Remember the days when the entire realm of surf vlogs revolved mostly around two guys — Jamie O’Brien and Ben Gravy — inventing the “novelty wave” concept? Gravy would surf something that nobody else would think to surf and J.O.B. would surf something most people shouldn’t surf. He’d also rally the boys and one of them, usually Poopies, would inevitably get coerced into something that belonged in an episode of Jackass.
Yeah, surf vlogs aren’t like that anymore. Everything’s an aspirational, day-in-the-life look from your random pro’s point of view. They’re often scoring great waves. Maybe they have an interesting story to share. But most likely, they’re just feeding the algorithm however they can (we can’t possibly relate…). When you take stock of how much it’s all evolved, those old days of Jamie O’Brien and his friends sending it CKY-style on something like a SUPsquatch sound so fun.
The waves have still been pumping on the North Shore lately and O’Brien just broke out the SUPsquatch, rallied four of his friends, and went out to pumping Sunset Beach. As predicted, the crew had a “1oo percent chance of eating it” with five people on a 16-foot SUPsquatch and one of the North Shore’s heaviest waves churning out sets the size of “one to one-and-a-half palm trees.” The good ole days.
