"Any remaining connection was obliterated when the
WSL ran cover for Filipe Toledo, whose debilitating lack of
fortitude should have precluded him from ever attaining a
title…"
To whom it may concern at the World Surf
League
Congratulations are in order. You’ve finally done it. You’ve
finally driven me away from the World Surf Tour. As with the
World’s end according to TS Elliot, my love for the World Tour
ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.
There was no climactic moment of apoplectic disgust, I simply
found myself completely uninterested in your entire enterprise
.
I’ll hereby offer my reasons why I no longer tune in not as a
courtesy to the World Surf League itself, but to the surfer
athletes who’ve made the tour so enjoyable over the decades.
Firstly I think it’s fair to establish my credentials as a
generic and anonymous example of the primary audience demographic.
I’m in my early fifties, a life-long surfer whose passion, drive
and commitment towards surfing has only gotten stronger as the
years pass.
This is from a very strong base. I’ve set my life up to
accomodate my love of surfing. I’ll travel extensively to find good
surfing opportunities ie by the time I return to Oz on my current
jaunt, I’ll have clocked up nearly five months in Indonesia over
three trips since September last year.
I’ve got cash to spend on consumer items pushed by tour
sponsors. I buy cars, ladders, beverages and trips to tourism
regions.
I’m an avid, nearly compulsive consumer of surf media.
In short, I’m the proverbial fish-in-a-barrel as far as World
Surf League target audiences go, yet you’ve lost me. Despite a
thermonuclear level of momentum in your favour and exclusively as a
direct result your own actions, I now have no desire to partake in
anything you offer.
How did you so successfully snatch defeat from the jaws of
victory? There’s a myriad of reasons but they all stem from your
steadfast refusal to release your totalitarian corporate grip over
the tour to even the slightest degree.
This trickle-down tyranny is upstream of every repellent facet
of your product.
Relentless inauthenticity seemed to be the goal at every
opportunity. From attempts to greenwash the most
vacuous carbon generating pursuit on earth to the
jaw-breaking phonetics meant to illustrate commitment to local
culture whilst you simultaneously try to overwhelm the wishes of
local host cultures from Torquay to Hawaii.
The corporate fabulist presenters and administration who offer
up a dish of such blatantly transparent bullshit that it can only
be interpreted as contempt for the audience. The insipid blandness
of imagination that somehow managed to strip one of life’s most raw
and widely romantic experiences of any genuine emotion.
The dead hand of non-surfing sporting administrators choking any
spontaneous joy with their pre-scripted storylines. Smothering anything not preconceived
in some suburban Southern Californian office block.
The Final’s Day at Trestles was the straw that broke this
camel’s back.
I used to treat the final event with reverence and ritual.
Usually staged in the inconvenient Hawaiian timezone, I would
nonetheless set my alarm and crack a beer in the predawn and
enthusiastically devote myself to complete immersion in the
unfolding drama.
True champions duelling in ferocious waves. Waves that
challenged them to reach beyond their own ability, courage and
commitment to grab that world title. It meant something to the
surfers and to the audience. People literally risking their lives
for the title lends undeniable gravitas to the accomplishment and a
captivating attraction to the spectator.
Last season, I was only half way out the door before the World
Title was decided in sloppy head-high detritus in California.
Points leaders robbed of their claim in a farcical pantomime. Any
and all interest, emotion and spectacle choked from the moment
through a clinically uncaring World Surf League decision-making
process. A process which shows no apparent concern to either the
best interests of the sport, the art or the global surf community
which has existed for years before some non surfing kook
billionaire took it upon himself to hitch his little wagon to the
pro tour vehicle.
This cold spoon to my love of Tour surfing was so effective that
I didn’t even realise this year’s Tour had commenced until I
started seeing it mentioned during online chats on surf sites.
That’s when I noticed that the tour held no interest to me
whatsoever.
I’d had enough.
Any remaining connection was obliterated when I read that the
World Surf League was once again running cover for a World Title
holder whose debilitating lack of fortitude should rightfully have
precluded him from ever attaining a title, that a day of
competition at the ultimate world surfing arena was passed over due
to “safety concerns” and that the commentators were once again
earnestly applying lipstick to the ensuing pig of a situation.
When Laura Enever, a good surfer who prolonged her career by
basically becoming a stuntwoman, is reading from a script that
tells us surfing is dangerous and the World’s best should sit on
the beach until the ocean assumes a benevolent calm, that’s when I
knew the hideous corporate takeover no longer cared how obvious
it’s stranglehold has become.
There was a sad little point of reflection that I acknowledged
that I just don’t give a fuck anymore ’cause I’ve really enjoyed
being in love with pro surfing over the years.
The inspirational performances, the drama. The pure surfing
talent on display. I’m not angry that you’ve taken this once-loved
pursuit of human endeavour and taken a giant steaming dump fair
down its neck. That you’ve somehow managed to wring every scrap of
authenticity from the theatre. That’s probably because the real
draw card, the surfers who strive to be their best and THE best
still, hold that authenticity deep within them and no amount of
owner-manager shitfuckery will ever eradicate the true appeal
during their temporary reign over the organised aspect of
surfing.
So enjoy it while you can WSL.
Enjoy bestowing yourselves with ludicrous Waterman of the Year
titles. Enjoy running your promotions for the World Surf League
while live action unfolds off screen. Enjoy hand-picking a
commentary team that censors itself into bland parody to avoid
being thrown into the career abyss reserved for those who show the
slightest hint of controversial opinion.
Because sooner or later you’ll be gone.
Just another dreary footnote in a historic hit parade of
opportunistic parasites who leched onto the sport. If Pro Aurfing
is the fundamental pimping of surfing then you’re running your
stable of high-class hookers out of a public toilet block without
even a courtesy wash between services.
Grubby, ugly and ordinary. You won’t last.
Fingers crossed for a happy rebirth of the Tour in the near
future.
Something that works for everyone – the surfers, the audience,
the location hosts and the tour organisers who might even hold an
interest in surfing.
Until then it’s just another year of tepid
blah.
Count me out, thanks.
