When I started skating, I didn't really intend to have content creation so closely tied to this new hobby. I just thought it would be fun to record my progress, and slowly fell into this habit of making videos after each session. If you follow any of my social media, you probably know what I mean.
In some ways, I love that there's roller skating has become intertwined with creating videos that I really love. I've discovered my creative side again, and it's really awesome to show the world what my skating journey looks like in what I think is a pretty entertaining way. I definitely think people might roll their eyes and assume that I don't really love skating and only do it so I can make TikToks, but honestly at some point in your life you need to just accept the fact that there will always be haters no matter what. I enjoy this relationship that I have between content creation and roller skating. It combines two things that I really love and I think it's really cool.
And obviously, there's hundreds of other roller skaters doing the same thing. We all record our skate days and share it for other skaters to admire. Whether we're in a stunning location, focusing on unlocking new tricks, or even just having a funny day where we all just fall a lot - we're all constantly putting out new content that creates this kind of unrealistic view of roller skating. That it's always nonstop fun. Nonstop unlocking new tricks or mastering the ones we already got down. We even turn the days where we just can't stop eating shit into entertainment.
But what about those days where nothing seems to really happen? It was an okay skate day, but nothing really spectacular happened. To put it simply, it was just an uneventful day. Nothing really entertaining to watch. That can be frustrating by itself as a skater, but then there's this added pressure that you need to go home and somehow create a magical video that will inspire your followers. How can you inspire your followers when you don't even feel inspired yourself? How can you create an awesome video when you didn't even really do anything that day? It's like rubbing salt in the wound, as if having a meh skate day wasn't already bad enough you're now reminded of how boring it really was.
This is just something I struggle with a lot, especially right now that I'm going through a plateau. So I'm working on accepting roller skating isn't always going to be super entertaining, and it doesn't have to. I don't have to create content just because I skated that day. And yes, boring days are going to happen. I don't wake up every day and expect my day to be extraordinary, so why would I expect that from every roller skating session?
It's well known that when you look at someone's social media, you'll be looking at their life through rose colored glasses. For those of us that are creating content for other skaters to watch, I think it is important to acknowledge the fact that you won't walk away from every skate day feeling like you just conquered the world. Although those days definitely do happen, mediocre ones occur too.
It can be overwhelming to scroll through tiktok and just feel like everyone else in this roller skating community is just thriving while you have plenty of blah days. Please remind yourself, everyone faces the same boring days. Progress isn't linear, plateaus are normal, and if every day was really extraordinary - no day would feel extraordinary at all.