Big Brother was a skateboarding magazine founded by Steve Rocco,[1] which was notable for ushering in street skating and the sub-culture of skateboarding.
No subject was taboo. Early articles featured step by step ways to commit suicide and rip-off schemes such as how to make a fake ID. They would often use odd gimmicks like printing the magazine in different sizes, packaging it in a cereal box, and throwing in items like trading cards and a cassette tape. Early writers were Sean Cliver, Earl Parker (Thomas Schmidt) Jeff Tremaine, Marc Mckee, Mike Ballard, Pat Canale, and others.[2]
They also released a few videos, including "Shit", then "Number 2", with a few stunts and pranks, but the videos were mostly skateboarding-oriented.
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The magazine contained mostly articles about skateboarding,[3] as well as some nudity, stunts, pranks, and random ramblings from its staff. Its later days were characterized by the clever wordplay of editors Dave Carnie and Chris Nieratko.[4] The magazine was purchased by Larry Flynt in 1997. After Flynt began publishing the magazine, the nudity was toned down or scrapped altogether, though the vulgarity remained.
In 1998, Dr. Laura Schlessinger was in Beach Access, a Costa Mesa surf shop with her son when she began perusing Big Brother. Schlessinger deemed the magazine to be "stealth pornography" and said so on her radio show. When Tom Moore, the owner of Beach Access, publicly denied that she found pornography in his store, Schlessinger sued Moore for lying and claimed that his denial had hurt her reputation.[5] When Schlessinger's case went to court, the judge said it was a frivolous lawsuit and dismissed it. Moore's $4M countersuit[6] against Schlessinger, lodged for hurting the reputation of his store (defamation) was allowed to stand.[7] The suit has since been settled, but terms of the settlement have not been revealed.[8] Behind the scenes and off the record, Moore's lawyers and friends claimed victory, indicating the settlement was "about the amount of a moderately priced Orange County home" (at the time, $650,000 to $2 million).
In one of the most bizarre episodes of the magazine's history, the subscriber list for Big Brother got mixed up with one of Larry Flynt's hardcore magazines - Taboo. Subscribers were sent pornography, and those who subscribed to Taboo got a skate magazine. This incident was parodied on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in which one of the band members was delivered an issue of Big Brother live on stage, suggesting that he subscribed to Taboo and received it in error.[9]
The magazine was unexpectedly dropped by Larry Flynt publications in February 2004. In early 2008, it was announced on Jackassworld.com that Big Brother would be returning in a digital format.[10] Also noted on jackassworld.com a Big Brother documentary is in the works.
Vol 1 No 1 of KingShit Magazine, based in Toronto, Ontario hit May, 2009. Dave Carnie is the editor at large and Chris Nieratko is a contributing editor.
Big Brother was also credited for the development of the series Jackass, as Jeff Tremaine recalls in the Jackass episode "Where Are They Now?".
Each of the titles in Big Brother's videos dealt in some way with feces.[11]
Year Released: 1996
Year Released: 1998
Year Released: 1999
Year Released: 2001
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