Catching Up with the ‘Stoked, My Dudes’ Kid

It was the stoked heard around the world.

With a mere five words, Kyle—who would prefer his last name and age be kept on the down-low—made something briefly beautiful out of the pitiful excuse for a city that is Calgary.

"I'm so stoked, my dudes."

Dab. "Skrrrt." Exit right.

The YouTube video of the encounter attracted over 100,000 views before being removed by CTV due to copyright infringement or some boring-ass shit. (Although, like herpes, nothing on the internet ever really goes away.)

Tourism Calgary should have made an intervention. Because nothing that it, or the impending cultural apocalypse known as the Calgary Stampede, does can come close to making the city as cool as Kyle did in those ten seconds.

The subject of the interview (city council's reversal of its ban on backyard skate ramps) didn't even really matter.

Here was a kid who's been skateboarding for most of his life, having just the fucking chillest of times. Wearing goggles. Just Being Stoked My Dudes.

VICE spoke with Kyle because, well, duh.

VICE: Are you at the skatepark now?
Kyle: Ah, yeah I am, but it's raining so we're just chilling in my friend's car.

How long have you been skateboarding for?
About seven years.

How did this clip come to be?
Originally we just saw the camera and were just skating for the camera. Then my friend Connor offered to do a trick for her, but he rides a scooter so they were like, "No, you can't be in this video, we need a skater." They came up to me and were like, "You have to do this because you're doing the trick every try." It was just like a boardslide. They're like, "You're the one who has to do this because you're the only one we trust to do it." So I was like, "OK, I'll do it, whatever." My friend Connor gave me those glasses and was like, "Wear these glasses it'll be the funniest thing." And then yeah. It just happened.

It just took the one take?
It was live for that one but they got me to do that boardslide probably ten times just to make sure I could do it.

Did you know what you were going to say going in?
Ah, pretty much. The lady told me, "Just say you're stoked." So I'm like, OK.

She touched your arm, was that weird?
No I wasn't even really paying attention. I was just going down.

Presumably you didn't expect the video to pick up in the way it did?
No definitely not.

You've made it to VICE, Gawker, Complex: have a lot of friends reached out to you and said congrats?
Yeah, pretty much all my friends have seen it. So that's pretty chill. I've even had randoms at the skatepark be like, "Oh you're that kid." Yeah, I'm that kid.

Migos recently declared that the dab is dead. Do you buy that?
Nah I don't even really listen to Migos, so Imma dab on 'em.

I was talking to my buddy the other day, and he has an extra ticket to Desiigner, who's obviously a top-notch dabber. Wanna go with him?
Of course!

What else are you stoked about?
Just skateboarding and the homies. You know.

Will you actually get a backyard ramp?
Honestly, probably not, but I have some friends who have some and I skate them.

What else do you think Calgary should be doing to stop being such a garbage city?
Stop being shitty and give us more skateparks. That's pretty much it.

Any final words to the people who appreciate your video?
Just very stoked.

Follow James Wilt on Twitter.