Tag: @versace_plug

Respect is often earned not given and even when it is due people feel like taking the easy route and put the focus on what they don’t like instead of what is achieved.

FLYTECC is a new company started by two brothers Jun & Hyun Kummer. Two skateboarders that you might know only by their Instagram handles @seoul_air & Versace_plug. For them, FLYTECC is a platform a creative outlet and this video is a big step into defining what their 2020 vision is.

Now there are 2 kinds of people, employees and employers both deserve respect but the difference is that the second group consists of people that are willing to take a risk, the risk to start something new.

We don’t feel like we need to explain the importance of family but it is important to show respect to two people who have taken a risk, are putting their vision out there and in this video even put their bodies on the line to show you something they felt needed to be seen.

A family-owned business is something we support and whatever you feel about the people involved or the level of creativity displayed it demands respect!

Lastly, we say all that but would like to add that Hyun wrote on IG that he filmed his best trick to this day for this project and after his last part that alone should be enough to make you press play.

Featuring:

Hyun Kummer, Jun Kummer, Jonte Klahr, Ike Fromm, Max Obert, Eric Erhardt, and London Lee.

This video was filmed by:

Leon Rudolph, Jun Kummer & Peter Buikema.

During the second edition of SKTWK we had the honor of hosting a very special contest as part of the whole event. Now you might want to know what kind of games we chose to play and the answer is BINGO! a geriatric favorite must likely currently being played in a nursing home near you!

There where multiple prizes, things like a professional full body massage, trinkets but the most valuable prize was by far the honor to shoot a Place Magazine – Snapshot Recap! That prize and in turn duty fell on the shoulders of Simon Klinkertz.

Simon turned out to have a capable eye and some strong shoulders that allowed him to get the job done in style! So, here it is our very special SKTWK Recap.

Simon would like you to know:

A very big thank you to SKTWK, Place Magazine and all the people that attended the event in Düsseldorf.

June the 21st has many names “Midsummer Night”, the longest day of the year or “Go Skateboarding day 2019”.

This year Berlin was the city, MBU the location and Vans & Radio skateboards the supporting brands but most importantly Valentin Cafuk was the MVP!

Valle told us the day before, “Either I am going home with a lot of cash or I am going home hurt but either way, I am putting it on the line!” and he did just that. The next day though, he spent it all on art supplies…

So now since GSD is over and the sun on the longest day has set. It is all downhill from here but at least we can relive the moment with this video!

We would like to thank both Vans & Radio Skateboards for their support and we will see you all next year. Let’s hope that these obstacles will stay at MBU until then!

Design is often based on other design, how many Ferrari shaped bedsheets or My Little Pony shaped birthday cakes have we not seen in our life?

So when Nike remastered the Janoski for its 10-year anniversary they also looked outside, they probably looked at animals, the sky, cement patterns, but in the end, I believe they simply looked out of their Beaverton office window onto the parking lot and there they found the answer sitting in the swooshes own parking lot.

(disclaimer: this might not be factual, they might have just found pictures of the car on the internet)

Photos by Danny Sommerfeld.
Text by Roland Hoogwater.

The story continues below…

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The Volkswagen Polo “Harlekin’s” story connects to the Janoski in multiple ways. It was in 1994 that the German company wanted to draw attention to their newly-updated Polo model but the problem they had to solve was:

“How do we get people to look at the newness?”.

The answer came in all colors! They devised a special showroom model of the new 6N, this model would breathe NEW! But this model was only meant to show off in the showroom it wasn’t available to the public… Well a couple of the showroom models actually did get sold afterwards and those cars began to create “word of mouth” on the streets and when the streets are talking the people at VW were listening.

1995 swings around and featured in the catalog is the now legendary VW 6N Harlekin as demanded by the public and in 2019 a similar story can be told about Nike SB’s Janoski shoe. Like the Polo, it looks similar but it is not quite the same, from little leather linings to the tape on the sole, everything has been tweaked for ’19 and that is where the two stories meet.

The story concludes below…

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Fast forward to the 10th of May, Denny Pham, Jan Henrik Kongstein, Peter Buikema, Leo Preisinger and myself find ourselves driving around Berlin in a VW Harlekin wearing the Janoski Harlekin, we are putting both through the wringer for the next 2,5 days.

