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Clyde Singleton on Social Media Self-Promotion

Words by Clyde Singleton.

I was asked by an old friend, and now Editor of Kingpin Will Harmon (now Editor of Free Skate Mag) to expand on a subject that some find annoying. Others seem to not even care about. And, others seem to take full advantage of – the evolution of self-promotion in skateboarding via social media. Why are skateboarders constantly trying to sell us stuff? Why are they trying to sell themselves off to be “cool” everyday of their lives? Over the past 6-8 months, I’ve personally minimized my Facebook newsfeed to about 50 people based on the increasing number of people participating in the following activities. I only follow about 50 people on Instagram, most of whom are women, so I did a little research for that one. Read, enjoy, hate me, love it. Either way, I’m getting paid for this. Enjoy.

No One Cares Who You’re Skating With: Why do people… No. Let me re-iterate. Why do pro skaters do this all the time? I peeped some of yall’s Instagram for some research on this soon to be classic editorial, and boy oh boy. All hugged up, smiling like a 14 year-old girl with people you see everyday. Out here looking like they won “A Date With A Pro Skater” contest. Man. Stop. Ole “Cherish The Moments” lookin. Dude. I could seriously do an entire comedy routine on this subject alone.

Lets just keep this moving along…

The Excessive YouTuber: Look dude. We get it. You like to film yourself skateboarding. Nothing wrong with that. There is something wrong with you clogging the feed, posting the same video to 20 random people. You’re on their feed. They saw it the first time, but didn’t wanna bother responding because you might actually post more videos of you skating some dusty ass parking lot doing switch-dingle berry to lip slide completely by accident. Relax. Seriously.

The “Everyday Is #ThrowbackThursday/#FlashbackFriday” Guy: Nothing wrong with being proud, and throwing up an old ad, or photo every now & again. But, damn… Almost everyday? Actually. The question here is: How do you even have so many photos of yourself? I barely own my own baby pictures, much less a ¼ of the skateboard photos I’ve ever shot- printed, or not. Yall really out here keeping time capsules of yourself? I thought that’s what photographers, magazines and skate nerds do? Actually. I just answered my own question with the latter.

Who Buys Products From Things That Have No/Little Advertising?: Would you buy some Beats By Chuck Norris headphones? I personally wouldn’t. Know why? They’d more than likely be made cheap, have terrible graphics and would sound like them telephones we all made out of 2 cups and a string as kids. This is what I think when I see someone trying to sell me something, they don’t even have the budget to properly advertise said product with. Yea, them $1 Flakes of Frost taste like Frosted Flakes, but too bad that’s not after two bites. Hold up. Y’all see the duality right there?

No One Cares Where You’re Going: ‘Bout to go hit up a spot? About to board that plane to a contest? Hey. Unless you’re someone who plans to murder said spot, or place top 10 in the contest. Chances are higher, that no one really cares. Personally, I think people “like” stupid things like this in hopes to get a re-follow. Which, subsequently, would lead to mud wrestling a unicorn. When you mud wrestle with unicorns, you need Monkey Butt Itching Cream. When you use Monkey Butt, people assume you’ve been boxing doughnuts all day. That’s why you should get DirectTV. Sorry. I got a bit carried away.

An Exception To The Rule: There’s an exception to every rule. In this particular discussion, the following people are obsolete- Nyjah Huston, P-Rod, who else do I like that skates that doesn’t annoy me on social media? Oh! Natas Kaupas, Dan Drehobl, Chet Childress, Bob Burnquist, Cab, Steve Olson (both), Vern Laird, Dave Duncan and I can’t think of anyone else at the moment. For the most part, a lot of skateboarders I know, follow or interact with online are all funny as hell. They make the interwebs entertaining, unlike some of these skateboarding socialites and others that use social media as their personal QVC channel. All in all, just post more photos of girls. Speaking of girls, how old is ole girl from Venice Beach that skates? Because, I’m single and would kiss her in the daytime.

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