Transworld Skateboarding Magazine: A hell of a run.

It’s becoming less of a shock these days when a print publication falls away. However when news broke recently that Transworld Skateboarding was shuttering its print product, this one was a bit more personal for some reason.

TWS was truly a bible to generations of young skaters as the sport underwent some of the dramatic transitions that led us to where we are today. Virtually every skate legend has had a cover (or multiple) and the list of talent on the other side of the lens was no less impressive. What started very humbly in a warehouse in Oceanside some 35 years ago eventually became a powerful and important voice in skateboarding. Like the news of Surfer Magazine shuttering as well a few weeks back, these media giants no longer existing is simply hard to fathom. Especially given their authoritative position in their respective sports just a few short years ago.

Not withstanding that fact that basically the same management team, under various owners, has now closed some or all function of Surfer, Surfing, Transworld Surf, Snow and Skate, and a host of others, it’s easy to point the finger of blame at the inevitable corporate takeover media seems destined to. However, to some degree, we do have ourselves to blame. As we, the media consumer, became more permanently tethered to our digital devices the perception among brands was that there was no longer a need to support print. The ad dollars dried up, magazines sales cratered and now here we are: enslaved by Facebook and yelling at each other on message boards.

Only time will tell if indeed we are better off getting our content fix through a process that has dramatically sped up the delivery, but at what cost quality? It’s pretty hard to tell a compelling, creative story through a 2″ x 2″ screen but that reality is already well upon us whether we like it or not. Fortunately, skateboarding, and surfing, and all the other cool stuff we occupy our time with, are still there to chase and share with good friends. However, times they are a changing…

TWS, we will miss ya.

WY