What did The Inertia's founder do this week? Unless you are familiar with Japanese pornography it'll come as a wonderful surprise!
The world’s favorite surf-based website is starting an edgy new column titled Who We Pissed Off This Week and it is as amazing as it sounds! Founder Zach Weisberg opens the series with a lengthy piece that lets us take a rare peek behind The Inertia‘s editorial curtain. Some gems include:
YOU MAD! Of course, you mad. I’ve long believed that if you’re not initiating conversations, you’re not a good media outlet, and our typical modus operandi is to move forward after a tempest in a teacup. No time for the rearview. Life passes. Time passes. Anger happens, and we must move on or risk turning into raisin-y, pillow-y versions of ourselves. We can’t do that. The world is spinning, folks!
Off the bat, one thing that seems most consistently misunderstood in observing feedback, no matter the issue, is that many readers do not understand that The Inertia is a platform for a broad diversity of perspectives to share their work.
We believe more strongly in the value of building a platform where conflicting and diverse perspectives coexist than exclusively publishing things we support.
And that’s us. That’s people. The only consistency we relentlessly champion is that of quality, respect, and embracing diversity, communication, and earnest self-improvement in the ocean and outdoors.
Then we are on to the main event! Part one of Who We Pissed Off This Week is Kelly Slater Super Fans. Apparently a contributor, JP Currie, wrote a piece on Kelly Slater’s interview with WeAreChange.org. He described it as, “Intentionally provocative, with ‘acerbic’ humor intended to draw a reaction.” And did it ever stir the thoughtful surfer loins! Almost 50 whole comments, most very negative of Mr. Currie’s style (which, if I am being honest, is neither provocative nor humorous).
And where did the esteemed Mr. Weisberg come down? On the side of truth and justice of course!
My concern with Currie’s column revolved not around the fact that it was critical of Kelly Slater’s interview. Great writers think critically. Great media outlets are willing to challenge icons. Both deserve a meaningful place in the fabric of The Inertia’s editorial offerings. Rather, my regret around this piece is its tone. And admittedly, that’s something we did absolutely nothing to curb. So let the daggers pierce us so.
When we challenge our heroes, I would prefer that we do so more respectfully.
Brilliant! Of course you remember the Charlie Hebdo killings, when crazed Islamic radicals stormed the offices of the satirical French magazine and murdered eleven for publishing cartoons about Muhammed. While the world shouted Je Suis Charlie one American cartoonist who prides himself on being controversial, Garry Trudeau, thought it best to blame the murdered for their own deaths. He said that the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists “wandered into the realm of hate speech” and, thus, implicitly, deserved what they got.
In a similar vein, it is wonderful that Mr. Weisberg gets to paternally scold one of his writers while at the same publishing his work while at the same time poking fun of Kelly Slater Super Fans while at the same time being a Kelly Slater Super Fan. That’s what I call having your cake and eating it too! Or bukkake!
.simian poetry is a real treat…
Some do have access to keyboards but they keep typing the “K” and “O” keys for some reason…
Mmmmm… I prefer Gorilas myself although they do tend to be a bit repetitive.
said the sexist donkey.
Get your fauna straight or please make an appointment to the optometrist.
did i say donkey? i meant monkey. so easy to conflate the two.
Still got it wrong: a gorilla is not a monkey. Get your primates right!
salty? Stab has been way better the last few weeks actually, but there’s always that brazzo clickbait
That’s just because you’re STAB’s no1 commentator now. I’ve been dethroned!
just cause i made one call about Mick skipping Rio, got some traction
Umm we’re pretty close. Eddie and Clyde were close, from what Clyde and Myra have told me. It’s a complex relationship though, the brother, all kinds of shit going on. Sometimes it sits easily and sometimes it’s a real battle. I can very much relate to Clyde’s task in bearing the standard for his brother’s legend. If you want to know about me and Tom, read the book I wrote about us.
You mean buy the book… come on Eds is this really allowed here?
BTW I’m thinking of organising a fundraiser to follow the WCT and have one of the pros adopt me so I can write his autobiography
pompous is like outward smugness, which is more brooding, nearly aloof. Inertia is pompous but they think we think they’re just aloof.
well most people who are pompous are smug, but not all who are smug are pompous.
nah, Tom and I got there about a half hour late, but the gang filled us in. I think the most common description was “All time!” between fits of schoolboy type laughter. But boy weren’t they quiet when Clyde was speaking.
