It will be a Stalinist erasing.
I woke this morning to troubling news. Zach Weisberg and his merry band of “thinking surfers” at your other favorite Venice-adjacent surf website is attempting a coup. Attempting to co-opt surf history in an effort to re-write the narrative, I’d imagine. Matt Warshaw’s epic Encyclopedia of Surfing and History of Surfing are in deep financial straits, you see, and need of a few more subscribers to stay solvent. Zach, in a coldly calculating move, saw his chance to strike.
In an open letter, he wrote:
As someone who understands how challenging managing the vagaries of business for a digital-based editorial outlet in the surf and outdoor space can be, I refuse to allow the Encyclopedia of Surfing to exit Google’s fiber optics without a fight. And I’m optimistic that with a call to arms of this magnitude – with this much on the line for folks truly passionate about the history of the most fun thing to do on earth – surfers will unite, pony up a few bucks, and let Matt Warshaw (and the work he’s done on our behalf) know that it is appreciated and will live to see another day.
We cannot let this bald cynicism stand. If “thinking surfers” save both the Encyclopedia and History of surfing then they will effectively have the ability to transform our shared past into a “woke” version of themselves. Troubling episodes, like the very first production surfboards being called “swastikas” and Michel Bourez being described as “a eunuch fainting on a daybed” will be disappeared, replaced by “good vibes.”
Triggering words or phrases like “cunt” and “BeachGrit” will be forgotten forever.
It will be a Stalinist erasing and the ocean will soon fill with happy people on all manner of SUP and longboard attempting to “share the stoke” and “live aloha everyday.”
The only thing standing between that reality and our current racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, angry one is you.
Subscribe to the Encyclopedia of Surfing and the History of Surfing today. Give a subscription as a gift.
Save surfing from Venice-adjacent’s chubby little goat cheese and wine stained fingers.
How does this online subscription differ from the hardcover edition of 2005? Did the glowing reviews from the LA Times, San Fran Chronicle, etc. not juice the sales of this seminal tome? Get it now used for 7 bucks on Amazon
i am a fan of the encyclopedia! i hope mw can find the cash to keep it going.
I think you could find 3-bucks worth of change a month in the bottom of your couch and/or floor mats of your car.
Ok so regardless of the price Most people hate paying for something They don’t use and I’m not sure EoS is dying of starvation.
But I do use beach grit every day so how about beachgrit charge $4/month and then pay EoS $2/mth for research costs. Assuming all current readers would subscribe to BG I would expect this to be a better outcome for all parties and BG can Spruik they support charities like EoS and SurfStitch
Pardon me, but if “understanding how challenging managing the vagaries of business for a digital-based editorial outlet in the surf and outdoor space” is based on appealing to the lamest denominator, we’re all in trouble here.
good bye “wimpy”
you used ‘narrative’. shame.
My favourite Australian surfing image. RIP Kev.
https://m.youtube.com/watch…
Surf roark soon comes to the sunshine coasts bastion of music; Aussie World Shed 20 minutes inland. Playing with Sunnyboys. Get on it.
Throw in the Hard Ons and I’m on a plane!
They’re playing Brisbane on the 15th.
I love Mr Warsaw and I respectfully ask how can his web sites be in dire financial straits? Content written, no staff to pay, hopefully no leased Audi, a small monthly hosting fee. Unless the owner has recently discovered Meth, I’d say it’s a business model Sophie would get a wide on over.
I think he would like remuneration.
Go figure!
No problem with that, but 30k is one tidy Christmas bonus!
Seatown ain’t cheap nowadays …
it’s only a business if you get paid for it
I’m guessin’ in addition to paying himself out, he’s perhaps paying for image and copy rights? Idk.
Sorry everyone, it was just a lazy set up so I could write Warshaw, Meth and Sophie into the same post. Give the poor, starving bastard some money you tight arses.
MadLibs 4ever
Somebody remembers yesterday, last week, a decade ago, a century ago, millenia ago.
Where’d i put my keys fuck it?
yeah lots of things need to get woke; surfing needs to stay surfing!