We often praise skateboarding for being a warm and welcoming community. However, skaters can be quite judgemental towards skateboard brands, tricks and, well, other skaters.
While it usually originates from a good place. Skaters care about perpetuating the original spirit and freedom associated with skateboarding. It can result in pretty harsh comments, or straight up hate, towards some skaters who went against the grain.
Let’s have a look at 10 of the most hated skaters throughout skateboarding history to try and understand what brought them to the rank of outcasts of the skateboarding world.
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1. Ali Boulala
Ali Boulala is a famous swedish professional skateboarder from the late 90s-early 2000s era. Notorious for being both a pissdrunk and a gap stomper—he was the first man to ever step to Lyon 25—Boulala’s career built up pretty quickly as he got sponsored by the european brand Cliché Skateboard and quickly moved to the USA. Close friends with the Baker boys, loved by the community all together, Ali’s life took a tragic turn one night of winter 2007.
The 7th march of 2007, Ali was partying with some of his homies in a little apartment in Melbourne, Australia. Him and one of his best friends, upcoming pro skateboarder Shane Cross, decided to take a quick ride around the block to test Ali’s newly bought motorcycle. Sadly, their trip went south, as both were intoxicated, and they had an incident. Shane died on impact and Ali was left severely injured and unconscious.
After going to jail for X years, Ali went on a redemption journey quitting alcohol and partying all together. Today, 15 years later, Ali Boulala still receives his fair share of hate on social media.
2. Corey Duffel
Corey Duffel is a Californian skateboarder, notorious for his grunge and punk style. Skating wise he’s known for tackling some of the biggest gaps in the history of skateboarding such as Davis Gap or El Toro.
Corey became famous in the skate world as he was only a kid. He even got called by the satirical skate magazine Big Brother which was a dream of his.
But the dream soon turned into a nightmare as 15 years old Corey Duffel decided to play a role during the interview. He portrayed himself as arrogant, calling out legends like Jim Greco and Stevie Williams, hating on gay people and overly using the N-word.
After this interview, the whole skate community turned its back to Corey who lost all his sponsors shortly after it went live. Even if today, he has recovered from his mistakes, it makes no doubt that this interview tarnished his career for good.
3. Rob Dyrdek
While Rodney Mullen is considered the godfather of street skateboarding by the community, Rob Dyrdek has been widely hated for being a sell-out, despite the immense impact he had on modern skateboarding and media.
Rob Dyrdek is mostly remembered for his MTV TV Shows “Rob & Big” and “Fantasy Factory” which helped to put skateboarding into the mainstream. Skaters even tend to forget Rob was actually a talented street skater.
Nowadays, there is no doubt that Dyrdek is a businessman. His latest venture, Dyrdek Machine, focuses on helping brands and businesses grow.
Although his most famous, and yet most criticized, creation is the Street League Skateboarding that became the most watched contest in the world. SLS also helped to both democratize the discipline and pay skaters somewhat close to what athletes from other mainstream sports are making.
4. Ryan Sheckler
Ryan Sheckler was one of US most known skateboarders in the early 2000s. Good looking and bankable, he had the nickname of “Justin Bieber of skateboarding”. But besides the jealousy of many riders, he didn’t receive that much hate in the early days of its career.
However, when he signed a million dollar deal with MTV for its own reality show “The Life of Ryan” , he started to become mocked everywhere. In the show, Sheckler was portrayed as an impulsive and spoiled child. Reputation that has followed him for the most part of his career.
In an interview for Thrasher Magazine, Ryan affirmed to Jake Phelps that he backside flipped El Toro 20. While this brought back the hype surrounding Sheckler, it turned all to be false when he released the footage years later.
5. Bam Margera
You probably know Bam Margera being a part of the Jackass. A famous crew of death defying stuntmen ready to do everything to have a laugh and make fun footage.
But did you know that Bam was a pro skater for Toy Machine and Element Skateboard?
During close to 5 years, he rode contests and filmed video parts before the whole Jackass storm took him away from skateboarding.
After Jackass, Bam launched his own TV show, Viva La Bam, where he basically did the same thing but on his property and towards his family.
The show business turned him into a drunk and unfit person which led him away from the skating world. In 2017, Bam tried to turn back into skating but his old demon caught him back.
