Has the surf media gotten too grouchy?
I was having a conversation yesterday with a wonderful friend and filmmaker, Tate MacDowell when he says:
What’s up with these whiny, hypocritical surf mags. Every time I pick one up I feel like isn’t even fun or they’re telling me not to do shit. Seriously, I just got the latest Stab, Surfing and Surfer and they were all bitching about Instagram and locations being blown out. Don’t they understand I’m trying to get my stoke on with this rag? It’s like picking up a porno and reading a bunch of articles about how STD’s are hurting the industry. Fuck off! I’m obviously not getting laid if I’m reading this!
And I think:
Wow totally.
Do you think surf media has gotten too grouchy? I think it has. But the opposite of grouchy is cheese-faced Inertia. What is the middle ground? Help me help you!
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Zactly. The only acceptable MO is to lie about wherever you had a good session at.
Dicks at my local spoiled a tasty peak within 2 days. 1st day 3 blokes, 2nd day 5, next day 25. The only good thing was the swell had dropped but still. I told anyone who asked I was surfing 2 beaches away…
I mean they hire all these surf writers…Also it not like 90% is just surf pics…
Stab Mag are in the hands of their corporate puppet masters for the sole purpose of growing their surf sales market, the hardcore secret spot cover is like wearing a Sons of Anarchy shirt to a Hells Angels party.
pacific longboarder…
Why isn’t anyone questioning the watches and devices recording wave length, speed, frequency of rides, date and time. Sure is a lot of data! The question “Is that data being transmitted by location”?
Surf mags? That would be passing on info to about 7 people wouldn’t it?
I’d rather using a phone on the beach was punished by disappearing them up a hole. If you need to call a mate to go surfing with, they don’t really like you.
do you live in the same house as your surfing friends? how else would you coordinate a surf sesh wthout a phone call? the mind boggles.
Too grouchy? Never. In fact, not grouchy enough. Look at media coverage of any other sport, brutal in comparison.
When was the last time that a surfer was truly called out for a shitty (excuse me, “poor”) performance?
touché
I think this MacDowell dude is confusing grouchy with thoughtful
I just sitting on the shitter trying to read a magazine that makes me excited for surfing and instead I’m reading about a ton of people that are getting paid to go surfing who think people like myself are fucking it up for them. Then I’ll end up at some industry freaking tradeshow with a panel of magazine editors listening to them spit out bullshit reasons that they think readership is down and print is dying.
man for somebody who doesn’t like whining…
TomHouse must work for a magazine
The mags are so use to being the guardian of secrets when it comes to waves and there where about’s. Social media has opened the pandora’s box! Ive been shut down when asking an industry fellow about certain location of a wave i wanted to go surf. “Its a secret can’t talk…” I have no empathy for their situation. Its all about control..
Incorrect!!! The mags are the disclosers of surf spots, always have been. But regular folks do it too, and should be beaten with a stick for it. Shut up you guys.
There’s a lot of people who would benefit from a good stick beating.
Surf mags reflect the sport. Surf mags are grouchy because most surfers are really old.
and there you have it… the mags really just want to tell us all to fuck off and take up golfing instead. But that’s not much of a business plan.
No no no no no it’s called “attitude”. It tells everyone you are an “opinion leader”, you know, “right on! we’re calling this shit to account!” while in fact you are disappearing up your own arse.
now we all know there is only so far you can disappear up your own narnia-hole. to really disappear one must go alone into anothers narnia-hole. this is physics people.
or geometry. i cant rememembember.
Next! “Stop using your Mobile Telephones to alert your colleagues to the goodness of the Surf!”
“We’re All Rebels!!” No you’re not.
Ha!
That t-shirt should have also said “and one hell of a dumb fucking haircut”
Beg to differ
Betty Page meets weed wacker
Karen O meets PJ Harvey meets rrawrrr….
I hate it when Dudes get creepy but that New York Jewish junkie chic vibe does it for me…
I wrote the grouchy ING piece. Sorry Chester, I’m a salty dog
Are the rumours true that ING is going weekly with a glossy tabloid style in a attempt to compete with BeachGrit?
We’ll be publishing a twice daily zine called beachshit
Ha! Well Derek and I are pivoting to a feel good t-shirt brand called 4ever 40!
Oh, So other than the time frame, sticking with the status quo.
I didn’t read! How grouchy were you? Like…..Don Trump grouchy or K. Khan grouchy?
I thought I was your favorite surf journalist? Warshaw has already mailed me his half of your friendship bracelet…
The Kublai is a good man at heart, I reckon I’d align myself within his realm of grouchery
Tis the most enlightened and hermetic, sometimes ascetic and even mystical, form of grouchery.
Bring the fun. Bring the incendiary. Bring the controversial. Bring the true “irreverence” which Surfer curiously champions without, apparently, having looked up the word.
chas tell us things you love and why they are great
Real things tho, not just clothes I can’t afford.
I’d like to step in and say I came…this…close to announcing the cover above as the cover of the year. I loved it!
I like the picture and all the work put into making it. I just didn’t even know that “dropping pins” was a thing.
I like aesthetically but believe that we have become overly grouchy. The demand to “stop dropping pins…” Don’t fucking tell me what to fucking do! See! Grouchy!
But then you’ve got Derek in that Dane interpretation telling us to “Lose the soul arch.” You writers think that we’re just waiting to be told what to do and what not to do?
if you paddle out in the way, splash others while kicking, and sit too close to people in the lineup, you deserve to be told what to do.
“Ew, did you see that kook splash me? I hate getting wet when I’m surfing!”
oh no
that is very much the way that media works, yes
snort laughing
Hahahahaha yes grom
I have been listening to the surf splendor podcast since I heard about it on BG. That said, there is a really good one with Dave Parmenter that sums this up fairly well.
Grit is the middle way!