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'You look like Tony Hawk': People keep almost-but-not-quite recognizing the pro skater

People know he looks like Tony Hawk, but they just can't seem to grasp that he is Tony Hawk — and it's endlessly hilarious.

Tony Hawk/Twitter, @srileyvart/Twitter
People not recognizing Tony Hawk as Tony Hawk is the most hilarious and wholesome thing ever

My best friend lives in San Diego. One day a few years ago, her teenage son came home and told her he'd made a new friend at the skate park. He talked about how they had struck up a conversation, the guy had given him some pointers, and they'd chit-chatted about this and that. "He was really cool," her son said. Then he showed her a selfie they'd taken together.

Yeah, his "new friend" was the skateboarding icon Tony Hawk. True story. Tales of Tony Hawk not being recognized as Tony Hawk—even for people who actually know who Tony Hawk is—have become the stuff of legends. The 56-year-old made a name for himself in the skateboarding world decades ago and is credited with bringing the sport into the mainstream. Even in 2020, he was listed among the Top 10 skateboarders of all time, but his fame goes far beyond the confines of his sport. He's had his own video game, cameos in film and television shows, his own clothing line—everything, apparently, but a recognizable face.

tony hawk, skateboarding, skateboarder, athlete, celebrity, meeting celebrities, culture, humor, funny, twitter Tony Hawk hits a big trick at the X Games Giphy

The "people not recognizing Tony Hawk as Tony Hawk" thing is so common it's become a meme of its own. Hawk himself jokes about it all the time, sharing hilarious interactions he has with people on his Twitter account.

This one from a couple of years ago has recently re-gone viral (or gone re-viral?) and sounds almost exactly like my friend's story:

Pretty awesome that a kid who's hanging out at the skate park can't recognize the legend!

But wait, it gets better:

The teenager, a self-identified skate-head, knows who Tony Hawk is but didn't realize he was speaking to him. Amazing.

It's just one of many similar stories. Hawk told Business Insider that it happens often, but he only shares the interactions that are the funniest.

Now the meme itself results in some funny interactions with people.

People's funny reactions to the meme are becoming their own meme: "I will know Tony Hawk when I see him."

Part of what makes the whole thing so delightful is that Tony Hawk himself is so delightful. He's down-to-earth, friendly, doesn't take himself too seriously, does a lot of connecting out in the community, and is just a genuinely likable guy.

One of the funniest parts of these stories is that people know who Tony Hawk is, know what he looks like, and know that the real Tony looks a lot like the stranger in front of them. But they just can't seem to put it all together for some reason. It's endlessly hilarious.

And to top it all off, he's still a heck of a skater. Though he retired from the pro circuit in 1999, he still skateboards for fun and charity. In fact, he recently landed a 720—two full 360-degree turns in the air off a ramp—which isn't easy for even a young skater to pull off, and then auctioned the board to raise money to help build more public skateparks. (He did say it might be his last time pulling off that trick, but who knows. Good for him for pushing the age envelope.)

And as if Tony Hawk couldn't get any cooler, his son Riley is married to Frances Bean Cobain, daughter of Kurt Cobain. They have a child together that is, by birthright, the coolest person on the planet.

tony hawk, skateboarding, skateboarder, athlete, celebrity, meeting celebrities, culture, humor, funny, twitter Tony Hawk: Excellent human Giphy

Tony Hawk—skating legend, father of four, grandfather, nice guy to all, supporter of community parks, and man that everyone adores but nobody recognizes—thanks for being such a ray of sunshine in our world. May we know you when we see you, or at least be entertaining enough to make your Twitter account if we don't.

This article originally appeared four years ago. It has been updated.

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Gen X wigs out at Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain's grandbaby being born

Use those genetic superpowers for good, little one.

Photo credits: Joseph Gall (left), P.B. Rage from USA (right)

Imagine having Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain as your granddads.

If you wanted to create a human with the most Gen X superpowers possible, the recipe would be pretty simple. Just get Kurt Cobain's kid to marry Tony Hawk's kid and have a baby, right?

Welp, that's exactly what has happened, and it's like a 90s fever dream come true.

