From the we-still-do-lists dept: The 5 Worst Things About Surfing in 2018

No foreplay, no kissing on the mouth, no cuddles at the end.

I promised this to Derek a few days ago, but it has been a struggle. I’ve struggled to find enough hatred this Christmas.

I’ve had years of practice hating Christmas, so it shouldn’t be that hard. Blame the kids, making holidays fun again. Little pricks.

As I said to Derek by way of excuse, every time I opened this I ended up hating myself. I’ve swooned under the weight of the irony. You wouldn’t believe the kind of bilious, muck-raking yellow tripe (as someone once perfectly described my writing) that I’ve battered out then backspaced away. Unnecessarily cruel and hurtful, I’ve found myself thinking, in an uncharacteristic and deeply unsettling way.

Anyway, I’ve soldiered on.

Here are the 5 Worst Things in Surfing in 2018.

No foreplay, no kissing on the mouth, no cuddles at the end.

1. Chris Cote/The air debate

Picture a meerkat, emerging from a little hole into bright sunshine.

Picture beady, bespectacled little eyes, darting this way and that, surveying the landscape.

See his little snout, twitching keenly, as he sniffs the warm air.

Now imagine him pausing briefly, puffing up his little chest, and squeaking obnoxiously “540! 540!”

You are standing above that hole. Your arms are raised above your head, and you are holding a shovel.

With all your strength, you swing the shovel down, flat side first, and splatter that meerkat’s face wide open, cracking his little skull like a watermelon.

That’s literally what I see on a loop inside my head when I hear Chris Cote’s voice.

Dumb debate about degrees of rotation, championed by Cote, was a particularly unsightly tumor in 2018’s surfing zeitgeist.

I don’t hate Chris Cote. I just never, ever want to hear his voice ever again.

2. Erik Logan, President of Content, Media and WSL Studios

Look at Erik Logan’s Instagram page.

Do it now.

Nothing good can come of this man.

He makes shakas look as comfortable as a colonoscopy.

He hashtags like a 12-year-old girl. A stupid one.

He SUPs. Hard.

He appears to have a photographer who follows him around, yet neither he nor his photog can identify a good surf photo.

If his Instagram output is any sort of marker for his vision of surfing – and I would suggest it absolutely is – then I see no reason to give him any benefit of any doubt as he begins his tenure with the WSL.

Erik Logan is an adult learner. Not all adult learners are bad, it’s true, but there is an ilk, of which Elo is very much part, that need a good slap about the head. Or bundled into an unmarked van and dumped off a bridge.

From the press release announcing his appointment: Logan will also oversee the creation of WSL Studios, which will deliver a broad range of high quality scripted and unscripted surf and lifestyle content.

Surf and lifestyle content.

Erik Logan is in charge of surf and lifestyle content.

Say it again, slowly.

Erik Logan.

Is in charge.

Of surf.

And lifestyle content.

HAVE YOU SEEN HIS “LIFESTYLE”?!

HAVE YOU SEEN HIS IDEA OF “CONTENT”?!

HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT HE THINKS FUCKING SURFING IS?!

WHY HAS NO-ONE AT THE WSL SEEN IT?

3. JEEP adverts

Very nearly went on my 5 Best list. Someone once told me the point of advertising was to be so annoying that you couldn’t get it out of your head.

In that case Bravo, Jeep. Bravo.

It’s the “That’s What She Said…” of surf culture. It can be deployed at any time, in any context.

I surf meth amphetamine.

I surf child pornography.

I surf kiwi fruit.

I surf necrophilia.

I surf cunt muck.

I surf saggy tits.

I surf shifting spanners.

I surf it all.

See?

Genius.

4. California

I’ve never been to California, but I’ve seen the adverts. Girls in yoga gear tell me living there is an easy stretch. Guys with shiny teeth and mini mals stuffed up their oxters tell me about (winky face) “board meetings”. The Terminator is in charge. And it’s sunny.

I should work for the marketing department because I’ve got a more succinct way to represent California. It’s a simple tag line. It goes like this:

California: The Lung Cancer of Surfing.

Let me present to you some horrific visions of a future where California is left unchecked:

Elo and Soph recreating Laird and Gabby’s ESPN Body Issue shoot…

Backwards Fin Beth and the Surfing-Is-Politique girl commentating on the adaptative black gender fluid SUP world tour…

Huge stadiums of fat, pasty-faced American kids, wearing top hats and cheering Zoltan Torkos doing kickflips in a pool. Over, and over, and over…

Joel Tudor.

We’ll leave a seat on the ark for the Malloys, Rob Machado and Curren (and Chas, Jen and Zach Weisberg – but only if Chas and Zach sit together) but otherwise let’s cheer for wildfire, rising sea levels, and T1000s. I think surfing might be better for it.

5. Me. You. Us. The Internet.

The Internet is the great enabler. Some of what it enables is great; but most of it is tragically shit, especially when it comes to surfing.

The problem with surfing is that there’s not really much to say. It feels like it should be interesting, but really it’s not. Not what most of us do. A teeny, tiny world of aquatic poncing, as someone (perhaps Oscar Wilde?) once put it.

But people insist on communicating all of it. There’s no vetting process. It’s a free for all made up of utter shite. Instagram pages of the likes of Erik Logan’s should be shut down by the Thought Police before conception. But they’re not. They’re allowed to exist, brazenly and with no apparent self-awareness whatsoever.

So here we sit, in various states of mental health, sobriety, undress and Ben Marcus, and we criticise and we deconstruct and we slander. Everyone. It gives us little moments of laughter and smugness at our own cleverness and wit, and that of our comrades. But at the end of the day none of it lasts, none of it really matters, and no one important is there to witness or congratulate us. And in that sense, it feels a lot like surfing.

(For a little pick-me-up, read JP’s companion piece, The Five Best Things About Surfing in 2018 here.)