In ‘The First Ever Viral Skateboarding Video Global Phenomenon | PJ Ladd’, our host, Torey Pudwill sets the stage for ‘A Horribly, Wonderful Global Phenomenon’, where we tell the behind-the-scenes story of the groundbreaking, game changing and curious success of, ‘PJ Ladd’s Wonderful, Horrible Life’ by Coliseum Skate Shop, out of Melrose, Massachusetts in 2002.
This was intended to be a local shop video, so why was this video such a global phenomenon? We sat down with the man himself, PJ Ladd along to get the inside scoop. He says it all began once their friend got a Sony VX100 and casually filming skate tricks. PJ would skate in his father’s garage and then take the train into the city to meet with the Coliseum crew. The truth is, nobody really knows why it spread so vastly aside from the fact that it was great! Behind the greatness was a pure, skate energy as PJ describes it…something highly relatable to skaters worldwide, something you can’t imitate or recreate. The skaters, the characters, everything that makes up your classic “skate crew”. Ryan Gallant claims it was a mix of that…and a little bit of rumor-spreading by the shop owners and Filmer, Matt Roman, Arty Vagianos, and Dave Kordan.
They would make wild claims on Slap Message Boards such as Southie beating up Elissa Steamer. Jereme Rogers claims it was a combination of the skating, music and the marketing genius of the skate shop owners. He claims that when Jason Dill first saw it, he compared the impact to Plan B ‘Questionable.’ Regardless of WHY it took off, skateboarding was never the same again. At the time, legendary videos such as Flip ‘Sorry’, Zero ‘Dying To Live’ and Shorty’s ‘Guilty’ featuring iconic pros Chad Muska, Jamie Thomas, Arto Saari & Geoff Rowley were at the top of the charts, not to mention this was shortly after Tony Hawk’s first 900 at the X Games shot skateboarding to a whole new level of popularity, but PJ Ladd’s video was right up there with them.
It was even claimed that over 1 million copies were sold! PJ was an amateur for Element Skateboards at the time and had little bits of footage here and there but never really stood out until W,H,L dropped and changed all of that. He exploded on the scene overnight. PJ was not the only one who gained over night skate fame from the video, future pros Alexis Sablone, Ryan Gallant & Jereme Rogers all got their start from the video as well. Ryan says he went from flow one day to pro for DC Shoes & Expedition Skateboards the next. Alexis is still riding professionally to this day, representing Converse shoes & WKND Skateboards, she also recently graced the cover of Thrasher magazine. Jereme had an extremely successful career, winning several X Games Gold Medals and riding for DVS Shoes, Plan B Skateboards and he even opened up the iconic Girl Skateboards ‘Yeah Right’ video.
PJ spent many years with Es’ Shoes, then DC Shoes where he had his own Pro Model and eventually New Balance as well. He would also go on to win The Berrics “BATB Battle At The Berrics” game of skate several times as well.
Other parts in the video included a gnarly Colin Fiske part, the legendary Southie part and Dave Vey “The King Of Freestyle”. Not only that, it may go down as one of the most famous videos and skate video parts of all time, ending with arguably the best line ever done and the picture-perfect push by PJ.
Pro skaters; Stefan Janoski, Colin McKay, Pat Duffy, Mark Appleyard, Jamie Foy, Dane Burman, Tim O’Connor, Nyjah Huston, Ryan Sheckler, Ryan Decenzo, Carlos Ribeiro and Prod Paul Rodriguez all chime in.