Dane Reynolds is known to be a little off the beaten path — he has been known for that most of his career. So much so that his videographer and partner of sorts Mini Blanchard referred to him in this very edit as “slightly socially awkward.” (Which is largely why we consider ourselves lucky to have Blanchard to bring his funky stylings to anybody and everybody outside of his Ventura community.) But that individuality is what makes Dane, well, Dane. And I don’t think I’m out of line in saying that most of us are damn glad to have him.
Anyway, this installment of Mini & Dane is about the building of Marine Layer, which effectively found footing in Reynold’s distaste for the way the industry was branding him at the time. Sponsors were looking to capitalize on this newfangled social media thing — this was obviously a few years back — and the Californian’s set him up with DaneReynolds.com. But that didn’t feel right. Therefore he threw a wrench in the operation and decided to “flood the internet with shit,” allowing his clips to be disseminated in a stream of consciousness manner. And for free. Rather than sitting on all the footage, he tossed it out to the masses and then moved on. He was tired of how precious surf edits felt. He wanted to have fun. Along with Mini, he did just that: began having fun.
And at the end of the day, he and Mini got away with it. In the words of Mini, “fuck everyone.”
