This one might be a bit more personal than the other posts this week. And for the record, the Trunk Boyz I'm referring to here are the three that went pro together most recently in May 2013, not including Vincent and Cory. Most people know these dudes from Pretty Sweet, which is really the only place I know of these three putting out full video parts. Backtracking from Chocolate's introduction of these three as ams to the team, Raven was with the Creature fiends for a while, Elijah with Foundation, and I honestly hadn't heard of Stevie before the introduction. Again, I could have been totally slipping before these guys went to Chocolate, but I also don't think they were very heavily covered before that. Anyway, no major parts from any of these dudes were brought to my attention, meaning between their skating and their sponsors, there wasn't enough of a stir in the skate world to learn much about them. Pretty Sweet dropped and all three guys came through with sick parts for sure. I'm sure being a part of such an epic video aided in overshadowing their ripping parts and even though there were some very memorable and crazy clips, I didn't get that standout feeling like I do with some other ams' parts before (Luan in Extremely Sorry comes to mind). And ever since then, all I've really seen from any of these three were "internet-filler" clips, aka tour footage (like the Pretty Sweet Tour above), skatepark clips, or throwaway street footage. (Minus Stevie's Lakai mini-part that was pretty awesome, released right after going pro.) I value the full-length video part with one's board sponsor pretty highly, and I feel that with only Pretty Sweet up these dudes' sleeves, there's really not enough reason to go pro just 5 months after that video release. Even today, despite all the tour and park footage coming out from these guys (as their recognition coverage grows), I don't feel a sense of professionalism when I watch them skate. Watching the Trunk Boyz together gives the vibe that they shred a lot for sure but also that "I don't care, I'm too cool for everything" kind of feeling. Again, that could be just me, but disregarding that still leaves the rather shallow resume of video parts from these guys. In the end, I would definitely like to have seen more ripping from these three before they got their first pro models. When they were given the surprise in Puerto Rico, I basically felt like Chocolate was trying to make sure they didn't have any ams on their team, making sure they were exclusively professional. Getting that feeling is definitely not what should happen when some dudes turn pro.
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