You just walked down to the skate park to ride your bike or scooter, the sounds of skater after skater dropping in and power sliding over the coping of a quarter pipe is so appealing to you. What is this you smell though, some odd substance that has a smoke type smell. You glance over to notice three kids about 14 years old sitting on top of the box that you were cruising towards to pull one of your moves off, but the three are too busy smoking their cigarettes and sitting down. All three of them are holding skateboards but you wonder why they wouldn’t be skating, instead they decide to stand in everybody’s way, and to some people the smell and feel of second hand smoke is horrible. You instantly think of those three kids as just some type of wannabe skater who is there for the style of skating and to be exactly like a character in the video game they’re obsessed with. Well welcome to one of my trips to the skate park. You might not have strong feelings towards these specific people, yet, but I do already for sure.

Skating is a very popular sport that attracts many kids. In 2002 there was a research conducted on skaters. In 2002 there were 18.5 million skaters in the world, and now being it’s 2009 I can clearly see that number rising. Older people influence many young kids, I won’t lie, when I was about six years old I really wanted a skateboard because I saw a group of teenagers skating at my school; however, I never got one. Skating is televised across the world and seems to be a “cool” thing to do for many kids now in this recent era.

It seems a lot like I’m attacking skateboarding in general, but there is nothing wrong with being a skater. I can’t say I hate skateboarding, it’s a sport I never tried to excel in; furthermore, it’s a sport I’m also not looking to excel in right now, but those kids that are just there for the style of skating can cause real problems. The popular trends of skating is usually not wearing a helmet, having tight fit jeans or real loose and baggy jeans that are multiple sizes to large, and wearing the jeans too low revealing under garments. Oh I almost forgot one big one, chewing tobacco or smoking some type of drug.

Being addicted to skating games when I was younger, I remember in three of the four games I owned there was some type of main character that was an avid drug user, whether it just be chewing tobacco or smoking marijuana. One very popular skater is Bam Margera, he clearly is not the best skater there is but he became so popular for his stupid stunts and T.V shows. Starring in Jackass the movie, haggard the movie, and countless MTV shows. In 2005 Bam was the number one influence on teenagers. A lot of skaters may be like Bam Margera, an alcohol addict and an occasional drug user, but Bam influences kids so much and demonstrates these bad habits on worldwide television.

Spending a good one to two hour session at our local skate park is becoming very hard now. Even though I’m not a skater (I either scooter or bike), it’s clear who is there to skate and have a good time, and who is there for the style. Usually the skaters that are there for fun respect everybody at the park and wait for their turn to pull their stunts. Then there are the kids who sit on certain jumps or boxes smoking or just talking getting in the way of everybody, and seem to be oblivious to what everybody else thinks, for some reason they act like they’re Tony Hawk and everybody respects them. That’s not the case; nobody likes a “line snagging”, drug abusing, “chav” (chav is a slang word for a wannabe, used frequently for the wannabe’s in any action sport)

Knowing that drugs is a bad thing period, I would assume these “skaters” who are there for the style and take that too far, to the point where they use drugs, won’t be going down the correct road in the future. I’m a huge fan of biographic addiction stories, and the majority of the books I read, the characters began their addiction without the intention of being an addict and soon became an avid drug user. Drugs just keep on growing and growing on you; it’s very hard to escape the trap too. Even though I absolutely hate smoking, it’s a common thing now and I just have to get used to it. But 30 percent of the time I head down to the skate park on a busy day, there are three to five people smoking marijuana. Without a doubt, smoking marijuana in a place where young kids (even younger than me) go to is setting a horrible influence on the youth. Marijuana doesn’t even help you skate does it? The young kids that are influenced are in fact our posterity, so let’s start by setting the right example on the youth; these wannabes aren’t helping at all.

These wannabes need to realize it really isn’t getting them any respect by showing up to a skate park with your pants that are way too big for you, your cigarette, or in worse cases, your joint. So next time you are riding your BMX, your scooter, or your skateboard, tell these wannabes that they’re not setting the right example for our posterity and aren’t gaining the respect and attention they’re looking for.