"Tourists and influencers have been known to wait in line for hours to pose on the edge of the iconic Surfers’ Rock..."

It has NOT been a good month for influencers. Life was upended, for many, when the popular short-form video sharing application TikTok went dark in the United States for 48-hours-ish after the land’s Supreme Court upheld a congressional ban due fears of spying. ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, happens to be a Chinese, much like Kelly Slater’s longtime girlfriend, and there was apparent evidence of much maleficence from the People’s Republic extending beyond turning children’s brains to mush.

But who could forget when the 11-time world surf champion clapped back at a historically inaccurate troll during a debate on Chinese fishing vessels wrecking the Galapagos Islands. “Writing me out of the blue talking shit is such a crock of shit,” Slater fired at his young nemesis, “Accusing me of being a racist? My girlfriend is Chinese. You’re on glue. You’re a miserable coward. And now you’re blocked.”

Anyhow, the TikTok ban was quickly reversed by incoming President Donald J. Trump but not without causing extreme sadness and feelings of anxiety for the aforementioned doyens. Their spiral of depression deepening, overnight, after Brazil outlawed the taking of selfies on the popular “Surfer’s Rock” due fears of not spying, but collapse.

The “naturally-formed surfboard-shaped rock that juts out over Lagoinha do Leste beach in Morro da Coroa, Brazil, has been the backdrop for hundreds of thousands of photos on Instagram,” according to PetaPixel, which explained, “Tourists and influencers have been known to wait in line for hours to pose on the edge of the iconic Surfers’ rock at the beach, for Instagram-worthy photos that give the illusion that the subject is dangling their legs over the precipice.”

Well, all the action has led to the possible demise of the stone which is an ongoing concern for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which charges “selfie-tourism” with destroying cultural landmarks around the globe.

“Unlike traditional tourism, which focuses on capturing personal memories,” UNESCO declares, “selfie-tourism is fueled by the need to generate visually appealing content for social media. Now, holidaymakers are choosing travel destinations simply because they look ideal for an Instagram photo.”

Much like Filipe Toledo in Tahiti.

But have you ever fallen into the trap of selfie-tourism?

Where were you and where did you pose?

Share, please.

Sorry, Luiz "Luli" Fernando Steffen Pereira. You won't be back.

The World Surf League’s 2025 Championship Tour season swings its gates wide in but three days though a clinical depression hangs heavy. The Pipeline Pro forecast is charitably bleak. Favorite professionals, like John John Florence and Stephanie Gilmore, have chosen to hang up the singlet. Others, like Gabriel Medina and Crosby Colapinto, out due injury. And the judges, from Luiz “Luli” Fernando Steffen Pereira on down, are busily eyeing unemployment lines after X-Games unveiled AI judging for the weekend’s snowboard halfpipe competition.

While the robot’s scores will not impact this year’s competition, the soft roll of this “experiment” likely spells the end of human score tabulations.

Jeremy Bloom, CEO of X Games, told USA Today, “Maybe this could be a tool that sits next to judges, so you have four judges and then this (as an actual) judge. Or it could be a piece of technology that judges could interact with, just to make sure they saw the trick appropriately. What the viewer will see, I think, is a glimpse into the future, a real technological glimpse into the future of where this can go.”

Yeah.

We have all seen the future and it looks like this.

Sorry, Luiz “Luli” Fernando Steffen Pereira. You won’t be back.