Much heteronormative provocation!

The Ultimate Surfer shows “Kelly Slater and the WSL staffers to be Trumpian in their profound ignorance of their own ridiculousness!”

And so much heteronormative provocation!

I felt nice and validated by the time I got to the end of The Ultimate Surfer trailer yesterday.

Occasionally in the back of my mind, when ridiculing WSL-ism and post Surf Ranch Kelly-isms, I have considered just saving my breath.

Maybe I should just live and let live?

Fuck that.

This is too fascinating.

Kelly Slater and the WSL staffers are almost Trumpian in their profound ignorance of their own ridiculousness.

And Koa Smith, incredible.

Is Koa Smith’s martial arts-esque throwing of the Shaka the heaviest things ever done in or around surfing?

I can’t believe Koa Smith, “It’s go time babeehhh!”

He out Spiccolis Spiccoli.

He is like a blond and necklaced Frankenstein engineered to perfection by all the cliches and stereotypes Hollywood’s portrayal of surfing has collectively mustered.

It is worse and much funnier than anything I could have possibly imagined.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CRHT9aflp9Z/

Do you agree?

Surely this trailer has been a force for unification.

Something to ignite a more full-blooded and broad-based dissent against surfing’s smiling undertakers.

If you were ever on the fence about the state of Kelly Slater’s mind or whether Eric is actually as kooky as he seems or whether the WSL’s plan is actually to pivot pro surfing to reality TV geared towards non-surfers, here it is in cinematic perfection.

And yet it came with a deep sense of relief, like the last few years have been the tense and freaky build-up in American Psycho and now the veil has been drawn to reveal the sweet release of splattered blood and relieved tension.

The murder scene.

Gruesome and shocking yes, but at least now the depravity of our villain is known, and we are released from the purgatory of speculation.

Surely now, finally, we can all agree that pro surfing’s new bosses are designing what has become a darkly hilarious horror show?

I want to know what Adriano De Souza thinks? A kid who surfed his way out of the favellas, through the brutality of the QS, now watching B and C-grade surfers have quick running races down the sand and inevitably float Zeke Lau a place back on tour.

I feel like just like Patrick Bateman, perplexed as to why he has not been seized for the horrors he has committed, but it is not my crimes I am professing, it is theirs.

Like that Bateman scene, the whole trailer has a distinctly hallucinogenic quality to it.

There is a glimpse of someone hula dancing in a sarong surrounded by flaming torches drinking from what looks like a wooden goblet, a beautiful blonde woman winking and talking about kissing, a set that looks like they hired the art director from Survivor etc.

Now, it’s fine and a bit fun for me/some of us to celebrate the humour in watching surfing pivot to a kind of Jersey Shore model of televised engagement/recruitment to bolster viewership, but I can’t help but get a little bit sentimental when I think of the kids out there who are being deprived of a pro surfing future they can idolise.

In era’s past it has taken until at least the age of 20, or 18, or maybe 16 at the earliest, to become jaded with surfing’s commercial trappings, but yesterday I spoke to a 12-year-old kid who was tripping as much as I was about the trailer, “That show looks heavy hey.”

I think it is a little bit cruel and selfish of Kelly to be complicit in the discrediting of surfing just as he readies himself to sign off from competition.

Do you?

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Sellme fitzgobbins
Sellme fitzgobbins
5 years ago

Wow that chick in the top picture has horrible titties, farken hell !! not selling it wsl

DavidC
DavidC
5 years ago

I would have loved it if Koa had said “Okay lets rock n roll!”

@surfads
@surfads
5 years ago

It looks hilariously entertaining but deep down we know we are all paying a high karmic price for it.

JSC
JSC
5 years ago

Ummmmm – it’s Erik with a k and favela with one l – #falhaportuguese, gringo

Ricky Spanish
Ricky Spanish
5 years ago

Noa Deane was right all along.

Stick man
Stick man
5 years ago
Reply to  Ricky Spanish

He knewa!

Fukkada Bong
Fukkada Bong
5 years ago

Will the next season involve some cooking as well? Well, if it were truly reality tv, some of the contestants would be cooking some meth, but given that it’s tv reality tv, we’ll probably see them coming up with some ridiculous metaphors to make bacon and eggs sound fancy.

Stick man
Stick man
5 years ago
Reply to  Fukkada Bong
Stanislav Franck
Stanislav Franck
5 years ago

I’m angry. Not because of this shitfest. But because I just don’t have the anger in me anymore. I’m angry I don’t have the anger to give a fuck anymore. Not too long ago I would have been bashing the keyboard in utter, disgusted fury till the tops of my fingers fell off and blood spattered across the keyboard. Then I would have kept bashing with my little, shredded nubs at the way my surfing, my fucking surfing, has been co-opted and commodified by these cunts.

But they’ve gone so far into slapstick I just can’t be fucked anymore. Just sit back and watch in slack-jawed stupor at the depths it’s all plunged into.

