There’s a decent enough article circulating right now about “Why Netflix Hates Surfing.” It's a well-researched piece and seems to make a pretty good case for why a seemingly sexy and exciting “sport” like ours doesn’t translate to a mass audience. Read it here.

This article came up in conversation several times this week because the industry circles I run in like to point these things out. Lucky me. And even as someone who would potentially benefit from a platinum boost to our beloved lifestyle — Lord knows it's been tough sledding as of late — it’s pretty easy to dismiss the idea and simply not care.

There’s been several swings at surfing from corporate America — Nike and Target, then the Olympics run of course — and we’ve all plundered what we could when the gettin’ was good (for a great cause of course: I funded a boat trip that resulted in the film “Brother” and Kai Neville and I shut down all of 6th street in Huntington Beach so that White Fence and No Age could play before we premiered Lost Atlas). Which shows we weren’t trying to be something we weren’t. We just used their money to do cool stuff. They came to us. Which reminds me there’s a good Aint that Swell pod with Jed Smith and Kai Neville that just came out chronicling those good old days of risk taking, creativity and surfing.

But back to my point: the minute we start to care about things like this article is the minute we become dull — as the moves of the WSL over the past few years illustrated — and I know, I know, they’re trying to fix that and I greatly appreciate it but it’s gonna take a while before our feet are rough again after that cultural smooth out.

Catering to the mainstream is the worst move surfing can make. And not to beat a dead (horse/guy), but that’s why Bourdain transitioned so well from heroin and cocaine addicted chef and pig testicle eater on The Food Network to CNN: He didn’t change.

Creationism. c. 1981-82, Mike Kelley

It’s why his book Kitchen Confidential was so eye opening: it didn’t pander. It stayed real and talked about hanky panky in the pantry, corruption, greed and vices all occurring between the dinner rush and the back alley while Rachael Ray and Emeril Lagasse jumped through hoops and clapped the monkey cymbals for the networks. People forget that the mainstream can handle it, you just have to be authentic. For some reason, surfing feels that in order to be validated it must sanitize itself of all the skeletons that make it a worthy dance in the first place. I like to remember our pantheon which includes Andy Irons, Nathan Fletcher, Matt Archbold, Bugs, Buttons, Sunny G and Flea. All wounded, all perfect.

Remember, the vast majority of us are middle to upper class kids from coastal towns who fall hard for the environment that happens to be in front of our houses. It’s easy to do. There are exceptions and we live in a time when I must make that clarification, but there are analytics to back my point. Our backgrounds don’t bode well for crazy back stories. And even if they did, once we paddle out, those stories are our own. As the article above mentions, you don’t get to see us work through them up close on Amazon Prime. We paddle out alone. It’s always been between us and Mother Nature.

Those of us who make a career out of this beautiful madness can’t seem to fathom that the rest of the world doesn’t find us interesting. But that’s wrong. We’re only interesting to people when we’re focused on the thing we love: riding waves, not Netflix. We need to quit disappointing “Middle America” by being so soft and conservative and get uncomfortable again. Wave pools, AI, Rinse Kits, astro turf changing mats and polished adventure vans make us all hard to like. It must be so disappointing to your aunties in the midwest. She wants her surfers to be rebellious, dammit. Rub some sand in your wax and get a rash already. Make your own Modern Collective. Piss off some tech bros and tell ‘em they suck at surfing.

Most of us shouldn’t even know what Netflix is. Or AI. The gossip mill being the default surf culture beacon has to go. We need a creative renaissance. Do something clunky. Try. Start a gang. Chase something you’ll never catch. Run away and maybe don't return. Kiss a french girl in person and never text her back. Give yourself up to the elements. Float. The minute you quit caring is the minute they will be at your feet anyway. Take a drag, blow out the smoke and wait for them to come running. Be a surfer, then decide. Until then, you’re just a kid in a golf cart spending dad’s money on burritos between surfs and if you happen to be pretty good at it, remember it’s never enough for them. But maybe it will remind you that surfing itself should be enough for you —Travis Ferré

[Above art: Creationism. c. 1981-82, Mike Kelley]