"As Slater’s competitiveness has fizzled, his narcissism has been lit like a flare," writes JP Currie.
I pity Kelly Slater. Really. It’s difficult to reconcile just how I arrived here. Once a hero, now almost a meme.
His descent into absurdity has been rapid. I loved Kelly once, truly. But there comes a time when even our deities need to be put out to pasture. A time when they should slip away with dignity to burn brighter in our memories with every passing year. I think, by this point, Kelly has fucked that dead.
As Slater’s competitiveness has fizzled, his narcissism has been lit like a flare. Though, to be fair, he has always grasped for attention outside of the surf world. Unfortunately, being a surfer just isn’t very interesting.
Nick Carroll once said (in this very comment section) that Kelly doesn’t get enough credit for being a psycho. A flippant but accurate summation of Kelly’s sociopathic dedication to surfing performance. It’s just a pity he can’t stick to that. As Slater’s competitiveness has fizzled, his narcissism has been lit like a flare. Though, to be fair, he has always grasped for attention outside of the surf world. Unfortunately, being a surfer just isn’t very interesting.
Kelly’s appearance on Joe Rogan was, in my estimation, one of the most embarrassing clashes of surfing and pop culture. If this man is our king, then he just made the rest of us look really, really silly.
“Kelly Slater.” Joe says in the intro. “We’ve been talking about doing this for how long?”
(Subtext: please stop emailing me now cunt).
Rogan’s podcast is the biggest there is. You can be damned sure Kelly’s been badgering him. That was obvious as he ticked off the Rogan tropes (MMA, hunting, shit you should/shouldn’t eat, BIG FUCKING SCARY ANIMALS), and as he awkwardly hoisted out-of-character attempts at bawdy humour “That’s not the kind of three-way you like, huh?” He even tried out Australian and South African accents as he recounted stories. C-R-I-N-G-E. Slater had all the poise of a teenage girl taking a selfie with her favourite pop star whilst simultaneously pissing her pants.
Despite what David Lee Scales (famous for co-hosting a podcast with Chas Smith) might think, Joe Rogan can be a great interviewer. Different, sure. Sometimes a little irreverent, sometimes a little stoned. But he has a way of eliciting gold from his subjects by simply letting them speak, guiding the conversation where necessary. Colloquialism and playing dumb can be disarming weapons. (John McPhee, Draft No.4, the chapter on Elicitation. You’re welcome, Scales.) Rogan’s podcasts aren’t always good, but sometimes they’re truly great. And he has a back catalogue of tremendous guests.
Not so with Kelly Slater.
The entire conversation was like a classic schoolboy lunchtime debate. The only missing ingredients were whose dad would kick fuck out of whose, and which bird got a wild fingering up behind the bins at the weekend.
It would be fair to say that Joe Rogan was perhaps a little baked, and clearly wasn’t interested in surfing. Why would he be? What’s interesting to a non-surfer beyond sharks? But that wasn’t really the problem.
Slater just didn’t have anything interesting to say. He hijacked Rogan’s anecdotes and attempted to tell them better. He name dropped (“I actually was with Samuel L Jackson three weeks ago in Paris…”). He shoehorned terms he thought Rogan might bite on like “flow state”. And he tried vainly to accredit himself as an MMA guy (“I actually trained with Don The Dragon Wilson”). Worst of all was the repeated “I had a buddy…my friend…I know a guy…etc” as the conversation skipped jauntily from non sequitur to non entity and back again.
“My friend has a giraffe.”
“Bears are so primal.”
“You sure it wasn’t a skunk ape that did it?”
“I thought I pooped out my colon.”
For the two-hour duration of the podcast Kelly was not the king of surfing, he was the guy at the party who always has a story bigger and better than yours. The guy you desperately want to disappear.
Crocodiles “his buddy” told him about that are 29 feet long and 15 feet wide.
Thirty-five foot Great White sharks that his “friend” told him about. “Bruh, the biggest sharks are way bigger than you think…” (in mock SA accent).
Right…
Embarrassingly, Rogan tried to end it early. I’ve never heard him do that before.
