Everything the Trend Couldn’t Touch

Longboards had a good run before the dreadlocked YouTube mystics got hold of them. You know the type—the ones who turned a board and some open road into a spiritual journey, filming everything in golden hour, narrating their own transformation. Suddenly every kid wanted one, and then the next thing arrived, and the scene quietly filed itself under "a phase." That’s what trends do: find something niche and good, inflate it, exhaust it, leave.

What survives is actual passion. South Korean skater Ko Hyojoo rides her board through Los Angeles, Seoul, and Zürich and documents it in YouTube videos that aren’t trying to teach you anything or reveal anyone’s character arc. Just her, the board, and whatever city surface happens to be underfoot that week. I caught her through an episode of Tracks and kept watching. The videos are unhurried to the point of being almost rude about it—nothing peaks, nothing resolves, nothing asks anything of you.

There’s a stubbornness in that I find genuinely appealing. No concept, no journey metaphor, no inspirational caption. The board moves, the camera catches it. The rest is up to you.