Breitbart ads banned from Teahupoo broadcast at the behest of San Diego shaper Rich Kenvin.
Earlier today, as the Billabong Tahiti Pro skidded to a surprisingly exciting end in smallish grey Teahupoo, the WSL website was festooned in ads for the right-wing website Breitbart.com.
Breitbart, in case you didn’t know, is a news website that really sticks in the craw of Castro-hat-wearing leftists for its pro-Trump, anti-open borders, pro-Israel positions. Its founder, Andrew Breitbart, switched the site from news aggregator to news network a decade ago after a trip to Israel with his co-founder Larry Solov.
Breitbart, Solov? Yeah, both Jews.
“One night in Jerusalem, when we were getting ready for dinner,” says Solov, “Andrew turned to me and asked if I would de-partner from the 800-person law firm where I was practicing and become business partners with him. He said he needed my help to create a media company. He needed my help to “change the world”… We were blown away by the spirit, tenacity, and resourcefulness of the Israeli people on that trip. Andrew could be quite convincing, not to mention inspiring, and I decided right there and then to ‘throw away’ (my Mom’s phrase) a perfectly good, successful and safe career in order to start a ‘new media’ company with Andrew Breitbart.”
Anyway, for a lot of people Breitbart represents the devil, for others its a voice that ain’t often heard.
Richard Kenvin, who enjoys Castro hats and is characterised by Coke bottle spectacles and who once won a pro event at Blacks, is of the former. And when the Breitbart ads started lighting up the WSL site he became terribly upset and loosed his fury on Instagram.
The WSL quickly responded.
Obviously, in that little echo-chamber the response was uniform.
milesjackler Yay! Glad something could be done. Cheers for making the effort
aaronpores Nice job, Richard. A little gumption and a few well-placed words go a long way.
meyerhoffer Yep.
mystic_looch ✌️
jallenz Post of the day.
m_laraghy
will.batman Great job!! @hydrodynamica
arbosurfboards
adamsurfs Thanks for speaking up!
davodenis
sli_boogie Well done @hydrodynamica @wsl
Are you as thrilled as the Rich Kenvin fans?
Or do you think, oowee, can’t a brother have an opinion anymore unless it conforms to strict guidelines as laid down by San Diego surfboard designers?
The WSL, Breitbart, and Kenvin have all been approached for comment.
More soon, maybe.