Much image rehabilitation instantly undone.
And you have, by now, certainly seen the stunning drone footage shot by eighteen-year-old Doheny local Payton Landass. There he was, lounging at his parents beachside home when he spotted the incredible; a giant grey whale, or blue whale according to Russia Today, casually swimming through the lineup. Landass, alertly, grabbed his drone and flew it overhead capturing what he correctly dubbed “an insane and surreal” tableau.
The particularly high tide allowed the stately beast to move so close to shore and casually flick her or his tail.
The clip is wonderfully moving and should have been a moment for our fractured world to come together in a celebration of nature’s majesty but has proven otherwise. The story and video went viral with mainstream media coverage mostly focusing on how the surfers in the lineup were “unaware” of the whale’s presence with a very thick insinuation that “unaware” should be read myopic, lazy and self-obsessed.
Surfers have, for years, tried to shake these stereotypes by participating in beach clean-ups and a rehabilitation of the “surfer image” has been the near-sole focus of our World Surf League. We are, in President Storyteller Erik Logan’s soft hands, “athletes, world-citizens, ecologically-minded wave tank builders.”
And yet one grey, or blue, whale swimming through a lineup unnoticed kicks us straight back to being a pack of naval-gazing Jeff Spicolis.
Too dumb to notice a behemoth.
Too addled to care.
Is the stereotype true? Should President Storyteller Erik Logan throw in the towel and greenlight “Box of Rocks” alongside his heart-stirring hit “Transformed” (three-thousand views and counting) wherein a gaggle surfers sit in a parking lot and argue about surfboard volume for three uninterrupted hours?
Maybe.
Probably even.
But would you watch?