Modern: Jen See transitions to 12-year-old boy!

The things people do to watch pro surfing!

Koa. Koa sounds like the kind of person who would be too cool to have a Facebook account, but would also like to watch surfing. But maybe he’d be too cool to watch surfing, too? Maybe Koa just scrolls through instagram to check out his friends’ clips and follows John John, because he’s got a sailboat and gets sweet airs. I’m not sure Koa would really watch contest surfing.

Last fall in a fit of rage, I deleted my Facebook account. It wasn’t my friends arguing about politics. Really, I didn’t mind that. I rarely learned anything all that surprising. Yes, the distant relative, a practicing evangelical Christian, was telling all her friends to vote Trump for the Supreme Court and an end to Roe. Of course, she was. And of course, my college professor friends were shifting further left with every passing week.

What cracked me was the firehose of shit the algorithm pumped into my “news feed” each day. Wild conspiracies, troll-bait headlines from websites of questionable provenance, so many weird, unsourced rumors. It made me so tired. Life is too short, I figured. If I wanted to see my friends perfect lives and feed my personal data into the machine, well, there was always Instagram. So I hit that delete button and never looked back.

It was all good until this morning when I saw the updates on Twitter. There is surfing happening! These updates always bring a smile to my face! Time to watch surfing instead of work, I thought, happily. And I do like J-Bay. J-Bay is dreamy and beautiful and makes my heart sing with joy.

But instead of clicking through to J-Bay goodness, I got the dread Facebook login. Which, I do not have, because of the rage and the deleting. Now I was going to have to do actual work! On a Monday morning! Also, there is marine layer that is making me sleepy. No surfing, marine layer, and work. Maybe I should just go back to bed.

Instead of going back to bed, I started thinking. I could be Koa, who watches surfing on Facebook. Koa is twelve and doesn’t have a Facebook account yet, because he figured it was just something for old people. But he’s stuck in the car right now on his way to a family reunion for the Fourth of July, somewhere inland, somewhere far away from his local beach, and he figures, well, maybe watching some surfing will pass the time, while he’s stuck with the old people.

I’m not sure if it’s an entirely smart move to make your niche event harder for people to access, but here we are.

 

I’m not sure if it’s an entirely smart move to make your niche event harder for people to access, but here we are. Presumably, the WSL is making money off this arrangement, though typically, the money flows toward Facebook from content publishers. “To boost this post and reach 10k more accounts, please pay $1000,” is the way this arrangement works on the regular — though in true ‘grit style, I made up those numbers. But an exclusive arrangement sounds like Facebook is paying — and oh boy, would I like to know how much, because I like knowing things like this.

Anyway, if you need me, I’ll just be over here creating my new Facebook identity. I’m twelve, I have blonde hair, and I like Supreme. My favorite surfer is John John. When I grow up, I want to sail around the world. I hope this family reunion is over soon. I guess we have to play softball or something. Softball is stupid. I don’t like cherry pie, why can’t there be cake? Chocolate cake is way better than cherry pie. Oh god, now dad wants me to SUP with him on the lake. This is like, the most embarrassing thing ever. I am never going to live this down.

Call me, Koa.