We didn’t do that alone, of course, we invited some Nike riders and Berlin locals to test it with us along the way.

To be honest the car has had a bit more mileage than the shoe but both held up quite well during our time even though Leo had his doubts about the car.

After the 2.5 days we concluded a couple of things:

  1. Denny Pham skates like he is playing THPS.
  2. The “new” Janoski looks better than the “old” Janoski (look closely).
  3. Jan Kliewer can shove his board like it is 1991.
  4. Jan Henrik like all people in Norway is hella tech.
  5. Michael Mackrodt drives a car the same way he skates.

Thank you for the support Skatedeluxe and Nike SB <3

At the end of last week, Tom Weimar contacted us by simply sending us a link to his newest video, something that happens from time to time and is always appreciated. We wrote back telling him that we would check it out tomorrow and he wrote back “😻”.

From the first time we worked with Tom – launching one of his previous projects “ANTR’S MIX” – we knew we were in for a ride. After watching about a minute I wrote him back asking for some more information, you can read his response below:

Intro by Roland Hoogwater.
Text, video and images by Tom Weimar.

When you asked me why I made this video, at first I didn’t really know what to say. Putting out VX1000 style montages every once in a while has kind of become a routine. I do it primarily because I need to go skateboarding to relieve stress and when I go skate – at least during the summer months – I have my VX with me to film the sessions.

This year, around mid-summer, I had a couple of things filmed and a couple of my friends started to get ambitious, thinking about the footage they had and actively trying to get more. Because of them, I started to think about the editing process, selecting music and building a concept.

To be honest, I generally spend more time checking out music online than watching skate videos… Searching for Hip Hop, R&B, Funk, Soul, Experimental etc. is what I spend a lot of time on.

What links this video, “DORI’S DANCE”, to one of my previous ones, “ANTR’S MIX”, is that I wanted to edit the complete montage to the music of one DJ or producer, one whose music I value.

For this project I asked AVBVRN if he would be okay with sending me some of his tracks/bootlegs that could be matched to skate footage. And he did, he sent me some “weirdo” stuff. 🙂

To conclude, not only did I want to include all the skaters that I skate with but also my friend Dori. She is a multi-talent that can both act and dance. Making her part of the video felt natural to me. So, here is “DORI’S DANCE”, enjoy!

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Filmed & Edited by Tom Weimar

Additional Filming: Kertan, Martin (Hummus), Paul H.

Music:

Avbvrn x Smokepurpp: Seep x 6 Rings (Avbvrn Bootleg)

Avbvrn: MMM

Avbvrn: CO2

Lk Jogador, Mc Mary, Mc Wesley & Mc Code x Galcher Lustwerk x Lloyd SB: a Giro Louco x Galcher x 3X23 (Avbvrn Bootleg)

Eaves: Wound (Avbvrn Edit) (Remastered)

Avbvrn: Living in Ridgecrest

Los Angeles is a town based on movie and television money, Hollywood is right there, it says so on the sign! So for us to present you with still photography only, would be a wasted opportunity. So we packed our cameras and filmed our own little video and here it is.

Featuring:
Kai Hillebrand, Hyun “Versace_plug” Kummer, Michal Juraś, Kuba Brniak, Jonte Klahr and David Jakinda skating in and around LA LA Land.

What happens when you open an account on Instagram and it happens to become big? People want to be featured by you, companies want to work with you, do you say yes, or do you say no and what are the dangers? We spoke with Hans Smit who started @theworldofskateboarding about how he lost his account and more importantly how he got it back in the end.

Interview by Roland Hoogwater.

So Hans, tell me how it all started, why did you start @theworldofskateboarding?

I started the account in Feb 2016. I was sick at home for a few days, I was super bored and that’s when I came up with the idea to create the Instagram. And it went pretty well. I just thought of a name and made the account on Instagram, and in the first week, it already hit a thousand followers. And that just continued, week by week it gained thousands of followers. I’m on my phone a lot so I’m very quick with reposting. Sometimes Joel from Metro Skateboarding reposts clips via me because I’m first, and then he tags me which also gave me a boost. Apparently, I repost the right clips and it just grew really fast. And it’s still growing, monthly I gain like 15K followers, it’s crazy.

