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Tony Hawk shared his ultimate mistaken identity experience: 'maybe this is where it all ends'

Tony Hawk being mistaken for Tony Hawk is a long-running joke, but a recent elevator encounter was like a "greatest hits" moment.

HBO/YouTube, Tony Hawk/Twitter

Tony Hawk's ongoing mistaken identity joke just hit its apex.

Tony Hawk might just be the least-recognized well-known person on the planet. The iconic skateboarder is now in his 50s, but his legendary status in the skating world—and video game world—has made him a household name. His face, on the other hand, is a different story.

For years, Hawk has shared hilarious stories of people telling him he looks like Tony Hawk. These mistaken-but-not-mistaken identity incidents happen so often that Hawk has made a running joke out of it, often playing along with people's "Hey, does anyone ever tell you you look like Tony Hawk?" inquiries. Sometimes he tells people he actually is Tony Hawk and they don't believe him. Sometimes he just says he gets that all the time.

Tony Hawk fans know the joke well, so sometimes they purposefully tell him he looks like himself just for giggles. But an elevator interaction in 2022 combined the ongoing saga's greatest hits, and may just be, as Hawk says, "where it all ends."

Hawk shared the story on Twitter.

"This just happened, and maybe this is where it all ends," he wrote. "Got on an elevator with 3 people. One guy (with his wife), sarcastically: 'anyone ever tell you…' and stops. Me (amused): yes, but you're the first today. His wife: 'I'm sorry, I tried to stop him from doing the joke."

Cute, but then it got extra funny.

The elevator stopped and the couple got off on their floor. Then the third person on the elevator asked what the joke was. When Hawk explained that he gets "mistaken" for Tony Hawk, the guy said, "Haha you do look like him!" and then exited the elevator, leaving Hawk standing there alone and perplexed by what just happened.

It's like the guy unintendedly came up with a perfect punchline to a joke he didn't even know existed. You can't even write this stuff.

People loved the perfect storm that occurred on the elevator, and shared other fun Tony Hawk mistaken identity jokes.

And apparently, Tony Hawk isn't the only famous-but-not-like-Brad-Pitt-famous person to deal with this kind of thing.

Good times. Keep on being your cool, awesome self, Tony Hawk—whether people recognize you for real or not.

BTW, there's a new documentary about Tony Hawk called "Until the Wheels Fall Off" that just premiered on HBO. Check it out:

This article originally appeared three years ago.

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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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4 of the 6 women's skateboarding Olympic medalists are 13-years-old or younger

Reuters/Twitter

Welp, the two skateboarding events added to the Olympics this year have wrapped up for the women's teams, and the results are historic in more ways than one.

Japan's Kokona Hiraki, age 12, just won the silver medal in women's park skateboarding, making her Japan's youngest Olympic medalist ever. Great Britain's Sky Brown, who was 12 when she qualified for the Tokyo Olympics and is now 13, won the bronze, making her Great Britain's youngest medalist ever. And those two medal wins mean that two-thirds of the six medalists in the two women's skateboarding events are age 13 or younger. (The gold and silver medalists in women's street skateboarding, Japan's Momiji Nishiya and Brazil's Rayssa Leal, are also 13.)

That's mind-blowing.


By the way, the other two medalists are ages 16 and 19. Nothing but teens and tweens at the top.

One of the reasons for adding skateboarding to the Olympics was to draw in younger viewers and inject the games with a jolt of youthful spirit. Mission accomplished, if these skateboarding medals are any indication.

13 and 12. These kids are several years away from being able to drive a car, and yet they are already Olympic champions on four wheels. Amazing.

Skateboarding is a unique sport in that it's performed on a wheeled device that is in no way attached to a person's body. And despite the laid-back, chill vibe of the athletes who compete in the sport, perfecting the tricks and skills it takes to compete at this level takes an enormous amount of practice.

It can also be dangerous. Sky Brown took a bad spill at age 11, suffering a skull fracture and broken arm that threatened her Olympic dreams when the games were originally scheduled for 2020. By then, she'd already been a professional skateboarder for two years, after becoming the world's youngest pro skater at age 9.

A pro at age 9. Kids these days, I tell you.

Despite the pressures at this level of competition, it's clear in the Olympic footage that these kids are doing what they love and having a great time doing it. The camaraderie and outward shows of support among the skateboarding athletes are palpable, which is both a testament to their character and to the culture of skateboarding itself.

With such young stars already crushing the field, it seems that the competition in this sport will only get better. These kids and other rising competitors will undoubtedly be even more exciting to watch in Paris 2024. Already looking forward to it.

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