Young Hawaiian learns the true meaning of capitalism
I’d never been to the Surfer Poll Awards before this year. I rode there in the back of an old pick-up, beer in hand, wondering what it’d be like to sit in a room full of my heroes.
The night was mostly underwhelming, except for Mason Ho.
During the ceremony Mason won a couple awards: “Best Series” and the “AI Breakthrough Performer”. After receiving two rounds of congratulatory hugs and symbolic plastic surfboards, Mason took the mic to thank those who have inspired and helped him along the way. This of course includes his sponsors Rip Curl, …Lost, and — I’ll let him explain the rest.
The comedy! The candor! For those of you who can’t/won’t watch the clip, here’s the rough transcript:
I’d like to thank my sponsors again: Rip Curl — I never do that, ever, so it’s pretty cool — ummm Rip Curl and …Lost and Arnette and Etnies… but those two need to work on the contracts ’cause I’ve got other cooooool, super cool companies lookin’ for me. And then ummm, yup. So you better get that contract through, I know you seen my email this morning.
Now that I’m looking at it, Mason’s speech comes off a bit… Trumpish. Not in the overwhelmingly ignorant sense, but that his mind is spinning three times too fast, rendering him incapable of formulating a single, cohesive thought. But hell, it made perfect sense in the moment and was easily the highlight of the event. Also Mason wasn’t kidding!
Just one hour ago, Mr. Ho released an IG post announcing his inclusion to the Reef team. AKA buh-bye Etnies! AKA hello beer-popping slippahs!
This announcement filled me with joy, for the fact that we’ll be seeing even more of the globetrotting Hawaiian in 2017. When you combine Reef’s slogan of Just Passing Through with Rip Curl’s biggest property The Search, it’s fair to assume Mason’s year will be spent anywhere and everywhere waves go boom.
Start stocking up on bandwidth, the edits are coming!