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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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Okay, so skateboarding is officially an awesome addition to the Olympics

NBC Sports/YouTube

For the first time, skateboarding is an official Olympic sport, and after watching the men's and women's street skateboarding events this weekend, our family has decided it's officially a totally welcome addition.

I grew up with a skateboarding brother during the earliest years of Tony Hawk's career, so the sport itself isn't unfamiliar to me. But I've never really followed skate competitions and wasn't sure how it would translate into an Olympic event. As it turns out, there are several things that make it both entertaining and refreshing to watch in comparison with other sports.

For one, let's talk about the "uniform" the athletes wear. As debates rage over volleyball bikinis and gymnastics leotards, here are the male and female skateboarders in long, loose pants and baggy t-shirts. They are the most comfortable-looking Olympians I've ever seen (being out in the humid Japanese heat notwithstanding). They look like they just popped off the couch after watching a movie and decided to go out and hop on their skateboard.

Secondly, hearing the announcers call out the names of the tricks was surprisingly entertaining. We laughed out loud as they strung together words like "That was a gnarly Frontside Half Cab Kickflip to a Nollie Backside 180!" as if those are just normal things everyone recognizes. Half the time it sounded like they were making things up (they weren't, of course), which we found just delightful. At the same time, the announcers were good about explaining what the tricks entailed so that those of us who aren't familiar with the ins and outs could appreciate what we were seeing.

Third, it was awesome to see the chill culture of skateboarding take root on the world's biggest, most intense sports stage. Skaters are competitive, no doubt, but they also all cheer each other on and seem so supportive of one another. In skateboarding, anyone landing an epic trick is a cause for celebration, and anyone who stumbles gets a pat on the back and a high five for the attempt. There's no cutthroat vibe here, just a unique combo of concentration and laid-backness, which is fun to witness.

Surely, there was heartbreak among those who hoped to medal, as there is in any sport. But the vibe was just different than it is n most sports. I mean, this is Margielyn Didal, who finished 7th and had some hard falls during the finals. She was like this pretty much the whole time. Pure joy.

And how about the diversity in ages, especially among the women skaters? We almost ended up with two teens and a 34-year-old on the podium in the women's street competition, with a spread of 21 years between the youngest and oldest. (American skater Alexis Sablone turns 35 in a couple of weeks and ended up in 4th place after the final trick.) The gold and silver medal winners are both 13 years old, and the bronze winner is 16. And while the young skaters dominated in the end, Sablone showed that it's not just a sport for the youth.

(But let's also take a moment of awe for these 13-year-olds, Momiji Nishiya of Japan and Rayssa Leal of Brazil. Holy moly. So much talent and such great sportsmanship and such a young age.)

Finally, let's have a moment of appreciation for the sport itself. It took a long time for the athletic world to fully appreciate the skill and practice it takes to do things like flip a moving board with four wheels several feet into the air with your feet, make it do just the right number of flips and turns in the air beneath you, stop it in exactly the right position to slide down a railing over a flight of stairs, and then land it on the ground—all while the board and you are flying through the air—without falling off. When skaters do it perfectly, it looks easy. But it's a million little movements and balances and weight distributions and calculations that make these tricks work, and as we saw from how many they don't land how hard it really is.

Also, they land on concrete when they fall. Ouch. And sometimes things like this happen:

Double ouch.

Our family and friends have thoroughly enjoyed seeing skateboarding take its place on the Olympic stage, and are looking forward to seeing the park skateboarding competition coming up. Good move making skateboarding an official Olympic sport, finally. Definitely recommend checking out the highlights if you missed it:

THIRTEEN-year-old Momiji Nishiya wins gold in street skateboarding | Tokyo Olympics | NBC Sportswww.youtube.com

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Two 12-year-old girls qualified to compete in the first-ever Olympic skateboarding event

Sky Brown/Instagram, Kokona Hiraki/Instagram

Very few 12-year-olds get the chance to make history, but a pair of skateboarding phenoms may be headed to Tokyo this summer to do just that as two of the youngest-ever summer Olympians.

Kokona Hiraki and Sky Brown aren't you're typical skateboarders, nor are they your typical preteens. You don't get to the Olympics at 12 by being ordinary. Both girls have qualified to compete in the first-ever Olympic skateboarding event, with Hiraki skating for Japan and Brown representing Great Britain. Both girls compete in the park skateboarding event, which involves doing tricks on skate park-style ramps and bowls. Street skateboarding, which involves tricks done on stairs, handrails, benches, walls and slopes, will also be making its debut as an Olympic sport.