After this Kelly went into hyper mode as he desperately tried to grasp something to extend the conversation. With absolutely no relevance he starts talking about his foot injury again. He shills his buddy’s juice. He asks Rogan a question as if he’s the host, except it’s not really a question. And he tries desperately to get back to me, me, ME.
Joe: “I worked out for five-anda-a-half hours yesterday.”
Kelly: “I surfed for five hours yesterday.”
Joe: “I’ve done intermittent fasting. I like to do 16 hrs”
Kelly: “I’ve done, like, nine or 10 day fasts.”
And then, just when you think it can’t get any more ridiculous, he says the most American thing ever. (When Rogan mentions Sober October) “You got me in, man. I don’t drink much, but I feel so much better not having a beer.”
Despite his 46 years, Kelly Slater is a child of the Internet. A little knowledge of lots of things but no real depth. It’s a sad indictment of the effects of the Internet on learning in general, and it’s a shame to see someone who is a true expert in his field not be satisfied with that. Just talk about surfing, Kelly. We want to hear about it even if Joe Rogan doesn’t.
You know Of Mice and Men, right? Course you do. School n that. A play that became a novel. The story of loneliness and a beautiful but ultimately tragic relationship. Two men: one small, sharp of feature and wit. The other a big spaz. Lots of foreshadowing –should have killed the cunt ages ago etc.
These last few years of Kelly’s career have felt a little like a performance of the story. Kelly (of course) plays multiple characters.
He’s Curley’s Wife, flaunting himself anywhere people will have him. Craving attention, whorish rouged lips parted suggestively. Deeply tragic.
He’s Candy and Candy’s dog. Old, knackered, long past his best. A bit whiffy. We’ll keep him around out of guilt, respect. But sooner or later someone will shoot the fucker and we’ll all be secretly glad.
He’s Curley. Bouncing around with his dukes up, picking internet fights in places he has no business. Trying desperately to prove something.
And he’s Lennie. Poor, thick Lennie. Probably harmless but maybe not. We’ve habitually excused him.
We play George. All of us.
This dude legit has zero idea what he is speaking about. Hes far more worse than the way he paints Slater to be. He claims kelly knows a little about a lot and is pandering to rogan…exactly what this guy is doing. He knows just enough about every little thing to try to discredit Slater but all hes dling is proving hes a bigger douche than slater. Rogan must have been stoned (since you’re so familiar with the show, you know how it is)…but neglected that it was sober October and was discussed during the show for how many minutes. People like this author are awful. They write fluffy bullshit pieces that are weak, inaccurate, and lazy. If you want to write take down pieces, sit down and out in the 2.5 hours to listen. If you did listen to it…then you surely must have scored poorly when it came to comprehension based exams in grade school.
This is one of the most vapid, empty articles I have ever read. The author seems to miss the irony of calling someone else a child yet engaging another aspect of the same kind of behvaiour or attide he is criticizing.
Amazing you get paid for this?
You sound like a whiny jealous bitch.
Whinge whinge whinge.
I thought Strider was Lennie.
Despite reading prolifically this is one of the most enjoyable and sharp-witted articles I’ve read in many months. Have you ever been to Tenerife Mr Currie? Because, if you have, you just know Slater will have gone large in Elevenerife….
Well, for me Kelly, aka KS11, lost any and ALL cred when in 2016 he posted that he wasn’t voting, there was “no point”.. . (His words), well that strategy turned out purty friggin tragic.
BTW, this was a super fun thread, Steinbeck, McPhee, and Flesheaters ?!!! Friggin awesome. If we were all in a bar together, I’d buy everyone a cold one! : )
It’s obvious, that Dorian’s podcast was way better than Kelly’s. Kelly’s was wee bit awkward, and it seemed they quickly they had run out of interesting topics. It’s probably because Dorian and Rogan share a love of hunting and being carnivores. I felt a little embarrassed for the King. It’s was obvious that Rogan and Kelly have very little in common, even though Kelly tried hard to find common ground. Kelly’s a vegan (good on him) and obsessed by competition surfing whereas Joe likes meat, beers, and fighting. Yep not much in common. I enjoyed this article. Made me realise for all his fantastic achievements, the King is probably a little one dimensional. His whole life is has been razor focused on one thing, competition surfing. That and his diet which “feeds” (pun intended) into his competitive surfing. Reading the comments, on this forum, the fan boys don’t like the negative feedback. But is actually quite common in humans that are over achievers, to have such razor focus. I friend of mine recently photographed Richie McCaw, one of the great All Black rugby players of all time. Nothing to talk about, except rugby. One of greatest rugby players of all time, but sadly yes, a little dull. KS is the same. It’s reason for his success. No distractions when you are boring.
