About — TILECULT

I've loved fingerboarding since I was twelve. I grew up on the FingerboardPT forum. That's where I spent my afternoons after school, hanging out with the Portuguese scene and watching Blackriver Ramps and Mike Schneider videos on YouTube. In 2012 I put my decks away, and for ten years that was that.

In 2022 I picked them up again and found something new: a global community scattered across Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube and a dozen smaller corners. Four years on, that community is big. Bigger than most people inside it realize.

Not another magazine

I didn't want to make a monthly magazine. The scene already has great ones, and part of me feels the format leaves less room for smaller accounts and the hubs outside the usual spotlight. TILECULT is meant to be something more dynamic. It watches every platform where the scene lives, shows you what matters every day, and once a week writes an issue with the best of it.

To get there I spent time mapping the whole scene. Around twelve thousand active accounts on Instagram, across riders, parks, shops and brands. Then I built a data pipeline that understands how each account connects to the others. The goal is a live, global pulse of fingerboarding.

Why the name

Profiles on these platforms are tiled galleries. A tiled culture. But it's also the Portuguese azulejo, tiles that have covered our walls for centuries and are among the most beautiful things this country has made. And tiles are what fingerboarders reach for when they build DIY spots and home parks. This is TILECULT. Join the cult.

A discovery problem

I travel more these days, and wherever I go I want to find the local scene and its spots. This year I'm doing a long trip through Japan and Korea, and it turned out to be surprisingly hard to learn who rides there and what's worth visiting. Google and ChatGPT weren't much help. TILECULT is already solving that problem for me. I hope it solves it for you too.

Every clip and photo belongs to the account credited on it. If you're featured and want anything changed or removed, message me and it's done within the hour.

Run from Lisbon by @microchipgnu.fb. Made for everywhere. New issue every week on Instagram.