Mr Salty
Mr Salty
5 years ago
Heysoos
Heysoos
5 years ago

the return of jimmy slade

commenter
commenter
5 years ago

If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.

It’s reality TV, it’s supposed to be dumb.

And the production probably rented Surf Ranch for anywhere from two weeks to a month at $50,000+ per,

What’ that add up to?

$700,000 to $1,400,000?

That’s a lotta dough.

Would you say no to that even if it made you a little foolish?

Simsurf
Simsurf
5 years ago
Reply to  commenter

Anyone with even a grain of self respect would say no.

Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
5 years ago
Reply to  Simsurf

Prostitution is as American as American Pie. They get 20 second barrels while so pimping themselves. If we’re lucky, we get a 401k for whoring ourselves out.

commenter
commenter
5 years ago
Reply to  Simsurf

Get a life, it’s just a stupid TV show like all the other stupid TV shows.

If you don’t have more important things to obsess about/gripe over, you have existential issues.

In the words of Bobbi Flekman: https://clip.cafe/this-is-spinal-tap-1984/and-bullshit-walks/

JohnsKnees
JohnsKnees
5 years ago
Reply to  commenter

“Get a life” says the guy who defends the surf ranch at every opportunity. All the dick riding of the wave pool still isn’t going to get you a wave.

commenter
commenter
5 years ago
Reply to  JohnsKnees

It’s an engineering achievement. Some day you might achieve something and you’ll understand.

JohnsKnees
JohnsKnees
5 years ago
Reply to  commenter

Sick burn!

Gadoot
Gadoot
5 years ago
Reply to  JohnsKnees

Kelly must be so proud of his little white knight slaying the dragons in the beach grit comments section.

commenter
commenter
5 years ago
Reply to  Simsurf

You heard Bobbi Flekman: Money tawks and bullshit wawks.

CYCOlogist
CYCOlogist
5 years ago
Reply to  commenter

So you’ve never commented on a show you thought was stupid? In the case of this show, a lot of people don’t like what shows like this do to surfing. It just helps perpetuate the “dumb air head” stereotype. Whether or not it’s a waste of time commenting on it, people express opinions just like you’re doing.

commenter
commenter
5 years ago
Reply to  CYCOlogist

A lot of surfers are dumb air heads.

Go drive through the parking lot at First Point on any given day.

Stereotypes are almost always based in some kind of reality.

“Chinese can’t drive.”

“Jews and Scotts are tight-fisted.”

“Surfers from Oregon are posers.”

“Australians have a built-in insecurity because of their convict ancestry.”

It’s just a vapid reality TV show.

Surf Ranch probably made a million bucks leasing the place out of however many days.

That’s 1/30th the total cost of the place.

There’s lots of good TV these days.

CYCOlogist
CYCOlogist
5 years ago
Reply to  commenter

Just as many surfers, if not more are NOT dumb air heads. My bigger point tho is you saying “then don’t watch”. I’m sure you’ve expressed opinion on something you thought sucked. TV, Movies, music, etc. And whether or not the Surf Ranch will make a lot of money doesn’t mean this will be a good show. Even you said it’s dumb. It seems like it will be nothing more than the surfing equivalent of The Jersey Shore. Out of morbid curiosity I AM going to at least check out the first airing. If I am drawn in enough to watch more of it I will and If I think it’s so bad I can’t bring myself to watch anymore of it then I wont. If I feel compelled to express my dislike of it on a thread like this then I will, even tho I have the option not to watch anymore of it.

commenter
commenter
5 years ago
Reply to  CYCOlogist

You can read the comments of BeachGrit and argue that surfers aren’t dumb?

CYCOlogist
CYCOlogist
5 years ago
Reply to  commenter

I never said no surfers are dumb. Of course there are dumb comments in BeachGrit and all other surf (also pretty much all sport/recreation) related forums.

Chief Hot stuff
Chief Hot stuff
5 years ago

Exactly
It needs more senile puppets, queer gender deniers and non English speaking refugee blind paraplegics.

Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
Derek Hynd's Missing Fins
5 years ago

Let’s get another 100 to 500 comments along these lines from you, Bexy. Just this week. And another 300 or so next week. and 400 the week after. Etc. Etc. Rinse and repeat.

Chief Hot stuff
Chief Hot stuff
5 years ago

Just shut up and up vote.

Beef & Beer
Beef & Beer
5 years ago

I agree with everything you said, but for one very important point.
And it comes in your last sentence.
The one point that a lot have such a huge problem accepting.
Kelly has actually been complicit in the discredit of surfing since he first hit the stage over 30 years ago…Fact……

Return of the Samsung Board
Return of the Samsung Board
5 years ago

That one clip at the start of the trailer

Tanned chick in shower stretching

“BuT wE PaY thEM tHe sAMe”

Nice one team


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