Coming up on its eighth anniversary of righteousness, Go Skateboarding Day, held every June 21, is growing fast. Founded by the International Association of Skateboard Companies, Go Skateboarding Day is a pretty simple concept. Skateboarders in cities all over the globe are encouraged to hit the streets, equipped with their boards and bros to do the best thing ever invented: skateboarding. The day is a way to raise awareness of skateboarding’s massive following, and how important skateboarding is to so many lives, all over the globe. It’s a non-verbal statement, almost a non-violent protest that physically illustrates, en masse, the amount of skateboarders that inhabit any given inner-city environment.

Being one of the many skateboarders that live in said environment, I feel that skateboarding needs more appreciation than just one sunny, summer day of the year. You should go skateboarding every day, or at least as much as you can. I really don’t want to see Go Skateboarding Day turn into another make-believe holiday like Valentine’s Day. Allow me to elaborate: If you love someone, you should show your love and support for them as often as you can. You shouldn’t need an excuse like Valentine’s Day to do something special for your special someone. Letting a day dictate your actions sounds pretty lame to me. But now, once a year, skateboarders are looked at with a miniscule air of respect on Go Skateboarding Day, which I think sucks—it’s way cooler to be looked at as society’s biggest waste of life and time.

In a perfect world, Go Skateboarding Day would offer skateboarders the chance to be creative on any property without having their ears talked off by some c-hole about insurance liabilities, vandalism and trespassing. If someone approached you as you were skating a spot, you could simply say, “Happy Go Skateboarding Day,” and you just gave the dog a bone. Psych! That’s a delusional thought. From personal experience, the majority of people say they “like” skateboarding, but when those same people come into contact with a bunch of dirty dudes loitering about their place of business, cheering on one of the homies who’s translating his imagination into a physical form known as a “trick,” the concerned citizen will flip their wig and start yelling at us like we’re a pack of feral dogs. Recently, on a perfectly beautiful day of skating, my friends and I were lectured on how we need to get jobs and “do something” with our lives besides “hanging around kicking rocks on the streets” because we “need to put a shirt on in the morning to contribute.” It was awesome, because we all have jobs and wear shirts to them daily. Go fuck yourself, old man.

Skateboarders mean no harm, we just want to feel something unique by putting our bodies in harm’s way and escaping to freedom unscathed. It sounds crazy, but it’s more fun than being the motherfucker that yells at kids for having a good time. There are so many skateboarders I see that get shit from concerned citizens, security guards and police on a daily basis for doing what they love most. For the record, if you’re pissed off about some kids skating your shit, fuck you. You can kick us out, but we’ll be back tomorrow and the next day and the next day.