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If I’ve written/uttered it once, I’ve written/uttered it a thousand times. Nobody doesn’t like Carissa Moore. The Olympic gold medalist and multiple-time World Surf League champion surfs with inimitable flare and ain’t afraid to stand up to speak her mind or stake her reputation where her heart is. An especially rare quality in this day and age.
Moore was absolutely robbed of sixth WSL cup last year after the League decided to fix something that wasn’t broken but there was no whine from her. No whimper. And as the 2023 season gets underway at Pipeline, the native Hawaiian is certainly a favorite, Lower Trestles be damned.
Though in case you were looking for yet another reason to don Moore’s number 10 over, say, Morgan Cibilic’s 15, word has leaked out over the coconut wireless that she will not be participating in the World Surf League’s much ballyhooed Apple Watch play. Oh, you’ve certainly read the gushing press releases on how Santa Monica has “adopted” the Apple Watch as the “official wearable,” how professional surfers can utilize realtime priority information in the water, how commentators will say “Apple Watch” at least 130 times per heat.
Well Apple, the corporate behemoth, is not exactly squeaky clean. Controversies from allegations that products are built in Chinese sweatshops to planned obsolescence of those selfsame products clogging landfills to serious issues protecting privacy, there are more than a handful of reasons why a professional surfer would be loathe to strap a li’l computer around wrist and wave that Steve Jobs flag.
Oh, the World Surf League has never met a big business, or industry, that it would not bootlick if given the chance. Bootlick while providing any kind of social or greenwashing asked all slavishly happy.
But, again per coconut buzz, Moore is “not in any way aligned with the Apple corporation” and will not be a pawn.
Boom.
Taking a stand. An especially rare quality in this day and age.
It will be interesting to see how the aforementioned commentators deal with a watch-less Moore in the lineup. Will they be ordered to discuss make-believe metrics anyhow? Refuse to mention her name a la Joel Tudor?
Stay tuned!