Scenario: Facebook Live reveals women's surfing to be twice as popular as the men. What happens next?
Do you remember the melodrama six days ago when event organisers of the Ballito Pro Junior photographed the male and female winners side by the side, the boy holding a winner’s cheque double the girl’s?
The prevailing narrative was that this was further evidence, as if further evidence was necessary, of the brutal patriarchy that keeps women’s necks under the jackboot of “straight white males.” That women must work twice as hard to earn the same money and so on.
The counter-argument was…mmmm…half the competitors means half the money. Don’t matter if you dick or pussy. It’s a numbers game.
But then, how many girls are in the top 100 paid athletes in the world?
Zero.
Misogyny!
Simplistic?
Yeah, it is. H0w many gals you know park ’emselves on the couch to watch the game? Or throw their livers away at sports bars, eyeballs glued to giant wall-mounted televisions? Men like to watch men.
Anyway, tonight, thanks to the WSL’s collaboration with Facebook, the lingering question…how popular is women’s surfing compared to the jocks?…is going to be answered.
Definitively.
That little number in the top left corner?
During the men’s event at J-Bay, it hovered around ten k and peaked at twenty-ish during the finals.
Let’s imagine the scenarios.
Steph and Carissa paddle out in luminous green four-to-six-foot alls and it hits forty k.
Does that mean women should have their prizemoney doubled?
They paddle out and it scratches five k.
Halved?
I watch with great interest and I encourage you to do the same.
Yea? Bet you’re a fucking pussy and you’re trolling is cooked, m8
“Your tripping balls bitch!” you sound like a frat boy in a dayglo tank top at his first rave in 2017.. hope to god you don’t speak like that in public
Some of the chicks surf great, Steph rips. Doesn’t make the women’s heats any less boring.
I’d rather waste my data on watching get sendy clips
You either didn’t read what I wrote, didn’t comprehend what I wrote, or are fucking with me.
“Ace bores me too, but still rips the shit out of a wave in a far more aesthetically pleasing manner (minus some sweet little chest pillows and a cheeky bikini a la Tatti) compared to 98% of womens CT surfers.”
The 2% I wasn’t referring to includes Steph. ‘More aesthetically pleasing’ doesn’t mean ‘the most aesthetically pleasing’. Next time try and pay attention you fuckwit.
Isn’t that little number regional and, therefore, meaningless to your study unless you ascertain the number from each and every one of the different regions?
Is this a serious question?
I flipped through the replays. There was some predictably good surfing — Steph, obvs, and Caroline Marks, for reals. But, man, there was also some disastrous surfing. Like, ugh. I’d love to hear some honest interviews about what it was like out there — expectations versus the reality of surfing JBay, etc. I mean, obviously, omg! It’s beautiful! So stoked! Okay. But like, why was it so hard to turn your surfboard and get down the line? Thanks.
Name names! Who was a disaster? I can’t stand Sally Fitz’s style, myself.
dawww, i don’t love sally’s style, but it feels like an almost exact expression of her personality and i find that kind of endearing, actually.
i was sorta surprised by lakey. she’s fast. she can turn well. but it was all kinda meh? idk.
I thought Coco’s 9 was the only wave that had a true J-Bay look to it.
I’ll wait for Long toms detailed analysis…. and then watch Steph’s heats on analyzer… done. Thanks for that in advance LT.
It currently says 1.2k…
Is it ok to say girls do man turns? Pottz has just fucked so many things up. Jen are you there?
That is bad. I was asleep during this whole thing. When I watch the replays, I will turn off the commentary, natch.
2.1k same as finals of a qs
“That little number in the top left corner?”
Tut tut, Derek. WSL Overlord explained just days ago that no matter the number we see, there are many many more who will watch. They swear to god, cross their heart, pinky promise.
20k on the ticker? 600k cumulative, cuz.. ya know.. multiple platforms! *WSL moves entire webcast to one platform
People were testing this on the comments section of the webcast the other day – saying where they were from and what the number said. There was a guy from Portugal, Victoria and Afghanistan (I checked his profile, seemed legit) all with pretty much the same number. Oooops WSL we that daft are we?
