Poor Tony Hawk. Being a skateboarding legend doesn’t mean people will recognize you when they see you at a coffee shop, or an airport, or at a drive-thru, or as Hawk just shared, very recently at a COVID-19 testing site.
First of all, let’s pray neither Tony Hawk nor his rad family test positive for the virus on the last day of 2020. But let’s then stop and acknowledge how hilarious it is that yet another person didn’t recognize him. Hawk on Thursday shared this anecdote about going to a drive-thru testing site while wearing a mask.
at a Covid testing site (wearing masks), handing over paperwork for me & two of my kids:
woman looking over papers: "okay… Anthony, Keegan and Kadence… Hawk? Are you guys related to Tony Hawk?"
me: yes
her: "Are you pulling my leg?"
me: no, we are all directly related to him— Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) December 31, 2020
Incredibly, Hawk looking a little like Tony Hawk has become a running joke, and he’s shared similar anecdotes in this same format on Twitter multiple times, what some have deemed “Tony Hawk’s Existential Nightmare.”
Back in 2018, a flight attendant noticed four skateboards in the overhead bins and asked jokingly, “Is Tony Hawk on this flight or something.” Upon looking down and seeing him, the attendant joked, “I guess he is.”
Another time while going through the TSA check line, Hawk was asked, “I wonder what he’s up to these days,” to which he replied, “this.” And then of course there was the time a guy asked if he was famous person “Tony Stark.”
ESPN rounded up a few of the other instances of his unfortunate anonymity below.
Tony Hawk can't catch a break 😂 @tonyhawk pic.twitter.com/TmqPRo0tFU
— ESPN (@espn) December 31, 2020