Jesus….i’ve rarely ever looked at the inertia, I just have…..for the love of fucking god I had no idea it was as bad as that!
Hahaha ..”kooks of the highest order”. Indeed they are
“Everybody cut the bullshit. Really. Really.”
This is all well and good, but what about Qalo?
That’s it, lads, keep at it and maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get BG featured in the new column. We all see your Inertia trolling as thinly-veiled subscriber jealousy!
Chazz! the Inertia’s 26th most favoured son!
Top 30? I’ve made it.
Does ass-kissing count for extra points?
You might just have broken into that hard 25th place…
I’ll break you in hard.
You misspelled “blow”
Dropping ‘bukkake’, right at the end, should do it.
I knew 3 people who were all best buds and loved the Inertia. I would always over hear them talking about Nazare, retro surfboards and Kelly Slater. I once heard that they had gone to a local shaper to get a gun shaped to surf the local big wave spot (a big fat mushy wave that tourists love to talk about). When I eventually saw them surfing for the first time, one was on a minimal, one on a 6’2 egg and the last one on a boogie board with no fins. When ever I think of the Inertia and their readers I picture these 3 in my head, but then when I read one of their articles I realise its not just read by these type of people, its also written by them.
That is very funny….
genius
So true. Even more sad.
I refuse to give them even one of my clicks!
Is not clicking the ultimate form of trolling? Think about that..Tough decision isn’t it?
I just hope the Inertia’s number top commentator and Rory’s no1 fan Albee Doh aka Jeff Byrnes never find’s our little safe haven here…
Fuck I hate that verbose pretentious troglodyte.
I actually quite like his relentless style on the keyboard.
He is tenacious, I’ll give him that…
that’s one ban I’d vote for here.
I see you made it to number 14 on the intertia’s top commentators list… congratulations.
…bam!
What about “Freerider?” Either that is the most meticulous troll ever or he/she’s actually the most annoying human on earth.
I always thought he was just trolling but came to the conclusion he actually is just plain old crazy. But he is the no2 commentator over there!.
Je Suis The Inertia
My first ever comment on the Inertia is pending approval by the Inertia….. does this happen to everybody or did they know I think they suck before I arrived?
You’re on the diqus equivalent of the Terror Watch List.
You may have used an Inertia banned word like bugger or BeachGrit.
Oh fiddle-dee-dee! How was I to know that a website that believes “(strongly) in the value of building a platform where conflicting diverse perspectives coexist” would be so upset by the phrase “piece of shit” in reference to their comment section?
classic !
That happened to me 3-4 times – basically trying to tell them how fucked they were and couldn’t handle it. Tried to rip into that freerider kook and same as well. Inertia = Kooks
We’re just going to have to use polite ways of telling them they’re fucktards.
Thats the key to good trolling… My favourite ploy on an old stomping ground pre-Negatron. Was quietly and politely but relentlessly riling people to the point of them exploding into a cluster fuck outburst on the keyboard. Then pulling them up about their poor behaviour and requesting a apology. Quite often they did. Sad? maybe. But fun at the time.
I’m only learning this trade and unfortunately I haven’t really been getting any better at it. It’s a fun little small scale model of human interactions that has if anything demonstrated to me that you can never really win an argument or change someones mind. It’s also interesting how readily people will say they’re going to fuck my mum without first sighting the beast in question. Sad? Definitely. Fun waste of time. Absolutely.
My, my, that was a bit smug…
nous ne sommes pas l’inertia.
Ha!
I don’t give a shit about the Inertia and STAB, they’re fucking racists. They love to publish shit about Gabriel Medina. Just try to analyze MEdina statistics. Compare the numbers that Slater gathered at his age, 21, and you will see that Medina has better numbers at 21… So it’s an act of pure racism and cowardness publish the pile of shit they post about Medina. As soon as I discovered Beach Grit, i start to follow and i think the guys who run this website do that for passion just because surfing is like nicotine, when you get addicted you’ll die smoking… So, if the guys are doing Beach Grit for love, it’s a reasoning pursuit to publish and debate the truth. Every now and then, there’s a video from JJF or Dane Reynolds saying the best surfer in the world. If JJF is the best surfer in the fucking world, he should be in the last two PipeMaster finals or reach Hawaii as a title contender. It’s funny cuz people will keep saying so like they spent ten years repeating it about Dane Reynolds and yes, Dane got a USD 3 million/year contract with Quik and now this world of easy money doesn’t exist anymore. If JJF didn’t find a title, he will have to renegotiate his USD4 million/yr deal with Hurley. But Medina is making his USD 7 million/yr just because he has a lot more followers on Instagram than Slater. I think that’s the real reason this fucking racists are so damn bothered about Medina. And let’s wait for this season, no title hangover, if Medina keep the momentum of 2106 2nd half, he will clinch the title in Europe like Slater use to do in his fine form. Fuck you Stab and The Inertia!!!!
