HOW RODNEY MULLEN BECAME THE MOST IMPACTFUL SKATEBOARDER EVER

[@seanmcclure]

Rodney is a certified GOAT

[@dominiknoyola]

My favorite skater! But hands down one of the most influential skater that ever lived 🫡🛹

[@antonmyhrvold]

The Best! 🔥❤

[@_....J........................]

I'm from the late 80s generation and got gifted a stack of thrashers and some bootleg vhs from various older heads. I learnt how to do ollie grabs and ollie impossibles from looking at images and clips of the clinical form of Mullen, but I wanted to skate like Hensley, Natas, Stranger, Ron Allen, and Gonz. Back then, I didn't know that Gonz and others were learning Mullen's tricks and taking them to the streets. Looking back, it's so funny to think that nobody would admit to learning from Mullen because we all knew he was kind of a dork, even when Rocco tried to rebrand him in the Rubbish Heap to Plan B era most of us still couldn't vibe with Mullen but we still watched his parts over and over again and got schooled.

[@thommccarthy1139]

Psyched about the resurgence in freestyle, slalom and dowhill recently. Obviously, I love street and transition but so much of skate history was kinda thrown out for a while. Freestyle can be pretty mesmerizing.

[@ryanrowe1975]

Rodney Mullen

[@HipstersAndHippies]

I argue he is a father to so many of us. And we don't call him dad enough, he needs a reminder. A reminder that he fathered the fatherless and the ones rebelling against their own. He is a father, dad, and so much more to so many of us. His talks also feel like an awesome talk with dad. And daddy left quite a legacy of what is possible. Is so many things in life.

[@crazycatman5928]

Mullen/Richie Jackson Gou Miyagi/Andy Anderson are the most original street skaters of all time. They all 4 invented some of the coolest looking tricks. But Rodney by far is the G.O.A.T.

[@RealSkateStories]

@@crazycatman5928 Love those four dudes skating as well as other creative cats like Tim Jackson, Daewon, Rollersurfer, the list goes on.

[@MattZakszewski]

Rodney and I are both master number 11s. Gary Grinberg aka GG33 says 11 is the # of the athlete but also 38arisma. Andy on the other hand is a master number 33. # of influence. I love the way his mind works but he's also born year of the Rat and like the actual animal, people born in Rat years are witty and intelligent.

[@atharris8]

RODNEY. RODNEY. RODNEY.

[@atharris8]

"Just stay clean. "

[@1MNUTZ]

RADney Mullen

[@howardb.6205]

Half Goat and half Mutt!

[@RealSkateStories]

🎯

[@OGPAPERBOY77]

How many Rodneys are out there that didnt get this Promo

[@RealSkateStories]

How many Rodneys are out there? One.

[@Cloudkusanagui]

So strangely impactful and corny at the same time the footage of Rodney in a contest with the Helloween theme playing in the background. I wonder if he chose that song himself for his run, aged very well haha

[@Six12media]

The kooks at Juice Magazine keep claiming Jeff Ho is the Godfather of Skateboarding

[@CIWise]

Yeah, I don't know about this one. I, like anyone, am a product of my era, and I remember skating before flips and varials were stock tricks. How many here remember when Tony Hawk's program came under heavy fire? Everyone called them "circus tricks." I see a couple other old dudes here in the comments saying something similar. But I'm going to go a little further and that I don't like what skating has become now. Not really. I didn't like it already with Hawk. I didn't like Hensley doing kickflips in pools and pipes. Lance said in an interview that, back in like 80, older guys were giving them shit, saying they didn't really skate the pool, they only did "above coping tricks." I remember skating a 24-foot wide mini-ramp in the early 90s and old-heads yelling at my little tech friend (a ripper!) that he only skated 8 feet of the ramp. Watch a modern pool part: very few lines. Most skate them like quarter-pipe: hit one wall, do some amazing shit (above coping), and back to the shallow. Alva said in the Z-boys doc that what they did in 75 is break skating out of the stiff, upright, ballerina mold. That they got down, touched their boards and the terrain. They felt what they did. Flow and style over robotic precision. For what, though? We're right back where we started! Vallely said it: people look at him weird, like, "Ew! He's touching his board!" Even people giving credit to Gonz is often disingenuous. It's just an indirect way to praise Mullen. If you were there, then you know that Natas was just as instrumental as Gonz: we saw neither as any lesser than the other. And Natas didn't do tech at all; he brought the burl! His style was completely incompatible with tech. That's why no one mentions him. Mullen is the (god)father of street? Show me how he is Natas' father. Or Tommy Guerrero's, or Sean Sheffey's. Or Donger's, or John Reeves', or Pat Duffy's, or Keith Hufnagel's. Or even a lot of new guys I see. I don't remember their names, but there's a lot going against the grain: that Black kid in Germany who ollies EVERYTHING springs to mind. Forget about the outside world with AI and the Matrix; I look around at this Gen Z, Olympic bullshit skating like Yuto and Nyjah, and I swear it's the rise of the machines.

[@RealSkateStories]

@CIWise I started skating in 73. Seen a lot come and go. Loved and love all of it. Nothing has ever taken away from anything else, only added. Plenty of room for all of it. Impossible to compare apples and oranges.

