Electric Skateboards Are for Dweebs

Everything is stupid, and so are we. Welcome to Jezebel’s Stupidest Summer Ever, a season-long celebration of our worst, most idiotic thoughts and opinions.

I have always loved skaters.

I remember going to the now defunct indoor skatepark at my hometown mall as a tween to watch cute older boys and even cooler, but fewer, girls from my town skate, grasping at the chain-link that lined the border of the substantial maze of half-pipes and rails, and wincing as floppy-haired teens wiped out to the music of The All-American Rejects.

At home I’d watch Jackass and the underrated MTV show Scarred, the latter of which chronicled the worst injuries amateur skateboarders have ever endured, and would become morbidly infatuated with skate battle scars; broken bones and stitches galore. Part of skating, I thought, was to surrender your whole, stupid body over to the art form and its dangerous whims. Teens who skated were putting themselves in mild danger, which was insanely cool, of course.

But you know what isn’t insanely cool? Grown ass men riding electric skateboards.

Listen, I don’t know where they came from, I just know that they’re everywhere right now. Several times in the last few months I have walked the streets of New York City and seen a posh older dude skating, almost too smoothly, perhaps with the purr of a small motor, holding…a remote? And every time I’ve died a little bit inside from embarrassment.

But you know what isn’t insanely cool? Grown ass men riding electric skateboards.

I’m no skater, nor expert. I am merely a fan of the sport (and a judgmental woman with loud opinions who gets paid to write about them.) And I’ll admit that from what I’ve read, electric skateboards seem like a completely different activity than the non-battery operated original. For one thing, it doesn’t seem like you can do any crazy tricks in them (“You can slide on the board but take care that you don’t abuse the board in a way that will void your warranty,” the FAQ for one brand reads) which is lame! They’re also extremely expensive, running hundreds of dollars.

The image of a man, say, in his 40s or 50s casually taking up skateboarding for the first time can be disconcerting to some, especially because it so often screams: “I am desperately trying to feel 25 again and also do you want to come back to my Dumbo loft and listen to Flipper.” So if that’s already cringe-inducing, please imagine that exact same scenario except he’s not even trying to learn to skate—he’s buying a motorized board (read: scooter without the handles) to do all the work for him. So, am I going to side-eye some high-schooler in Brooklyn zipping by me on one of these? No. All I ask is, please consider if you’re going to look like an asshole on your $700 electric skateboard, because you probably will.

I found some solace in this thread titled “Are dudes on electric skateboards considered kooks by other skaters?” as well as a video from YouTuber and skater John Hill who asked a bunch of sponsored skateboarders he knows for their opinions on electric boards. Responses included “thumbs down emoji,” “seems convenient for getting around for lazy people,” and “they’re probably really convenient but not the coolest looking thing.”