Frances Bean Cobain—the daughter of infamous grunge legends Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love—married skating legend Tony Hawk's son Riley in October of 2023. How this news slipped past a good number of us Gen Xers is a mystery, but it's probably due to our stage of life. We're too busy caring for aging parents and putting kids through college to consume celebrity news like we used to. But whatever. That oh-so-Gen-X thing actually happened.

And now the 90s offspring supercouple just welcomed their first baby—Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk—and we typically chill Gen Xers are having a hard time staying cool over it.

The most Gen X thing that's ever happened

First of all, how is it possible that Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain could be grandpops? Isn't Gen X still young and hip? Are we really hitting the grandparent era? And second of all, this is so frickin' rad.

Needless to say, the commentary on the announcement is epic:

"Kurt Cobain’s daughter and Tony Hawk’s son just became parents? That’s a rockstar-skater royalty baby right there! Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk is bound to have some serious genes and an even cooler future ahead. Talk about a legendary family tree!"

"This is the craziest 90s collab I've ever seen."

"This kid has just been born and is already the coolest person alive."

"Imagine Kurt Cobain and Tony Hawk are both your grandfathers, you’re like the Son Goku of white people."

via GIPHY

"Alternative rock and Xtreme sports literally defined the 90s for yt ppl. His grandparents are the legends in both!"

"The most '90s grandchild to ever live."

"This is the most gen x thing i have ever seen...."

"Finally, they have created the most chill human on the planet."

"Kid's got the coolest name ever on top of the coolest family tree."

"That is going to be the raddest child of all time."

"That kid is 90s legacy. Pain and sadness met with high energy happiness and had a baby."

Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk has some awfully big shoes to fill

Some people are pointing out the pressure that can come with having incredibly famous family members, making jokes about how the kiddo will likely surprise us all by being remarkably average.


via GIPHY

"The most rebellious thing he could do is grow up and get a regular job as an accountant."

"This kid is going to grow up with the most unreasonable expectations and end up being a farmer in Illinois or something just to get away from it."

"And we though Lisa Marie Presley had an impossible standard to live up to. Godspeed, Ronin."

Of course, the kiddo doesn't actually have to fill any shoes—it's not like he chose to be born into 90s pop culture royalty and who knows how those genetics will actually play out. He could be a musical genius with incredible motor control or he could be something totally different.

Kurt Cobain and Tony Hawk led very different lives early in their fame

Despite both being Gen X icons, Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain were polar opposites in some ways. Cobain struggled with a lot in his too-short life, including physical and mental illness that eluded diagnoses, poverty and a broken family, and isolation fueled by drug addiction. He spurned the fame and fortune that came catapulting his way, not really knowing how to handle it, but before he was able to realize his dream of a simpler life with daughter Frances Bean, he tragically died by suicide at age 27. His musical genius and influence on rock music are still lauded to this day.

via GIPHY

Tony Hawk's story bears little resemblance to Cobain's, other than his huge success. He stayed away from drugs early in his rise to fame and became part of the anti-drug PSA campaign in his youth. He did slip into some over-drinking and use of painkillers in his 30s, but then stepped away from the partying lifestyle altogether. Though he retired from competition in 2003 and is no longer trying to push the envelope with new tricks, he still skates for fun at age 56. His four children came from his first three marriages, all of which ended in divorce, and he's been married to his fourth wife since 2015. The public knows him as a good guy with a friendly disposition (and a good sense of humor about people telling him he looks like Tony Hawk).

How these two famous men's genes express themselves in little Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk will remain a mystery for some time, but one thing's for sure: This kid will go down in history as having the two gnarliest granddad's ever.

Welcome to the world, little Ronin. Whatever you do, please use your Gen X superpowers for good.

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Extreme pogo sticking is a thing and it's terrifyingly impressive

Xpogo/Instagram

Extreme pogo stick is a growing niche sport.

The first pogo stick was patented in 1919, and every couple of generations, it makes a comeback. My early-'80s childhood was rife with pogo sticks (followed up by the much-easier-to-use Pogo Bal) and to this day I'm thankful I never broke an ankle trying to use them.

Some of us are built for pogo sticks and some of us are not, friends. I definitely was not, which is why the extreme pogo stick movement absolutely blows my mind.

