Political dynamite: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warns wanna-be VALS: “If you don’t surf, don’t start!”

"A vast confederacy of losers."

In an explosive press conference earlier today, New Zealand’s PM Jacinda Ardern, whose government banned surfing almost one month ago, announced it was considering easing the lockdown, starting next Wednesday.

With one important caveat.

If you don’t surf, don’t start.

“Level 3 is a progression, not a rush to normality. It carries forward many of the restrictions in place at level 4, including the requirement to mainly be at home in your bubble and to limit contact with others. Protecting the health of New Zealanders is our primary focus but we also need to position the economy for recovery.”

Blah blah.

Then,

Surfing, swimming and beach fishing would be back on the menu but “people should not take up new activities that they had never done before.”

Have you ever read such charged words?

Don’t think about even wanting to surf.

I wonder,

Is this Ardern’s “We will fight them on the beaches” moment, an echo of Churchill’s stirring speech to the House of Commons in 1940, as the Nazi jackboot stood poised on the Brit’s neck?

The Don’t Surf, Don’t Start campaign was the work of Gotcha founder Michael Tomson, of course, and if we peel ourselves away from 2020 for a moment and peer into Matt Warshaw’s cupboard, we’ll examine its influence.

Gotcha’s hipness was in part born of contempt for the people buying the project. The company’s sneering formulation of cool was epitomized by their 1988 “Don’t Surf” campaign. Each ad featured a full-page black-and-white portrait selected from what Gotcha’s marketing heads obviously saw as a vast confederacy of losers—schoolboy nerd, fat teen, middle-aged bald guy, low-life urbanite—and an all-caps banner reading, “If You Don’t Surf, Don’t Start.” Turn the page and there was a blazing color action shot of a Gotcha teamrider, with a second banner: “If You Surf, Never Stop.” Cruel and effective.

Cruel but effective.

Cruel but effective. 

A vast confederacy of losers. 

It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth, as they say.