.  Here the “power of names to emphasize ‘social relationships’” is evident (Rymes 239).  It is almost impossible to be a skateboarder without having a nickname, a new identity that the skateboarding culture embraces and keeps close.  For, these names very rarely make room for outsiders.  Even family finds itself strangely wrapped up yet outside of this world as this example shows(Watch from 0:00 to 0:59): 

 This video shows a very either or sense of identity intimately connected to the name that is known to the subculture.  Either you are in the community or outside of it, and it is language that creates and strengthens this structure.  In the example Lizard King, Lizard for short, is mainly known through his skateboarding moniker.  Those that know him as Mike are his parents and friends growing up.  Once his new name was solidified into the skateboarding world his given name lost much of its use to him.  Lizard’s sense of identity is entwined with the skateboarding world, with difference.  For, “Lizard King” is the antithesis of a normal name like Mike.