The Thousands

When you see how excited eleven young skateboarders get about sleeping on the Vans warehouse floor in Brooklyn – and skating NYC on $20 a day – it might make you feel embarrassingly coddled, unadventurous, and unappreciative. Realising all your skate punk buddies would have been just as stoked to crash at a friend’s place in any great skate city reminds you that’s how skaters everywhere actually are.

Reality program One In A Million is the most accurate portrayal I’ve seen of how skaters actually are; how they look, talk, socialise, and skate. Watching the show’s skate sessions gives a real feel for how they flow: progress, slams, bails, and successful attempts, alongside the subtle push-pull between bro-therly support and competitive one-upsmanship. Competition is in no way vital to skateboarding, and many skaters abhor it, so it’s funny to watch the competitive reality format gel to skater’s attitudes. Their on-camera confessionals are humble and deadpan rather than self-important and demonstrative; instead of bragging and shit talking the competition, they are self-effacing, silly, and will gladly cheer the other skaters on.

Season one of OIAM aired on Slap Magazine‘s website in 2010. In 2012 they’ve upped the production, hosting it on brand new online skate network RIDEChannel (which produces some other great programs) and securing one of the most reputable, gnarly and just plain likable skaters as host – John Cardiel. Most shows about skateboarders have been credible-yet-corny (Rob and Big) or utterly cringeworthy (Life of Ryan), and televised contests are often cluelessly out-of-touch (“Bob’s kicker flip to tail grind is sure to take down The Bird Man in the finals!”). One In A Million is refreshingly down to earth and way closer to what it’s really like.