It trashes the WSL while taking its $3.50 paycheck.
The Quiksilver Pro is continuing its li’l bit depressing march today, and by the grace of God it will soon end. Those waves! That ugly! And it must be one thing for the WSL to cop flak from what Tracks magazine (the surfer’s bible no less) deemed, “…bottom feeding journalists.” But it must be quite another for them to cop flak for shitty waves from forecast sponsor SURFLINE!
It was poor Pete Mel who usually stood on the beach during those lay days and hyped the upcoming swell, courtesy of Surfline provided models, information, science, “It is going to get good! Hang in there!” But then Surfline runs the story “The Quiksilver Pro Round Two: Because we had to.” Ouch! And to end with a preposition! Double ouch! And “Because we had to” why? Because you were desperate enough to take the $3.50 media partnership that the WSL was offering and forced to cover the event? Triple ouch! The story continues with the clearly snickering line, “The world’s best surfers in the world’s best waves…” Well they got it half right. (Read here!)
But what of all that Pete Mel hyping courtesy of Surfline provided models, information, science? Just rude. They fed the WSL a line and then trash the event after it was clear that no, and I mean NO, waves were ever coming. I guess it is very easy to slap Graham Stapelberg when he is down. “BUT…” I shout as I mount my high horse “…the horrible, unsurfable surf is the one thing I have liked best about this inaugural WSL event!” I like it because it is honest. The ocean is, of course, cruel and the WSL is reacting as best as it can, which is as good as anyone could have reacted. There is absolutely nothing to do with shit surf except cancel, which is just as pointless as running in slop.
Yes, the WSL chose to trot out a silly commentary crew (Pete Mel and Chelsea Cannell totally exempted), chose to change its name to the most asinine thing ever, chose not to change its logo even though it was drawn by an art school drop-out, chose not to pay anyone, chose to let surfers choose stupid numbers, chose to commission a graphics package that looks the way it does, chose to try and be the NFL, chose an almost endless amount of very bad things. But it did not choose this shit surf. This shit surf chose them. It chooses us all. And Surfline can go fuck itself.
It has been obvious for some time that Surfline has no editorial oversight. A lot of the writers are top notch but the day-to-day content it a fucking embarrassing mix of hyperbole, asinine comparisons (T-Street looking like Puerto brah), incorrect assumptions, and cardinal sin level fuck-ups (like naming spots that any real surfer knows you shouldn’t name). They sold out our passion and in my opinion have done more to fuck up authentic surfing than gidget. Half of the thrill of surfing was discovery. Now it is sold like boardshorts. Who profits? Surfline alone. Who gets the cornhole? Everyone else. The flyingpeanut knows!
Surfline is the biggest prostitute in surfing. Forget the companies marketing a product via an image, Surfline has done more to crowd lineups and sell out a lifestyle than anyone else. From their “board suggestion of the day” which is always 40L too big to appease the flabby, weekend warrior kooks, to advertising surf sunglasses, the good folks at Surfline have ruined old Sean’s dream of a way for SURFERS to figure out where they should be surfing, instead turning it into a spectacle for the fine folks of Arizona to figure out which San Diego break they should be boogie boarding at en masse.
One of the biggest problems with professional surfing is there is too little content to satisfy the infrastructure required to keep it going. In major team sports like the NBA or NFL you get the all the trade hype, individual achievements, past game highlights/stats/analytics (ewww surf + math!), community stories, and so on. Our, mostly testosterone fueled, soap opera needs juicy side-stories to stay entertaining. The WSL realm has what 60 something people that matter? That’s a little over one NFL team! There is only so much the click hungry media machine can do with that (maybe monopolize the clip game, but that is an entirely different can of worms), thus the aquatic ouroboros.
Dane out, The King out, JJF out, Gabby out… Is this the worst contest ever?
Karma is a bitch.
This entire event is depressing. World Surf League jinx?