Currently more questions than answers.

Surfers have long been arbiters of fresh new slang. Hang ten, rip curl, kook, hand jam, the list goes on and on and on and on and our kind has gotten used to being chill and cool and unintelligible to outsiders but code talking diggish* words to each other.

Or at least we used to be.

Sometime within the last few years the TikketyTokkety took over and now in-the-know youth are no longer dropping wave jargon but rather unintelligible gibberish like SMH and sus and other such nonsense. The word currently trending? “Rizz.”

Coined by YouTuber Kai Cenet, it roughly translates to “One’s ability to seduce a potential (usually female) love interest.” Or, per Urban Dictionary, “Another word for spitting game/how good you are with pulling and sustaining bitches.”

Surf fans, thus, have been attempting to apply to our favorite professionals.

Which Championship Tour surfer has rizz?

Like, if you were at a bar with any of the top 44, who would “spit game” the very best?

Gabriel Medina?

Kanoa Igarashi?

Matthew McGillivray?

Nat Young, Kolohe Andino, Jackson Baker?

Mark Richards?

Help!

Go, WSL!

Aside from its commitment to equality, the World Surf League has really leaned into environmental stewardship in these past few years. Professional surfers, on the Championship Tour, can regularly be seen planting small bushes in various bluffs, much booth talk can be heard from Joe Turpel and gang about various environment and Jessi Miley-Dyer plus Erik Logan things.

But who could have guessed, who might have imagined how robust the efforts actually were.

With 2022 drawing to a close, the World Surf League’s Chief People and Purpose Officer, Emily Hofer, has shared, “The ocean is our arena, it’s our office — many of us would describe it as home. We believe that the future of surfing depends on the health of the ocean; and it’s our duty to ensure that the ocean is protected for surfers to come.”

The successes this year?

According to the WSL:

-Reduced emissions by almost 50 percent from the 2018 baseline year;

-Educated 35,000 global youth on cultural and environmental stewardship;

-Removed 100 tons of plastic from Indonesian waterways;

-Conserved almost 350,000 hectares of coastal land — including prime surf ecosystems at Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica and Grajagan Bay, Java, Indonesia (famously known to those in the know as “G-Land”).

“Sports have the power to inspire hearts and minds,” Hofer added at the end. “Anything related to protecting the ocean or the earth is a really good way to leverage sports and the inspirational power of sports.”

Sports sports sports.

Sportswashing.

Wonderful.

But how do you think the reduced emissions came to be?

Ahhhh, the mid-season cut. Professional surfers told they are no longer allowed to get on to airplanes and fly to exotic locations.

Less helping hands in planting small bushes, I suppose, but an overall win.

Go, WSL.

Fire Saga.

But if you had to choose between being an international singing sensation or a noted wrangler of big waves which would you choose? Of course the two are not mutually exclusive. Makua Rothman, son of North Shore strongman Eddie, for example has conquered both worlds but it is exceptionally rare and, to be honest, I don’t know if you have the necessary double threat skillset.

So which?

Adored by fawning audiences whilst crooning or sliding down the face of monsters?

Well, British singer-songwriter Sam Ryder came to the aforementioned crossroads and chose the microphone. In a stirring interview with the BBC, the Eurovision musical contest runner-up declared that it was a horror surfing accident in Hawaii that guided his destiny.

“I was surfing in Hawaii and my board snapped. Then I got hit by a wave and I very nearly drowned,” he told Auntie. “It pushed me down so far into the water. And the turbulence of the water, the power, is incredible. Fighting against it, you feel like you’ve been hit by a bus.”

The terror left him bed-ridden for a week, pondering what to make of his life.

“Obviously, the golden rule in surfing is ‘never underestimate the sea,'” he continued, “but until it goes wrong, you can’t fathom it. You’re like, ‘I am insignificant in this body of water’. But that day was important to me because I wanted to be very good at surfing and ride the big waves – but [the accident] put me back on my true purpose. I was like, ‘You can’t do the thing you love most, which is music and singing, if you’re at the bottom of the sea.'”

A wise determination.

Ryder, who has luxurious long hair and soft beard, went on to amass more than 14 million TikTok fans, a record deal and Eurovision success.

As an American, I only really know of the business from Will Ferrell’s very funny Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga.

Worth a watch.

Also, though, are you sad not to be able to watch Ryder on the World Surf League’s Big Wave World Tour?

Something to think about.

Only one Makua.

Dark days.

The World Surf League, which will kick off its 2023 Championship Tour in mere weeks, was rocked overnight as an adoring public began questioning its popularity. Much was made, last year, by WSL CEO Erik Logan of the absolute exploding growth of professional surfing at its highest level. Millions upon millions of new fans devouring broadcasts, snatching up merchandise, packing beaches and nowhere more than Brazil.

Logan, and the rest of the League’s executive suite plus commentators, made much about the love their product received from South America’s largest nation. How adored they all were and the “passion” they were shown.

So much “passion,” it was uttered once every three years by the aforementioned team. Maybe more “passion” than had ever been unleashed before. Maybe the most “passion” of all time.

Until, that is, Harry Styles rolled into town.

The pop stud, who has been on a rocket to massive fame, was rolling into the country for a concert tonight, you see, when a truck carrying his merchandise was hijacked by armed gunmen. Per reporting, the bandits subdued the driver, took his truck and its loot of bedazzled t-shirts and fedoras and vanished into the warm night air of Curtiba, which happens to be outside of São Paulo.

More importantly, Curtiba also happens to be the home of World Surf League (née Association of Surfing Professionals) superstar Jihad Khodr. Of course you recall his campaign, which lasted from 2008 to 2009 and thrilled me because I enjoyed his name so much but also his passion.

In any case, no World Surf League merch truck has ever been hijacked in Brazil nor Australia nor Lemoore, California. Stephanie Gilmore jerseys and Italo Ferreira Jerseys and Ethan Ewing jerseys left unmolested. The adoring public wondering how popular the show really is.

Dark days.