[@CIWise]

​@@RealSkateStories "Take away from"? No. "Overshadow"? Certainly. Big bro, I looked at my post as soon as I was done, and I said it's gonna look like I'm taking a shot, and I'm not. We old guys live off your channel. But, popular as it may be, I personally just don't agree with the current "Mullen is the father"-narrative. And the direction I identified skating as going in--it's not just skating: it's the whole world. It's all computer precision at the expense of soul. It's like a cultural Hawk vs. Hosoi battle on a global scale! (As much as it hurts to admit it, I blame Hosoi for losing that battle for us.) I just watched--I think the name was Ethan Loy. That's the type of skating I'm talking about. Yeah, he did some flips, but he banged out mad wall rides, and blasted out of banks, he ollied off a bump to nose grind along the back of a bench GRABBING INDY! Remember Gonz's indy nosepicks back in the day? Speaking of not seeing much board grabbing anymore, I saw a young guy 180 boneless to fakie 50-50 down a mega-handrail. What did Mullen have to do with that?

[@seanmckelvey6618]

@@CIWise But that was the "soul" of those guys. People shit on guys like Hawk for doing things differently, but that's how he could express himself on a skateboard. Skateboarding isn't supposed to be anything. It's a wooden plank with wheels, a toy. We're all just playing and having fun, and whether you find fun in "computer precision tricks" or carving around a bowl is irrelevant. It blows my mind, as a younger dude, that you guys where, as far as the average person of the time thought, outcasts and losers to begin with, and then go on to create further "losers" or "weirdos" within your own tiny little world of skateboarding? It achieved nothing. Go ride your skateboard, who gives a shit?

[@RealSkateStories]

​@@CIWise Love your takes and you are definitely preaching to the choir here. Still, I believe all different interpretations of skateboarding are just that. Overshadow is in the eye of the beholder. I too love to see the well rounded approach taken by a small, but growing percentage of the skating I see on the streets, in the parks, online in video parts and in contests. I hope to see that take hold to the point to where the | "Godfather Of Street Skating" title bestowed upon Rodney no longer fits.

[@CIWise]

@@RealSkateStories And, Big Bro, as a journalist, you absolutely HAVE to report on the current trends. And, if that's calling Mullen the Godfather, you have to report it--point blank! That's why this is in no way a shot at what YOU'RE doing. (I know I speak for many here in saying that--especially guys my age--we need you!) I just want to push back against the mainstream narrative a bit, that's all. Portraying all street skating as revolving around Mullen (and, really, it's to the point where he's even seen as the Godfather of modern vert now!) is disrespectful to the legacy of all the pros like Natas and Julien Stranger, the whole Dogtown scene (Jesse Martinez, Tim Jackson, even Hosoi, who's contribution to modern street is entirely glossed over) who went a completely different way. In fact, Big Bro, you're old enough to remember the early 80s when Rocco, Lucero, Blender were inventing street shit before Gonz was even around!

[@MattZakszewski]

Of course, he's a loner but also a 7enius. He's born year of the horse which is the 7th sign in the Chinese zodiac. According to GG33, 7 is the # of the Genius but also 7 is loner energy but I'm sure alot of smart people are loners wether they're 7 lifepaths, born on the 7th, (like Jackie Chan and another horse like myself) 16 or 25th or their birthday reduces to 7 aka 7 lifepath like Stephen Hawkins.

[@telefunkenyou47]

Well, he was pigeon toed. That makes it easy.

[@mAcShred]

King of street? Naaaah. Technical wise, maybe. But street isn't all about tech flipidiflopidi... Gnarl is more important.

[@_Ramen-Vac_]

"Godfather" ~his cheeks aren't puffy enough. wad up some gauze in there, Mutt, you're the "Godfather". Hype hypnosis. Skaters tend to shine as skateboarders, not literaries. . . Same call, only different ~with engineers, scientists, jocks, etc. .. Try to describe someone/something and your pencil lead breaks. . . your pen dries up . . . Go to school to learn to communicate and all they tell you is "no talking" ? well, read a book. "Godfather" *PSHHH*

[@RealSkateStories]

Proverbial.

[@_Ramen-Vac_]

@@RealSkateStories

[@_Ramen-Vac_]

@@RealSkateStories totally joking.

[@vorpalblades]

I wouldn't say he's the godfather of street, because he didn't skate street then. Even when he did, it sucked. I hate slow, flippy shit. He invented a lot of stuff, but it wasn't him taking it out of the contests into the world.

[@RealSkateStories]

Whoever coined Rodney as the "Godfather Of Street Skating" did so in looking at the fact that most street skaters' foundation is the kickflip, then the 360 flip and it goes from there. His impact and legacy from when tech street skating took over until present day cannot be denied, regardless of one's personal preference or what type of skating they like. The first two words of your third sentence...

[@mackash]

Yeah, he certainly did, but not in a good way. We have only just recently broke free from that clicky era. Only lasted 25+ years. He is the father of ridiculous ventures like the Olympics and Nike sponsorships. Its a stain. Stick with Gonz. A real skater. Mullen was a gimmick. No different to a chain smoking acrobat doing circus tricks for everyday family types. Even down to the plain brand name clothes they wear. Look at Braile crew. Thats what Mullen created. Andy Anderson is more of a skater than Mullen. Anyone who claims Mullen is the father of skating has no idea what we are.

[@RealSkateStories]

@@mackash Godfather of street skating, which is an evolution of stuff Rodney invented. What he did is uncomparable and unmatched.

[@marcusprince3999]

​@RealSkateStories I know that Gelfand invented the Ollie (on vert), but wasn't Rodney the first person to figure out how to make it work (and Im talking about pop your tail on the ground/traditional style) and do it on flat ground?

[@RealSkateStories]

@@marcusprince3999 Yes.