JP seems awfully butthurt. Did Kelly steal your girl or something?
I found myself nodding and agreeing to most of this – it’s a hard take, but definitely rings true, despite enjoying parts of the interview. JR’s podcasts can be hit or miss (the minutiae of bow-hunting drives me up the fken wall), but I credit his show for introducing me to meatier fare like Jocko Willink or Dan Carlin – he also seems really passionate about human optimization and generally gives way to his more educated or experienced guests. It felt like Kelly was trying desperately to please instead of being himself – which would have made for a far more interesting interview.
BRO/ who is this writer? self conscious much? surfers are not that cool. lets be real. your sport is ok. skill cap is easy. carve and shit. or you meme yourself with basic skate tricks. after that you just ride bigger waves. so protective of your basic ass culture. jre dabbles into every world curious and obviously naive. what do you want? talk shit on your washed up surf star and fold up his poster for later. these wanker fuck journalists. you are a surf bum. you have no education. the culture is weak. you dont need to defend it like its under threat by some main stream expose. you half drowned dumbass finish the job.
Joe Rogan’s podcast is middle-brow wankery for 18-30 year old chads.
Terrible article! You should be fired.
As a person who’s never followed surfing I thought the the podcast was great. You sound like a cunt.
You are trash , I’m not and have never been a Kelly fan . However , he was definitely one of the more interesting people Joe has had on the show lately. If I was your editor I would burn you in the trash can you deserve to live in for this spew of trash you just forever put onto the internet .
Eh, naw.
It’s definitely kick fuck out of. Or maybe kick fuck intae, at a push.
Did you no go tae school in Scotland, naw?
Even more embarrassing is this pretentious read, fuck me! Start using smaller words in the proper context ya homo.
I must admit, when I heard Kelly was going to be on Rogan I couldn’t wait to listen to it. At the end I did feel kinda disappointed. It couldn’t be Joe right? I listed to him talk to the mushroom expert for like three hours and I was surprised it was that interesting. I think Kelly just might be that boring. Joe does not seem to want to hang with him. Kelly threw out an invitation to Surf Ranch and Joe did not take him up on it. Kelly tries again and invites Joe to come to the North Shore in Dec and again Joe did not bite. Fast forward to the Shane Dorian POD and it sounds like Joe will be going to the Big Island to join Shane on a hunting trip, and then Joe invites Shane to come on a hunting trip to one of his friends ranches. When they ended to POD they were planning on going in the warehouse and playing the bow hunting video game, lol. Poor Kelly.
I listened to that podcast it was just two bros shooting the breeze what were you expecting Kierkegaarde? I’m not sure why you were quite so vitriolic or spent so much effort writing it. Seems like a colossal waste of your time. Did Slater once do something to you to make you feel this way? Maybe he didn’t sign a poster for you or didn’t return a fist bump and you felt spurned?
JP Currie you see “issues” where there aren’t any. I’m a huge fan of Kelly and Rogan and I enjoyed the podcast. Yeah sire I’m a little bit disappointed about that fact that surfing was only discussed like 10% of the podcast, but seeing Kelly engage en free flowing conversation was refreshing and enjoyable. You’re a sensitive weak little weasel for writing this article and putting him in such a bad light.
Do you not find any of Kelly’s attention seeking off putting? IE posting the wave pool the day after Adriano won the title? Plenty of us see a lot of truth to what was written, were once huge Kelly fans like yourself but have grown weary of him for a number of valid reasons. I’d love to see him go dark for a year, film in good waves and put out an edit of him actually surfing…the reason we all loved him in the first place. Its all the other shit he gets up to that has us off him.