Mason Ho has one of the best surfing YouTube channels out there. His frequent collaborations with Rory Pringle are known for dynamic camera work, incredible surfing, and unique music choices. However, on a recent interview on The Couch Surfing Show, Mason detailed how the origin of his internet presence actually came about primarily as a result of anxiety regarding satisfying his sponsors.
“Early in my career, I would only get filmed once a year, maybe twice,” says Mason while sitting down with Joe Alani. “It was when I would come to California, and then when I would be in Hawaii and Mike Reola and Matt Biolos were smart enough to be like, “Mason’s having a bunch of fun, let’s send Joe [Alani] out there. Give him 7-10 days and he’ll come back with something cool.’” However, the relatively small amount of filming sessions left Mason unsatisfied. “Eventually I was like ‘I can’t handle this anymore, I need more than ten days.’”
As a result, Mason found himself struggling to maintain the interest of his sponsors. “I would write [Biolos] about my sessions every day, I wanted to keep my sponsors,” said Ho. His anxiety over seeing friends lose sponsors led to him sending Biolos a written digest of his latest sessions, but even that did little to allay his fears. “I can’t write these anymore, I’m not feeling the love,” continued Ho. “Eventually my friend Rory Pringle had a camera and I was like ‘Hey can you film me?’ He gave me seven days. Long story short, I linked up with Rory. We filmed a couple sessions and just put it on the internet.”
The rest, as they say, is history, but check out the video above for the rest of the story,.
