Tony Hawk is, by any objective measure, one of the most important people in the history of action sports, if not at the very top of the list. As a groundbreaking skateboarder, the face of a video game franchise, and cultural icon who transcended the sport, Hawk played a crucial role in making skateboarding enter the mainstream in a way no one else has.
He is also a very pleasant seeming 52-year-old dad, and while there are not a ton of revolutionary skateboarders, there are a whole heck of a lot of those. And in 2020, a common occurrence — people not realizing that Tony Hawk is in the same place as them — went to new heights. We know this because Hawk has a tremendous sense of humor about himself (see: this), and decided to tweet out a bunch of interactions he had with folks.
The year started off strong, with someone actually recognizing him but wanting to make sure he could stay incognito. Also: Hawk made an apparent order at a restaurant he went to (god, remember doing that?) with his cholesterol in mind, opting for a turkey burger over a good ol’ beef burger.
Several months later, as the United States was dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Hawk was out in public when he got a selfie request … after, of course, someone pointed out that he looked like himself.
In August, Hawk and his daughter stepped out to take care of some things when, once again, someone recognized him, but only because they thought he was someone else.
Hawk went out to grab a bite to eat in October, and while waiting for his food, someone’s ability to say he looks like Tony Hawk struck again.
And just under the wire of 2020, Hawk was able to play his fun little game again, this time at a COVID-19 testing site.
Stand-up comedian Kyle Cease (famous for being the slow clap guy from Not Another Teen Movie) has a bit about seeing Hulk Hogan, and being unsure about whether he actually saw Hulk Hogan, and realizing he had never had that dilemma before in his life, because he had always been able to immediately look at a person and determine whether or not they were Hulk Hogan. The difference, of course, is that you can usually tell that one pretty quickly, but apparently, no one who has ever seen Tony Hawk in public has been able to immediately go, “Oh, wait, that’s Tony Hawk.” It is my sincere hope that many things change in 2021. One of the few things that I hope does not change is this bit.
Source: https://uproxx.com/sports/tony-hawk-not-recognized-twitter-roundup-2020/
