We build monuments to the fallen. We hold ceremonies. We say the words. These things matter. Collective memory and public mourning are not nothing — they are part of how societies process collective trauma, and the alternative to remembrance is a forgetting that makes repetition more likely.
She is not the largest animal in the savanna. Not the loudest. She doesn't have the mane, the roar, the iconic profile that has appeared on flags and logos for three thousand years. That is the male lion. He is impressive. She is the one who feeds the pride.
Skateboarding has always resisted the clean narrative. For fifty years, institutions have been trying to decide what it is — a sport, a subculture, an art form. The honest answer is all of those things and none of them fully. That ambiguity is not a problem to solve. It's the whole point.