Why is self-hatred trending?

So it’s a very slow news day, Pipe didn’t run and hasn’t since late 2006, the surf in front of my home is filled with Hepatitis C etc. which gives my mind too much space to wander. And today it wandered back to the Dane Reynolds vs. Inertia blood feud that captivated the nation just one week ago.

Do you remember how glorious it was? When it happened here and Dane responded here and Zach Weisberg waded in to the fray, paternalistically and unnecessarily to condescend Dane here?

Zach’s passive aggressive milquetoast was so complete that it represents the high water mark of the genre but there was one sentence that I passed over and it was this:

Like it or not, The Inertia is a pretty accurate composite of what the surf and outdoor world looks like on this planet today.

A few of our wonderful folk disagreed in the comment section but I’ve heard this refrain before. Our own Rory Parker is one who even agrees with it or did in the same comment section.

But our sweet Rory Parker and his ilk have had too many Blue Hawaiis and are all the way wrong!

People who surf, or “surfers” for lack of a better word, come from wildly diverse backgrounds yes. Some of us work in the construction arts, some are teachers, some are salt-crusted surf hounds and some are hippy-hip-hip hipsters. Some surf on the weekends some surf weekdays some surf twin fins some surf Kelly Slater Designs some wear booties and earplugs some don’t.

We are diverse but not stupidly sensitive dim-witted humorless jackasses and that is what The Inertia is and that is who they represent.

Which brings me to my real point. Why is it fashionable to shit on people who surf? Oh I get that we are selfish. That we are rude and ill-mannered and not “cool” but to liken all surfers to Inertia-stye drivel is self-hatred to an unnecessary degree.

So why are some surfers so self-hating? Why is it trending in some corners?

Anyone?