That’s funny! Even if there were 1000 people in every country on planet earth watching, that’d still put the number just under 200k viewers, which for a professional sport event really isn’t that hot.
“Men like to watch men” This! Yes! Homoerotic gods be blessed. We are men who like to only watch men!
Maybe I’m alone, but I just wanna see discernibly feminine competitors with surfing ability in the same ballpark as men. Seems like a tall ask these days.
I want to see men surf like women who will be boys who will be girls who will be boyss who will be lalalala
..always should be someone you really love?
“Men like to watch men.”
I wouldn’t say it this way. I usually prefer to watch women.
It’s the sport I don’t care about. Look, imagine there are as much girls as there are boys in sportscars. Who would care? We can’t see them anyway! What’s the difference between a bunch of male cyclists and a bunch of female cyclists? If you don’t put the speed on the bottom of the screen, it’s just a bunch of cyclists passing.
When a girl has a nice style and surfs great, I watch her. I can’t watch Adrian Buchan without falling asleep before the 32nd turn.
But lying in bed on clean egyptian cotton sheets with adrian the “most intelligent world tour surfer ever” buchan whispering silly things in your ear would be lovely, no!?
As long as I don’t have to watch him surf…
Besides maybe 2 or 3, which of them possess this style and great surfing you speak of? On the whole, Dereks correct. Men like to watch men. Ace bores me too, but still rips the shit out of a wave in a far more aesthetically pleasing manner (minus some sweet little chest pillows and a cheeky bikini a la Tatti) compared to 98% of womens CT surfers.
I’m not talking about pros only. I’ve seen girls surfing really great on beaches where I’ve been surfing myself. It’s great to see a girls with a nice style. Smooth, stylish surfing could be great to watch, entertaining, different.
Beside amateurs, I like to watch Stephanie Gilmore, Carissa Moore, Johanne Defay, Lisa Andersen, Sofia Mulanovitch at least, and others I don’t remember the name, I’ll find out.
I was kidding about the “men like to watch men” sentence, taking “watch” litterally, and thinking of the fact that as a man, I don’t particulary like to “watch” other men. I prefer to “watch” women.
Here I am, thinking we’re talking about the CT surfers hence the article… of course there’s tons of girls who rip that aren’t on tour. I surf with several quite often. Same goes for men. I come from a place (industry hub) where surf skill is slightly more abundant than most other places. Shit, every shaper in my state probably has a guy surfing for them that could surf circles around a few of the CT guys (looking at you, Wade and Mfeb).
Also, when you put quotes around watch does that mean sexual or ?? Having a hard time following you Walter, you’re kinda all over the place. I do like to use my eyes to look at (watch?) other men when doing things that I also do. It’s called influence. You might learn something from other men if you can sort out your repressed sexual cues.
Will they have desktop going? what if it is like 1K???? Fuck that would be embarrassing as the girls have been ripping.
The biggest fuck up is, that the actual reveal of no viewers means, how can they actually bring any new sponsors or hold existing ones? WSL has by bringing facebook in, fucked their business royally
1.2k right now
just saw – fuck me 1.8k for Lakey yellow jersey leader!!!!!
Facebooks a last ditch effort to make some sort of income before they all have to find new companies to scam their way into. Resumes on the ready, lads.
I saw 500 from English (rest of world) at one stage
Jessup: You want answers??
Kaffee: I want the truth.
Jessup: YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!
I can! I can! And I wait…with bated breath…for tonight’s reveal.
5
5 is the number. Coz there’s only 5 of them worth watching.
Fuck, if I was a JBay local I’d be spewing that the WSL has another contest back to back. Nothing to celebrate here.
It’s going to prove that women’s surfing is slightly less popular with the general population than Gabby’s slick ballsack.
You dont whippersnip around the hills hoist mate?