Brown currently ranks as the third-best female park skateboarding competitor in the world at age 12 (though she'll be 13 by the time she reaches Tokyo). Hiraki ranks sixth in the world. At age 12.

Did I mention they are 12 years old? TWELVE. Unreal.

Hiraki will compete as the youngest Olympian ever from Japan. Five of the top ten ranking female park skaters, including the top two, are Japanese, so competition from the country is fierce. But Hiraki told The Japan Times she didn't let nerves get the better of her at the qualifier.

"I was enjoying it just as usual," she said. "I wasn't as nervous as usual."

Sky Brown would have been Britain's youngest ever Olympian if the Olympics hadn't been postponed by a year, but that year turned out to be a good thing for her chances to compete anyway. In June of 2020, Brown suffered horrifying injuries during a training fall in which she fractured her skull and broke her wrist and hand. The fact that she was able to recover, continue training, and then take home second place in the Olympic qualifier is truly something.


Brown doesn't seem too fazed by any of her skating success or the pressures many athletes feel trying to get to the Olympics. "I'm always wonderfully surprised to see where it takes me," she told ESPN. "So, I'm not too stressed about the Olympics. I just want to see what happens and enjoy the journey."

Gracious, these babies and their cool-as-a-cucumber confidence.

Last year, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk told ESPN that Brown is "a unicorn" in the world of skating.

"She has incredible potential," he said. "She could definitely be one of the best female skaters ever, if not one of the best, well-rounded skaters ever, regardless of gender. She has such confidence, such force, even at such a young age. The way she's able to learn new tricks and the way she absorbs direction, it's so rare."

Whether they end up medaling or not, to qualify for the Olympics at 12 is extraordinary and their futures in the sport are incredibly bright. Go, girls, go.

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Tony Hawk helped create a song for an autistic teen who is soothed by skateboarding rhythms

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Odin Frost has always loved the sound of skateboarding, especially the rhythmic sound of the wheels rolling over wood. As a nonverbal autistic young man, having tools for soothing distress and anxiety is important for Odin, and his parents say he connects with music and different kinds of rhythms.

Tim Frost, Odin's dad, sent legendary skater Tony Hawk an email inviting him to collaborate with him and Odin on a musical piece based on the sounds of skateboarding. The idea was that they could use skateboard sounds as percussion and build a song around it. Not only did Tony agree to help out, but he did a special recording of a run on the half pipe specifically for Odin and Tim to use for that purpose.

If Odin looks familiar, there's a good reason for that. We shared his life story last summer, when photos of him and his best friend Jordan went viral after their high school graduation. Both boys had both been given slim chances of survival and had overcome tremendous obstacles to graduate from high school, and their story of friendship, perseverance, and family support touched millions.

Upworthy was thrilled to learn about Odin had gotten a chance to meet his hero, Tony Hawk, and we recently caught up with both Tony and the Frost family to chat about their musical endeavor and what it was like for them to meet one another.

Despite living very different lives, Tony told us that he identifies with Odin in a couple of ways. One, he understands what it was like to be different from other kids growing up, and celebrates what's good in that experience. And two, he knows how having parents who support you makes all the difference in the world.

"You can see that Odin thrives from it," Tony told us. "I met him. I can tell that he's right there with them. You know, on the surface, from the outsider's perspective, you don't understand how in tune he really is with everyone."

Tim shared how he came up with the idea of making a song based off of Tony's skateboarding with and for Odin, and Tony explained how it helped him see skating in a whole new way.

"I think I didn't understand the potential of it until I heard the song they created," said Tony. "I think that one thing that Odin has taught me is that there is a zen of skating in just the motion and the sound of it that maybe I never had tuned into."

Imagine teaching the world's most recognizable skater (at least by name) something new about skateboarding. But as Tony said, "We learn from each other." Indeed we do. What a delightful match-up of creativity and humanity this collaboration turned out to be.

You can see more of the Frosts' story about connecting with Tony Hawk and listen to the whole song they created here. (The song begins at the 2:00 mark.)

Dropped In -Featuring Tony Hawkyoutu.be

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