You know that thing where if you’re a cunt people hate you and if you’re nice people like you. Think about that in the context of Gabriel Medina. It’s not racism nor is it rocket science.
@@MorganWilliamsonDumbCunt:disqus , you don’t know Medina, you can’t imagine what this kid and his parents have been thru and you do belong to ABOG, Associação dos Baba Ovo de Gringo. you are missing who Kelly Slater is, how arrogant he is, the situations he got involved here in Rio de Janeiro, but he doesn’t fucking care, cuz he is still the champ. That’s a basic fact, a multiple champ like Medina and Slater don’t give a shit about what do you think, he is the game to win not to make friends. The first Medina tour victory in France in 2011, Slater tried to apply on Medina his mind games in the water, Medina was 17 yrs old. Medina just paddled over him. The young lion showed the old lion that his reign was over. The young lion has come to dominate the pack.
are you Borat?
I don’t know mate…. this is going down the race path again. Medina comes across as one of the least gracious and likeable sports people I’ve ever witnessed. Kelly has also exhibited bad behaviour at times.
race? i know it might be hard for some to fathom this, but “Brazilian” is NOT a race.
Brasil is a big, multi-ethnic country, filled with people of many races. in the context of brasil and latin america, Gabriel Medina is White. (So is Italo Ferreira, btw. Wiggolly? less clear.)
that comment actually meant for caveira
Nailed it.
Wiggs is nothing but a Prince. Untouchable.
.nice new thumb, btw… are you familiar with ‘arpoador’? …that’s an icon break, berth of brazzo surf in the 60’s… not much punch like my local, but kinda pointy lefts with the right swell, E/SE…
Thanks Sandy. The picture is of my girlfriend and I visiting last year. You’re right it has next to no punch. It’s a burger. Looks like it could be pretty fun though.
.mush below 4ft, over 6ft E/SE would be much like trestles lefties I think…
check this, itacoatiarapro.com, 10 to 12ft last year, its boogie but you can feel the punch of my local, mike stuart just loves it, been considered local with all the honours… google itacoatiara for some surf footage… welcome anytime…
Yeah it looks like it gets a good amount of swell there. The dick dragger’s were getting some pretty fucked up ones. Whats the water temp?
.chill in the summer from E swells… warm for autumn, winter when S/SE prevail and it pumps from april to november, it holds 4 to 8ft most often but the sand bottom shifts a lot…
I’m definitely going to check it out one day it looks nice. The Prince of Ubatuba has a Brazzo passport too.
be my guest… though it’s a beach break, it has a short strip of sand around 1/2 mile length, confined by huge boulders, so the sand banks are not that stable due the massive flow of water in & out when it breaks hard (see trekearth.com/gallery/South…… so it often behaves as a slab, hence the boogie thriving… nonetheless it produced some ct level surfers, namely ricardo tatui, guilherme herdy & bruno santos… and it’s one hour car drive from saquarema, qs quick in may’16, and also 1h from barradatijuca, that’s some happy vacation time… vai wiggs!
It’s always good to see where other people on here come from. I’d probably never have checked this out otherwise. Thanks Sandy.
.don’t mention it… for a final tease, google itacoatiara shock, real rock bottom slab on the corner of same beach, dickdraggers go nuts!
Haha I can only find photos of poo men doing star jumps down the front of it. Do you get out and surf it?
.don’t get me wrong, as I mentioned before it’s a rather boogie break, 1 to 2 second real intense drop in, barrel, spit and it’s all, surfers cant stand a chance…
bodysurf is my way, packing ’till 6ft closeouts anytime… not on shock tough, urchins are fucking little bitches…
That’s a rich one.
I don’t follow tennis but some asshole Ozzie kid with a greek surname jumps to mind immediately. Medina wouldn’t even break top100…
I don’t really watch tennis but yeah that guy fucking sucks. I saw him in the streets with his little posse one time. Such a cunt.
