COUPLES SURFING and CATHARSIS
Ok. That’s it.
That’s. Fucking. It.
I can’t take it anymore. We can’t take it anymore.
How dare you make us feel like dorks. Like kooks!
We are not kooks, dammit!
Ugh. I don’t even know why I’m writing this. It’s assuredly falling on ears made deaf with custom-molded ear plugs purchased via a perfectly-targeted Insta ad.
You certainly can’t hear me over the sound of your paddle slapping the water.
You definitely can’t see me through the water-friendly speed dealers shielding your eyes from the bright, shining sun.
But that’s OK. I have to get this off my chest. And onto a page. And out of my system before I implode.
You see, I love surfing. This beautiful mess of ours. This addictive, trivial thing we do. It’s everything and nothing, all at the same time. And that’s the point.
It’s not something to be packaged. Or to be presented.
Your attempt at surfing soft serve insults me. Especially when the only flavor you’re offering is vanilla.
So today, I’m taking a big step via a seemingly small rebellion.
@WSL: I’m unfollowing you.
I’m as T Swift would say, “removing myself from the narrative.”
Your narrative, specifically. Not surfing’s.
Because you see, try as you might, you cannot — you will not — own surfing’s narrative.
You can’t.
No one can.
Well, …Lost Across America nearly did it, but didn’t care enough to lay claim.
But you. You. You just can’t.
And it’s not for lack of trying. Some of the recent “content” has great production value.
It sort of, almost has legs. It’s the kind of thing that would make a stay-at-home mom feeling withdrawals from the dried Oprah drip half acknowledge its presence before returning back to something of substance and lasting meaning in their life.
But, ah, yes, back to the issue at hand. The #Unfollowing.
Your Instagram is bullshit. Like….what? How?
It’s like someone programmed a bot to curate a digital museum only for people who carry their boards with the wax facing in.
It’s as if a spring suit and booties anthropomorphized into a marketing team.
It makes me question the thing I’ve used to define my identity all my life.
It is the leash-on-the-front-foot, webbed gloved, Turbo Tunnel fin, SUP kook-filled dopamine of the masses.
It’s propaganda. That isn’t persuading anybody of anything, except that surfing is – apparently – for kooks.
My blood is boiling hearing your rebuttal coming.
“Hey man, we’re all kooks in our own way.”
“It doesn’t matter what I ride. Or what I watch. We’re all here to enjoy surfing.”
“The world’s best surfers. The world’s best waves. News! Results! Olympics!”
To your rebuttal currently being drafted on thick, initialed card stock paid for by Dirk, I issue only one response:
Fuck off.
Surfing is ours. And whatever you are, and what you’re pedaling, it won’t last.
It’ll be a blip. A footnote in Warsaw’s tome.
Signing off from the news desk at Surf Breaks,
—Ulysses
