That Rattle When You Rewind

I miss VHS tapes. Genuinely. We had shelves of them at home—fantasy films, science fiction, animation—each one labeled in handwriting that’s since been lost to several house moves. The ritual of feeding the cassette in, hearing that mechanical click of acceptance, waiting for the tracking to stabilize: that was a different relationship with moving images than anything that came after. Tangible. Slightly unreliable. Completely yours in a way that streaming never will be.

New York’s 5Boro put that feeling on the underside of a skateboard. Their VHS Tapes deck series lifts the graphic design language of Sony, Fuji, and Panasonic cassette packaging and maps it directly onto skate decks—"Jimmy McDonald," "Willy Akers," and "Rafael Gomes" among them. Around forty euros each, available from the 5Boro shop.

Skateboard deck art has always borrowed from culture—band logos, horror imagery, graffiti—but this one hits differently, because VHS packaging carries a specific texture of time. If you recognize those labels immediately, you know exactly when you grew up. The kids at the skatepark probably won’t. Ride past them anyway.