How Sony unintentionally defined the skate video

In 2022, Tony Hawk is a household name, skateboarding is an olympic sport and it's possible to master digital laser flips in any number of video games on TV. Early skate screen media consisted mostly of skeptical documentaries or whimsical California dreaming-style chronicles. Things changed when, in 1983, Stacy Peralta – who managed the ragtag team of skaters that Tony Hawk was a member of – effectively invented the modern skate video. Thanks to its performative nature, skateboarding would soon form a symbiotic relationship with the technology that showcased it. Peralta claims he hoped a few hundred copies of his first video might find their way into the new VHS players that were taking the US by storm.