Breaking news: the internet is full of negativity. A lot of negativity. This’s exactly why the context of this short film shouldn’t be surprising at all.
Brian James, an East Coast surfer with what seems like an undying level of positivity, is not your typical surfer-turned-vlogger. He’s not a professional athlete, he doesn’t travel all over the world and point a camera at the beautiful scenery everywhere he goes. He’s just a guy who really loves surfing and has been documenting his progression on YouTube for the past couple of years. His channel, Longboard Sessions, is filled with videos of him taking on different tasks to get better, tackling new techniques, and more or less doing it all with that thing the internet doesn’t provide much of (positivity). He actually provides a lot of really useful information that can help others grow and learn too. But none of that spared him from the wrath of the internet and a meme page @nose_dodgers_anonymous, who ripped a clip of Brian with exactly zero piggies hanging over the nose of his board.
The criticism sent Brian into a tailspin. He’d been knocked down. Should he care what others think or say? Is it that important to have your toes actually hanging off the edge of your board? Or had he been settling for getting close to the nose, standing there, and not really giving any attention or care to that small detail that means so much? Was he just a kook all this time?
“If the point of surfing is to have fun why would someone care if I don’t hang my toes on a hang 10?” Brian asks.
The criticism and the tailspin actually turned into a positive pretty fast. Brian decided if it’s called hanging 10 (or five) then he’d endeavor to cover those last few inches. He eventually gets there…and falls right off.
“So I did not finish that noseride but that’s not really the point,” Brian says. “I took purposeful practice combined with actually caring about hanging my toes off. You can take criticism and get all bent out of shape about it or you can turn it into something good.”
