Big Brother (2)

Big Brother was a skateboarding magazine founded by Steve Rocco in 1992, which was notable for ushering in street skating and the sub-culture of skateboarding. At the end of the 1980's, Steve Rocco started to shake up the skateboard industry with the creation of World Industries - the start of the independent skateboard companies and the big shift to street. Transworld Skateboarding Magazine wouldn't run one of Steve's ads - so he then ran a two page ad asking readers what he should do - they said start your own magazine - so he did. The magazine contained mostly articles about skateboarding, as well as some nudity, stunts, pranks, and random ramblings from its staff. Notably, Earl Parker (Thomas Schmidt), Sean Cliver, Jeff Tremaine, Marc Mckee, Mike Ballard, Pat Canale and staff photo/videographer Spike Jonze. It's later days were characterised by the clever wordplay of editors Dave Carnie and Chris Nieratko. Issue one was deemed to be a failure by Rocco and was given away free in skate shops with a warning sticker 'warning: test copy'. In early editions, they would often use odd gimmicks like printing the magazine in different sizes, packaging it in a cereal box, and throwing in items like a cassette tape, trading cards, and a vinyl 7" to subscription members. The magazine was purchased by Larry Flynt in 1997 and ceased publication in 2004. They also released four videos, including "Shit" (1996), "Number 2" (1998), "boob" (1999) and "Crap" (2001) with stunts and pranks, but the videos were mostly skateboarding-oriented. Big Brother is credited for the development of the MTV television series Jackass.