Respect Authority

Although DVS’ shoes tend to look like New Balance got in a fist fight with skateboarding trends circa 1999, the sneaker brand sports a truly impressive roster of freakshows far too talented on a board to possibly do anything else with their lives, and has a history of using these beer-fed kickflipping automatons in breathtaking commercials.

For the past few years they’ve been basking in the glory of glitch-in-the-Matrix chic with their “Echo” series of spots, and with good reason, as I’m pretty sure they’re physically impossible to get sick of. As if watching a single Daewon Song beat your ego into a whimpering pulp throughout a video part wasn’t heartbreaking enough, now you can behold the inhuman circus act backside flip to fakie manual to half cab out twelve fucking times in a row. It’s the video incarnation of “stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, why do you keep hitting yourself,” and we all remember what a lovely game that was. Indeed, a skateboarder’s masochism runs much deeper than simply showing off a new scar.

The worst part is… Daewon Song is human. And he actually seems like a really nice guy. God damn it… he’d be so much easier to hate if he were only a machine. Now it just looks like “jealousy” or whatever.

Anyway, DVS just released their new “Shine” spots, featuring Zered Bassett, Andrew Brophy, Torey Pudwill (video below), and the industry’s best ollie, Keith Hufnagel. The ads feature gorgeous lighting, editing, and moody, atmospheric tones, which, while hardly replicating the true act of skating, sure do look purdy. And in the end, isn’t that all that really matters? Like anybody actually skates anymore anyway.

Despite the fact that I have literally no idea what channel these commercials would possibly run on, considering actual skaters don’t really watch any of the programming out-of-touch marketers would assume they do (whatever show Bam Margera is using as an excuse to torture his family these days, all day motocross marathons on ESPN2, porn… okay maybe that last one), if nothing else, they do make for some nice distraction on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, when the only people left at the office aren’t even doing any real work because all of their bosses took the day off. Hey, it beats trying to move the hands of the clock with your mind… again.

A lot of people claim “skateboarding saved my life,” but you see, I really mean it. Well… at the very least, it saved my past five minutes, and on days like these, that’s pure gold.