Im still trying to figure out these guys Gabriel and Felipe. Yes, Im calling them by their first names. I will be nice and call them young men! This goes for all young sponsored surfer’s they all have a little “prime donne” in them. Their talent and work ethic is undeniable but to be hailed “Men” bothers me a little.
Haha wild free.
I think it’s “Prima Donnas” and that could be said about most freaking pro surfers, although I find some local wannabe pros that barely make the top QS200 to be way more insufferable than the Brazilian pros I’ve shared waves with. BTW one of the biggest wankers in the water is Parko…
I’ve never really liked lions… I’m more of a chimpanzee guy.
“Gringo” is also perpetuating a stereotype and quite racist on its own. I wonder how the Indios call you white/black/mulato/italian/tedesco colonials??? ABOZ?
.beg to differ… term gringo in brazzo lexicon just means foreign citizen, being them from any and every country, so it cannot be deemed racist… and when it appear as an adjective, it’s used to denote that a thing, product, craft, etc. is of premium quality, as a ref to a time when brazzo industry generally couldn’t match world class performance… so, for instance, saying that something is gringo one’d be regarding that of awesome, stunning quality… like sayin’, “- esse objeto é gringo…” it could be meaning that that object, not necessarily been made in another country, has a very distinctive character…
Not really as it pertains mostly to anglo foreigners. Never heard a Brazilian call a Chilean or Peruvian or even a Portuguese gringo?
Besides “Caveira é Baitola” associates any and all criticism to Brazilian surfers to racism and any if it comes from one of his countrymen then he’s part of ABOG!
This is surf and as far as I’m concerned it should be about the surfers and surf and not nationalities or races (he’s really pushing this one).
.talking about words, not persons…. as it concerns me, also don’t give a nano fuck for that asshole opinions…wanna talk to me, be welcome to bash, criticize, or whatever with my opinions, but don’t mix those with any other one’s…
Yes, all good, but my initial objection about the use of “gringo” was in a reply to @caveirabaitola:disqus
Anyway regarding the case made by @ricoimmo:disqus about racism reg Brazilians not being a race (neither are Gringos) that’s a skewed attempt at reducing racism to the “race” word only. The concept of racism is unfortunately much wider than that and can be applied to different cultures, system of beliefs, traits, languages, etc. I think it’s important to take in to consideration the concepts of “nationalism” and “xenophobia” and not pretend they’re not an intrinsic part of “racism”.
As for me, I’m with @Longtom and prefer to try (can’t pretend I achieve this fully) and see the surfers as individuals regardless of nationality.
.now we talking same language, as for the last paragraph reads… I don’t even like to use the term race to differentiate people by ethnical contrasts, we’re all human race… I think the right term is prejudice, as it is presented in all forms you mentioned, ethnic, religion, xeno & nationwise..
.patriotism is what makes poor people of one country kill another country’s poor people, sole for the benefit of both countries’ rich people…
.peace…
Now you have drifted into the realm of pure bullshit, fatboy. “Gringo” is a derisive epithet throughout banana land, no matter what flavor of Latin is gibbered.
.to start the discussion, where are you from, idiot? …so you wanna teach me the context of the language I speak in my day-to-day for more than 45 years… talk about self entitlement…
“- oné that speaks can only repeat what he already knows; one that listens only risks acquiring further knowledge.” (mohandas gandhi)
*than
learn fucking English fatboy.
.yeah, android autocorrect plays bitchy tricks in everybody… (*on?) …anyway, focusing on voweless the days, deciphered my response on phrase’s initial dots yat?
Gibbering kook.
want a chance to place the vowels and make a rather sensible in actual english language response? come on, play along, i did my home work, got your question answered it and just took the vowels off, c’mon it’s your own medicine don’t choke on that… it’s not that you have anything to really do now, is it…?
“surfing is like nicotine” fuck yeah Caveira! You’re the King!
.this is not ‘the’ caveira guy, handle meaning “cavvy is a faggot”… must be some of his foes on brazzo surf foruns…
Hey James B
Why don’t you use your habitual handle?
When I was reading Zach’s piece, all I could think about was how much I hoped you would write something on it! My dreams have come true! Thanks Chas!
Hi Morgan.
Funny, when I heard Zach’s name, I was hoping he’d be attacked in a dark alley.