Alright, that is a lot of responsibility.

Yes, it is, and then all of a sudden I got hacked. Someone wanted to make a promotion deal. Sometimes I earn a bit of money by doing some promotion. But it has to seem legit, there are daily people asking me to promote their stuff of which I think: “Nah, I’m not doing that”.

So this guy wanted me to promote “his app”, some kind of skateboard game. But he wanted to see some statistics on my account, it was an Android app so he wanted to know how many of my followers use android. He told me to go to a certain website, it was called “Iconosquare”. I’m always a bit skeptical about these kinds of things so first I just checked the website out and it’s a legit company, they had millions of users. So, I logged in, got all my statistics except the ones he was asking for. I wrote the guy and told him that I could not find the statistics he wanted and then he sent me a link, also from Iconosquare. I opened it and it seemed like I was just on the Iconosquare website, so I just logged in. At this moment I was about to bike home, I got on my bike and two minutes later I was home and found out the password was changed. I searched for the account on Instagram, but he changed the name to “Thatskateboardingpage” which later turned in to “Skateboardinghome”. The hacker sold the account very quickly. Now I have it back I can read some of his DM’s, he removed most of them though. I read this one DM of the guy who bought it and it was something like: “I bought this account for $600 because it was jacked, LOL!”, he was talking about it like one big joke. He bought it for $600, which is way too less for an account this big, so he got a good deal, except he lost the account now and his $600.

So when I saw I got hacked I instantly contacted Instagram, but they’re not very easy to talk to. They send one email a day. But I made a big mistake. I have two email addresses which I both already used for my personal Instagram and another one. I thought I made a new email address for this account, but apparently, I didn’t. There was only my phone number linked to the account, which the hacker changed immediately, of course. So in order to get your account back, you have to give your registration data, like email address and phone number. I gave them all my data, my phone number, my email addresses but then they told me that they can’t verify me based on this data. Then I panicked a bit, what should I do? You know? Then I reached out to Fred van Schie, he works for Instagram. But he told me the same, without the email address that’s linked to the account, it’s gonna be very tough to get it back. But he gave me some tips. Then I just wrote a super long email to Instagram with all kinds of evidence that the account belongs to me. Like screenshots from statistics, contacts I had, screenshots of DM’s, a screenshot from one time in Copenhagen where Rob Meronek, from The Boardr, took a picture of me and put it on his website and it said something like: “This is Hans, he runs Theworldofskateboarding on Instagram”, just all kinds of stuff that should convince Instagram that it’s my account. It took so long, they just kept on sending maximum one email a day. After a few days, I received a mail which said that they verified that the account was mine. They told me I can change my password again but that didn’t work because they didn’t update the phone number I gave them. So that took another three days. Then last Friday it finally worked, they sent me a security code to the right phone number, I changed the password. There was this guy, @pactskateboarding, he also has an Instagram page like mine. He recently got hacked too and when he saw that I got hacked, he immediately made a new page and claimed the name “Theworldofskateboarding” to reserve it for me. So I could change my name back to what it was, that was super nice. Now I finally have it back. Changed the data, put on two-step verification to protect it.

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Did they post stuff on the account?

Yeah, the guy who bought the account just continued posting skateboard clips. Everywhere where it said Theworldofskateboarding, he just replaced it with his new name, Skateboardinghome. I always add a bit of text in the description like:”Tag us to get featured” and “Follow us @Theworldofskateboarding”, and he just changed all of that for the last 30 posts or something. He just started posting skateboard clips, maybe just stuff he saw on other pages, or maybe he did skate himself, I don’t know. I can’t really imagine that this guy skates himself, I can’t imagine a skateboarder doing this to another skateboarder, you know? I find that hard to believe. But yeah, he just kept on posting skateboarding and he sent messages to like 50 company’s, asking if they need any promotion. But also to like electric longboard company’s and such, which are big company’s who could pay good money. But it’s not that easy, the company’s kind of want to know who they’re dealing with. I could read all of his DM’s and he was kind of rude to all these company’s, so I don’t think any of them did business with him. Now I sent a message to all these company’s, telling them I was hacked, the person you were talking to was not me.So I don’t think he earned anything, except for the hacked who sold it to him for $600, I guess this guy does this a lot. This whole thing didn’t really cost me anything, except time of course. But he only lost around 600 followers, but that’s what you can gain in a day.

