"I was wrong," says Chas Smith. "I mocked Vissla but it is flying out of shops! And they just signed Eric Geiselman."
I was in college, I think, when I first got on the Internet. Having grown up in rural, coastal Oregon “technology” consisted of quality mud flaps and the local 7-11’s big gulp machine.
My guide, sitting at our shared prefab desk in a cement block dorm cell, poked some keys on his Mac and there we were. Online.
“Look. I can chat with girls…” He said with a smug mouth.
“I chat with girls in person, you fucken nerd.” I responded with a smugger one. This internet ain’t going nowhere. It’ll be the bastion of socially inept turds.
Years later, I remember when people started whispering about online shopping. I was online too, at this point, reading the news and buying airplane tickets but real shopping? Like buying denim? No way! “I buy denim in person, you. This internet shopping ain’t going nowhere. It’ll be the bastion of people whose clothes don’t fit and who also shop at Costco.”
Years later, Vissla came out. I mocked its prefab hipster marketing but apparently it’s flying out of the shops, helping bouy mom and pops and, recently, they signed Eric older brother of Evan Geiselman. Eric totally rips. He is really good and fun to watch but no one ever sponsored him because maybe he was from Smyrna Beach? Or because maybe he didn’t smoke cigarettes and look all cool an industry insider told me. Whatever the case, the kid, who is no longer a kid, went sponsorless.
Like about the Internet, in general, and online shopping I was wrong!
God bless you, Vissla. But your sister D’Blanc is still a piece of shit.
It’s a shame that Vissla opted for such try-hard, sycophantic marketing from the get-go, because by many reports, some of what they’re putting out isn’t too shabby. You can’t argue with a $200 wetsuit that is, apparently, the equivalent of what the industry dinosaurs are selling for $400 and up. I still hate supporting the fact that they took such a blatantly inauthentic marketing pose as if they’ve somehow “created” or “innovated” anything other than a marketing campaign thought up in the dungeons of Billabong over the past decade. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to trade this leaky Rip Curl chest zip in for a black-and-teal wetsuit and complimentary hand plane.
Is that reference to Billabongs “Life’s better in boardshorts” campaign? I hate that campaign. My experience of life being better in boardshorts is coral cuts, a misdiagnosed staph infection, a couple of nights in an inadequately funded small town hospital, before being sent to to another inadequately funded small town hospital that had no beds left. So at 24 years of age, they placed me in the paediatric ward next to a two year-old with whooping cough (please immunise your children) for a week. Oh how the Nurses giggled at the spectacle. Follow that with three weeks of antibiotics and if you ever visited my house, you wouldn’t be surprised to see a wardrobe full of long-sleeved steamers and not boardshorts.
Let’s be honest though, we need the try-hard, sychophantic marketing of the industry. Who else can we rail against with impunity these days? No a lot it would seem in light of current events.
No, it’s a reference to the fact that the guys that started Vissla used to work at Billabong and were as corporate as it gets, but you’re right – indiscriminate advocacy of board shorts regardless of conditions should be a crime. Graham Fapeleberg and the rest of the Billabong head office should be rounded up and put on trial at the Hague.
While we are all speculating on the ‘industry’, has anyone noticed that Slater looks suspiciously like the Silver Surfer? Is that what Outerknown is about? A vague reference to his origins of surfing the cosmos, heralding the destruction of planets? Or is he just deluded?
The most poignant of thoughts. I had not yet even considered this but so much truth in here!
Finally, my unfounded feelings towards D’Blanc are validated. Oh god, they call their fucking team purveyors. Using French to illuminate your brand is so passé. And so proud they are that their product is made in Italy. Every sunglass you see that wasn’t purchased from purveyors of petrol is made in Italy. It’s the China of Europe. Maybe not the northern part but you’ll find sweatshop workers from the viscera down. Maybe this claim still holds weight with the fifteen year old pizza purveyors but everyone else will see this just as a label required upon his purchase.
You’re right. Northern Italy is just an industrial hole going under the guise of artisan (read, we’ve been left behind by China, but we’re better because we’ve been doing it inefficiently for longer).
Damn you can feel the smug coming through the screen.
If only I could do smug. I can’t: I live at the bottom of the world where we don’t do anything interesting or ground breaking. We just produce sheep and milk, while we cling desperately to small achievements, fight battles with Australia over food and beverages and there is a very real possibility that along with considering changing our flag, we may change our name to Aotearoa/Middle Earth. No, I’m not fit to do smug. Bitter? Yes.
Chas you’ve burst the bubble of worship I’ve had for you since I read “Welcome to Paradise” by how consistently wrong your predictions vis a vis the Internet have been. An Internet you now lovingly pump and thrust for your income. When someday we meet and I icily stare at you it will be due to your utter wrongness in this article, both in the past about the Internet and now.
Because, seriously, Vissla still sucks.
Michael! You are so right to icily stare. I deserve it and, really, what I have learned, is that my definition of “suck” is off half of the time.
I still love you, Monsieur Chas..