For a lot of people, modern surf culture looks like this. Photo: Jeremy Bishop
CUL-TURE
noun
- Encompassing social behavior, institutions and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, customs capabilities and habits of the individual within the group.
Every year at this time the venerable Oxford University Press comes out with its “Word of the Year,” and this time around that word is “rizz,” a Gen-Alpha slang term used by sundry celebrities and influencers to describe “style, charm or attractiveness.” Must’ve really moved the needle, considering that it beat out “Swiftie.” But the whole “rizz” thing got me to thinking about what the surfing world’s 2023 “Word of the Year” might be and after much consideration I believe that word would be “culture” – as in “surf culture.”
It seemed that during the past year this term was bandied about in online forums, editorials, commenter’s threads and even beachside conversations more than at any other time in surfing history. Unlike the celebratory rizz and Swiftie, however, most consistently referenced in the form of a lament, as in, “Whatever happened to surf culture,” or “They’re ruining surf culture,” or the more definitive “Surf culture is dead.”
Wide use, though, doesn’t necessarily mean broad comprehension, and in surfing’s case there seems to have developed a pervasive misperception as to the exact definition of “surf culture,” generally pointing to some idealized past era rather than the current state of the art. Meaning ask a dozen surfers what surf culture is, or should be, and you’ll probably get a dozen different answers, depending on what year each of those surfers waxed their first board.
It was all so much easier for our lucky antecedents. The roots had first been planted in the early part of the 20th century by board-riding bohemians like Tom Blake, the father of contemporary surf culture, who in 1935 wrote of the surfer’s life, “It fits my nature. I can live simply and quietly without the social life. I can dress as I please, for comfort…with swimming trunks all day. I can keep one-hundred percent suntan and rest and sleep for hours in the wonderful sunshine each day.”
What, you thought Jeff Spicoli came up with this stuff? The surfer’s way has been with us for almost a century, personified by a cast of cultural pioneers who in the 1940s and ‘50s transplanted indigenous Hawaiian Island style (thanks John Kelly, Wally Froiseth and George Downing) to the Mainland, grafted it to West Coast cool and kicked off our barefoot adventure, albeit on balsa boards with no leashes. Pete Peterson, Lorrin Harrison, Dorian Paskowitz, Peanuts, Burrhead, Dr. Don James, Doc Ball, LeRoy Grannis, Mary Ann Hawkins, Joe Quigg, Matt Kivlin, Tommy Zahn, Buzzy Trent, Darrylin Zanuck… these and only a handful of others less renowned made the conscious decision to not just surf but to be a surfer, with an accompanying lifestyle that ran in direct opposition to existing societal norms. These were the legitimate outliers who established the free-spirited, anti-establishment template that many surfers today, both young and old, regard as the essence of authentic surf culture.
Gidget killed all that. No, seriously, following 1957 publication of the bestseller Gidget: The Little Girl With Big Ideas, and subsequent release of the box office hit Gidget in 1959, the doors were flung wide open and light poured into surfing’s secret society; compared to those already on the beach at Malibu before Kathy Kohner showed up, no surfer that followed would ever be a true outlier. Since, say, the summer of 1960, surfing has become progressively more popular, more crowded, more commercialized and more widely publicized at a pace that has only slowed once. This was during the period lasting roughly from 1969 to 1975, when a drop-off in participation following the “Shortboard Revolution” left only the most dedicated wave-riders in thrall. The sport took on a monochromatic, almost uniform aesthetic, with most surfers, regardless of what coastline they inhabited, tending to look the same, dress the same, talk the same, ride the same boards and pursue the same objectives as their fellows. But other than this relative blip on the timeline, surfing’s growth in popularity and participation has been on an upward trajectory, literally spreading to virtually every coastline on earth.
Strange, then, that many of the surfers ruing the loss of “surf culture” today have also idealized this particular period, when, in fact, it was perhaps the only era in modern surf history truly defined by conformity; no greater contradiction to the intensely individualistic ethic of 1950s surfing can be found. A contradiction that, by its very existence in our sport’s collective consciousness, begs the question: “What is surf culture?”
The answer, of course, is simple: Surf culture is what it is. Most importantly, what it is now, not having been in some past era. Because surf culture – like any other – constantly evolves; there is no “real” or “true” surf culture except what exists today. And that which will exist tomorrow…and next week, next year, next decade, and on and on, so long as the waves keep rolling.
This isn’t to say that you have to like contemporary surf culture. Lamenting the loss of a surfing aesthetic that unless you’re 68 years or older you didn’t actually experience…while that’s certainly your prerogative, it’s not a particularly progressive way to live. Better, emotional health-wise, to adopt a clear-eyed appreciation for the best aspects of surf culture in the year 2023. A year that brought us a fine, eminently soulful film like Calypte, following Torren Martyn and Aiyana Powell’s surf/sailing voyage though the Indonesian Archipelago, the global proliferation of all-female surf resorts and retreats, Nathan Florence and Mason Ho YouTube videos, an increasingly diverse selection of surfboard designs, an increasingly diverse surfing demographic, slab surfing in Palm Springs, a new Floridian world champion, lower airline surfboard baggage fees, epic swells on both U.S West and East Coasts, Hawaii, Europe, Australia, Africa and Indonesia, better and better wetsuits, women competing in the Pipe Masters, Matt Warshaw’s re-booted Encyclopedia of Surfing, more weird waves with Dylan Graves and Ben Gravy, protests against Olympic reef damage at Teahupo’o, a decline in surfing ageism, mid-lengths from brands like …Lost, whatever Kai Lenny is doing, successful independent surfwear labels, a Waimea lifeguard winning a contest dedicated to a legendary Waimea lifeguard…and the list goes on.
Each addition attesting to the fact that despite the perceived negative aspects of modern surf culture, which so far as I can tell pertain mostly to increasingly crowded lineups – lineups that have been growing more and more crowded since 1960, mind you – surf culture headed into 2024 can be something to enjoy with few reservations; a privilege, in fact, to be a part of. Especially when you consider that, comprising only 0.3125 percent of the world’s estimated eight billion inhabitants, we surfers, like all of those who’ve come before us, are still a pretty special little group.
