“HEY, EVERYONE IN THE WORLD! LOOK AT THIS! Now shut your mouth and move along. Idiot. Ha. You’re so stupid.” Photo: Rip Curl
I had an interesting conversation with surf photographer Al Mackinnon recently. He’d been called out on Instagram for posting shots of a wave. The fact that he had neither named the spot, nor revealed any detail about it hardly seemed to matter. The virtual vultures were lurking, ready to pick away at the slightest perceived indiscretion.
Somewhat hilariously, the commenter who had called him out was fond of posting pics of waves himself. They were accompanied by captions such as: “ #secretspot”, just to let everyone know how ultra-fucking-cool-and-in-the-know he was. Unfortunately, the critic hadn’t thought to remove the geotags from his own pics.
This past week The Inertia was called out for writing about Mick Fanning’s “Snake”. (Which is nowhere near as filthy or interesting as it sounds). Other surf media outlets cast stones from their glass houses whilst simultaneously trading in the currency of teasers, perfect waves, page impressions, shares, likes, click-throughs, ad campaigns, and glossily dishonest imagery. Actually, come to think of it, don’t surf magazines exist almost exclusively as a function of exposing perfect waves to as wide of an audience as possible? Or were G-Land, Pipeline, J-Bay, every wave in Indo, Costa Rica, and beyond born with rich, white surfers strewn throughout their turquoise sinews? As Rory Parker already flagged up, it’s unbelievably hypocritical. The idea of a surf media outlet smugly patting itself on the back for making a mostly unseen surf spot literally trend on Facebook – then policing how it’s discussed by the public – is totally fucked.
“Still curious?” Surfer Magazine asks us, schizophrenically, about Mick’s wave. Because how fucking dare you be!
And isn’t this just typical of surfers? The longer I surf, the more I become convinced that we are some of the most unpleasant, loathsome human beings on earth. We love to judge. We love to look down our noses. We love to feel superior. Above all, we love our fellow surfers to recognize and acknowledge our superiority.
The unspoken message in a typical surfer-to-surfer interaction goes something like this: Have we established that I’m better than you? Great. Now fuck off. And don’t dare try to strike up a conversation or make eye contact again.
We’re all just glorious pricks really. One minute we’re gloating over “secret” waves and the next we’re chastising others for wanting to find them. It’s the ultimate in childish, playground discourse: “I’ve got a really big secret, but I can’t tell you about it!”
Surf brands perpetuate this nonsense. To borrow Rory’s metaphor: Surfing is the whore who invites you in just to insult you, then slaps your face for trying to touch her. I’ll let the words of one well-known industry outlet (in reference to the location of Mick’s wave) be the proof:
“Believe me, the answer is out there. And we think we found it.
Actually, we’ve known about where it is for some time, but had no idea it was the same wave. And trust me, if this is the spot, you ain’t going there.”
If we ignore the screaming pretension and typically dismissive tone for a moment, we might wonder at the irony of a post titled “Zipped Lips” (about the importance of keeping waves secret) dangling such a carrot. Also, somewhat confusingly, we find it nestled amid a gaggle of posts, pictures, video clips, hashtags and other associated Internet noise, much of it about the very same “secret wave.”
Do they want us to look, or don’t they? Are we allowed to think or talk or post about the wave, or should we give ourselves a firm telling off for doing so? I’m not entirely sure what the correct response is. Perhaps it’s: “Please, Sir, may I have some more?”
Let’s be honest, if The Endless Summer wasn’t over before it was packaged and sold to us, then it definitely is now. There is a generation of surfers (the 30-40somethings) that needs to wake up and realize that surfing has changed forever. There are no secrets. No waves off limits, and no shortage of dickheads that surf. It’s about time we re-evaluated our sense of self. To see ourselves as others see us, it wad frae mony a blunder free us.