Did you find out who was behind the hack?

I have no idea who did this to me. When it happened I just sent DM’s with my personal account to my hacked account, I told him I want it back of course, but he didn’t reply. I tried to change the password but he gets notified when I do this, so at one point I got a message from him which said something like:”If you continue trying to get your account back, I will hack your phone, I will hack your bank account, I will destroy your life”. Which was just bluff, I’m pretty sure he’s not able to do that. But yeah, no idea who it was.

Who it was I don’t know, I can’t find out, you know? Maybe Instagram can, maybe they can check the IP address or something, I don’t know. But it would be such a hassle to find out. And then what, you know. I reached my goal, I got my account back and now I put more effort into keeping it secure. I don’t really feel like putting lots of time into it anymore.

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Did they post any good clips?

(laughs) Yeah kind of, some of which I was like: ”Oh yeah, I probably would’ve posted that too!” (laughs). They posted this clip from @versace_plug, it actually had a lot of views, too.

Actually, what was kind of sick, I made a backup page, on which I told people that my account got hacked. And this friend of mine tagged a lot of pro’s in that post, amongst them was Steve Berra, he actually commented, asking if it was my page so I DM’ed him. He was super compassionate, he gave me his email address and told me to send him the whole story. He then offered to help me, they’ve had some Instagram troubles in the past, so he had some contacts. Which is super cool, I mean he doesn’t have to do this, he’s probably super busy and I’m just a random guy. I still have some ideas laying around which I now maybe could propose to Berra, maybe we can work together. That’s pretty cool.

What about mainstream media, did they cover this?

It made it to the newspaper. A guy I know who used to work in the same skate shop as me, now has this job, something with social media, so I thought maybe he can help me, so I wrote him. This guy also works for this television/news channel. He thought it was an interesting story so he pitched it to them. And they wrote an article about it. At this point it didn’t look that promising with Instagram so I thought maybe if I get some publicity, it might help me. Then some newspaper called me and wrote about it. There was also an article about it on the website of a magazine that targets middle-aged woman, (laughs).

So how did you end up getting your account back?

I don’t know what at the end made Instagram decide to give me the account back, maybe it was just a combination of things. I sent all of this “evidence”, you know. And going to the media might have helped. I was super stressed out, it felt so terrible. I put a lot of time and effort on this page. Of course, I like to do it, I wouldn’t have started it if I didn’t, but it takes so much time. Now it’s pretty big and I’m very happy with it, it brings me a lot of nice things, like good contacts and opportunities, like for example go to events and such, and I earn some money with it. It’s super cool! Would’ve been so sad if it would’ve been gone, but yeah, it’s back!

But you’re not doing that much promotion, right?

No, not that much. And I want to keep it that way, I don’t want my account to be like a Nascar sports-car which has advertisement all over, you know? That just doesn’t look good. It’s a way to earn a lot of money, I could do promo every day for like €50. But I think you can do that only for a few months maybe, but after that no-one will take your page seriously anymore, after that it’s over. I do some promo every now and then but only if it’s legit. Sometimes I promote stuff from my local Skateshop, Sparky (the Netherlands) and sometimes I do giveaways, those are cool to do.

If you did not get back your account, you could probably build it up again. I would think these followers came to you because of your “taste” in clips.

Yeah, maybe. But still, that would take like a year and a half for something you already accomplished once.

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True, and then you would constantly compare it, like you would be thinking: “Now I’m halfway the followers I had” or “Now I have this many compared to what I had”, that would probably feel like it takes so much time.

Yeah, exactly. And nowadays there are so many of these pages, I think that I started at the right time. I mean all these pages have a good amount of followers but there’s not really need for another one of these pages anymore. There are also pages that literally repost everything that I’m posting, including the text. That’s just weird.

Happy you got it back, thanks, Hans!

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