Bam, please stop all the abuse and get better, be that awesome guy again ffs.
6. Dustin Dollin
Dustin Dollin is one of the last representatives of the pissdrunk period of skateboarding. Being very close with the Baker boys, Dustin made itself the reputation of the eternal drunk.
While almost all of his original drinking partners gave up the booze and turned into a sober life like Neen Williams and Andrew Reynolds, Dustin kept drinking and getting into troubles.
Rumor of him having drugged another skater at a contest in France, Dollin is still very involved in the skateboarding community. Although, you can see him drink and smoke more than actually skating.
7. Jereme Rogers
Jereme Rogers is a professional skateboarder born in Boston, Massachusetts. Naturally gifted, he quickly got sponsored by his local shop “Concrete Wave” and started doing demos all over the East coast.
After making the big move to the West coast, he got noticed by Mike Carrol, joining DVS and Girl Skateboard in the process. And even got nominated as Transworld “Rookie of the Year” in 2005.
But when he was at the peak of his career in 2009, Jereme decided to make the bold move to quit skating all together to pursue another dream of his: becoming a rapper.
We won’t judge its rapping skills here, but most of his skating fans were absolutely disgusted by the move. Transforming themselves into haters of whatever songs he will put out during his short rapping career.
Although he announced returning to skating only a couple years later, the damage was already done and his career tainted in the eyes of skaters and brands.
8. Jeffwon Song
Jeff DeChesare, aka JeffwonSong, is a skateboarder known for his singular bag of tricks. Capable of throwing quadruple flips down huge gaps like it’s a walk in the park. Jeff always suffered from a lack of respect from the community.
Since its early Instagram days, Jeff has had pretty much nothing but hate online. Despite the mind-blowing tricks he is able to perform, his style was always pointed out.
Here’s a quick list of the most liked comments below some of his best skate clips : “Jeff looks so uncomfortable on his board”, “No style whatsoever”, “He pushes like he just started skating 2 weeks ago.”
9. Nyjah Huston
Nyjah Huston is the definition of a skateboard prodigy. Trained by his father since he was in measure to walk.
He is the youngest skateboarder to ever win Tampa AM (which is arguably the hardest skateboarding contest). Since then Nyjah brought home countless trophies. He is the most titled skater with more than 15 million dollars of cash prizes.
Winners always get hate. But Nyjah has been mocked mainly for his high competitive spirit, lifestyle and fashion style.
As one of, if not the, most popular skaters today, Nyjah gets his fair share of hateful messages on social media. As he just got for not bringing back an medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics games.
Nijay is the king of cringe and basically a contest skater, not really someone who contributes to the culture.
10. Aaron Kyro
“My name is Aaron Kyro and I’m a professional skateboarder from the San Francisco Bay Area”.
Unless you’ve lived under a rock these past 5 years, chances are you’ve heard this sentence before. If, like me, you’ve seen hundreds of memes quoting this, you can probably recite it by heart. Well that’s exactly why Aaron Kyro is our last skater on this list.
To give you a rundown, Aaron built an empire online teaching skateboarding; at first through its Youtube channel Braille Skateboarding, and then, through its series of costly ebooks “Skateboarding Made Simple”. Aside from the bad reputation paid courses have in skateboarding, Aaron’s hate originates not from a business standpoint but from a skateboarding one.
See, although Aaron Kyro has a pro model for Revive Skateboard, and thus, is a professional skater, it’s safe to say his skating skills are nowhere near today’s requirements for being a pro.
Confirmed scientologist and internet meme, Aaron deals with its fair share of hate, but no skater can deny how much of an impact Braille had on skateboarding with its 5.5 millions subscribers.
Aaron stepped down from Braille a while ago, good riddance.
Tony Hawk
Nah Just kidding, Tony Hawk is the best thing that ever happened to skateboarding, deserves a spot in the greatest skateboarders of all time, but somehow he gets a lot of hate. Not sure why though. If you hate Tony Hawk, you really need to see a doctor. Don’t be fooled by the ‘All This Mayhem’ documentary, it’s one-sided and biased but still an awesome skateboarding documentary.
I’m an aged skateboarder and still shred responsibly. Started skateboarding 25 years ago, peaked in the 2000’s, and still ride to this day. I am a total geek when it comes to skateboard gear, love test to stuff and share my findings.