"I like turtles."
Kelly Slater is well-known for myriad equally good reasons. He is the winningest ever professional surfer, oldest Pro Pipeline, longtime dater of a Chinese girlfriend, heavy social media censor and world’s worst entrepreneur. But might the Florida-born 11x champion being trying to change the narrative on the ultimate in the above list by also altering the penultimate?
For days ago we learned of the launch of footwear brand KLLY, its first offering a eco-sandal inspired from the surface of the moon and sea turtle shells. An odd combination, quite possibly doomed like Purps before it and K-Grips before that, except Slater has decided to unblock certain surf industry personalities from his Instagram account quite possibly to receive some free advertising and send those sandals flying off shelves.
A major shift.
The “Dikembe Mutumbo of Meta” loves, maybe more than anything other than fortifying his North Shore homes, disallowing folk from enjoying his musings. He sends many into perpetual timeout with a snappy aside like, “And now you’re blocked.” Or just, “Blocked.”
While I am certainly still locked out, the notable surf podcaster David Lee Scales has had his jail sentence overturned, Slater allowing him full access once more.
How long will it last?
We discussed his sandal during out latest weekly chat, even hearing from the GOAT himself explaining his design choices. The aforementioned moon, its cycles and turtles. You can listen in at the 39:40 mark and it really is an odd ramble.
David Lee immediately likened it to a classic video of a young boy referencing turtles for zero reason, drawing similarities to Slater.
I’d imagine he’ll be re-blocked come sun up.
All back right with the world.