Not only do people bounce around on pogo sticks without falling on their faces, but they also do flips and tricks and slide down rails and other things that would make every mother's heart jump into her throat.

I mean, just watch this:

Aside from wanting to yell, "Why aren't you wearing a helmet?!?" at some of these guys, I'm mesmerized by these feats. Again, I couldn't even get the pogo stick to bounce around normally when I was a kid. How do they do this? How?

One of the now best-known professional (yes, professional) pogo stick riders, Tone Staubs, got started as a teen, when he saw someone doing pogo tricks. He was inspired to dust off the pogo stick he'd gotten for his 8th birthday and give extreme pogoing a go.

Now, 15 years later, he holds the Guinness World Record for pogo stick jumps in one minute (266 jumps) and still does tricks no one else has ever done. And he loves it.

"It allowed me to express myself and become the person I wanted to be," Staubs told The Gazette. "I easily could've been stuck at some job I don’t want."

(And yes, he has twisted, rolled, dislocated, hyperextended and broken various body parts in those 15 years. Be careful, kids.)

Extreme pogo stick is a niche extreme sport, but it's growing. Xpogo, a company dedicated to the sport, puts on Pogopalooza: The World Championships of Pogo each year.

Watch the winners of the Best Trick from Pogopalooza 2021. Utterly bonkers.

All I see here is terror and bumps and bruises, and yet I can't stop watching.

They even do a high jump competition. On pogo sticks. Humans are incredible.

I mean, come on…

Seriously, terrifyingly impressive.

Follow Xpogo on Instagram and YouTube for more extreme pogoing fun.

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Fearless 6-year-old skater impresses, dropping into a 12-foot bowl in her pink party dress

This article originally appeared on 04.13.21


It's one thing to see a little kid skateboarding. It's another to see a stereotype-defying little girl skateboarding. And it's entirely another to see Paige Tobin.

Paige is a 6-year-old skateboarding wonder from Australia. A recent video of her dropping into a 12-foot bowl on her has gone viral, both for the feat itself and for the style with which she does it. Decked out in a pink party dress, a leopard-print helmet, and rainbow socks, she looks nothing like you'd expect a skater dropping into a 12-foot bowl to look. And yet, here she is, blowing people's minds all over the place.

For those who may not fully appreciate the impressiveness of this feat, here's some perspective. My adrenaline junkie brother, who has been skateboarding since childhood and who races down rugged mountain faces on a bike for fun, shared this video and commented, "If I dropped in to a bowl twice as deep as my age it would be my first and last time doing so...this fearless kid has a bright future!"

It's scarier than it looks, and it looks pretty darn scary.

Paige doesn't always dress like a princess when she skates, not that it matters. Her talent and skill with the board are what gets people's attention. (The rainbow socks are kind of her signature, however.)

Her Instagram feed is filled with photos and videos of her skateboarding and surfing, and the body coordination she's gained at such a young age is truly something.

Here she was at three years old:

And here she is at age four:


So, if she dropped into a 6-foot bowl at age three and a 12-foot bowl at age six—is there such a thing as an 18-foot bowl for her to tackle when she's nine?

Paige clearly enjoys skating and has high ambitions in the skating world. "I want to go to the Olympics, and I want to be a pro skater," she told Power of Positivity when she was five. She already seems to be well on her way toward that goal.

How did she get so good? Well, Paige's mom gave her a skateboard when she wasn't even preschool age yet, and she loved it. Her mom got her lessons, and she's spent the past three years skating almost daily. She practices at local skate parks and competes in local competitions.

She also naturally has her fair share of spills, some of which you can see on her Instagram channel. Falling is part of the sport—you can't learn if you don't fall. Conquering the fear of falling is the key, and the thing that's hardest for most people to get over.

Perhaps Paige started too young to let fear override her desire to skate. Perhaps she's been taught to manage her fears, or maybe she's just naturally less afraid than other people. Or maybe there's something magical about the rainbow socks. Whatever it is, it's clear that this girl doesn't let fear get in the way of her doing what she wants to do. An admirable quality in anyone, but particularly striking to see in someone so young.

Way to go, Paige. Your perseverance and courage are inspiring, as is your unique fashion sense. Can't wait to see what you do next.

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