**WARNING ARTICLE CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE**
Late last night I was trawling the internet, totally not getting trolled by Kelly’s April fool’s retirement shenanigan and that silly green body board of his. I was also doing a little research on an upcoming
Philippines trip as well as trying to buffer the odd surf clip, which is nigh impossible given my utterly shite internet connection speed here, (here is somewhere you’ve never hear of and very far from the sea so I wont get into it...). Sadly, I was also sifting through the nastiness that is the comments section under every video/photo/thread/discussion on, or vaguely related to surfing on the net. What’s up with that? I guess that I unwittingly made reference to this phenomenon in the first line of this article.
‘’Troll: Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.’’
Being a prick on the Internet because you can. Typically unleashing one or more cynical or sarcastic remarks on an innocent by-stander, because it's the internet and, hey, you can.
Now in Kelly’s case perhaps troll was the wrong word. It was an April fool’s joke played on his 1 million plus Instagram followers/worshippers/slaves of which, yes I happen to be one. In most other cases, a narcissistic troll’s comment’s makes for some hard reading. It also detracts from the subject matter, the actual surfing, the stuff that MATTERS!
Yes. I admit that occasionally I do find myself guffawing with laughter at Stab Magazines ‘comments of the week’ section. When someone is on time with just the right measure of sarcasm and wit, it’s a great thing to behold, but...(please stop reading this right here if you are the easily offended type...) I have to say... that...
...some of us out there are real cunts.
Now since time immemorial there have always been cunts. There will continue to be cunts, procreating with other cunts and passing on their cuntish ways to their cunt offspring. (Do excuse the thinly veiled In Bruges plagiarism). In the past the cunts were in the minority and that was okay with everyone. They were a necessary evil. Without dark there can be no light and all that stuff, but what troubles me is when the collective cunt voice drowns out that of the nice(er) people (like you and me).
Poor old Zoltan Torkos and his much maligned surfboard kickflip. Much maligned is as dramatic understatement as one can make. One might think this guy is a member of ISIS with the amount of heat he’s facing on the web. Regarding kickflips I actually agree with the consensus of majority of the internet; that it’s progressing surfing in a direction that I don’t particularly care for, that is gimmicky un-functional trickery, which is rather poetic considering that Zoltan himself is a magician no? But lets consider that two short decades ago the vast majority of critics at the time (..and lets face it everyone is a critic...) said exactly the same thing about early aerialists. I urge you to take a look at that grainy VHS footage of Christian Fletcher or Matt Archibald circa 1987. What looks pretty ugly by 2015’s standards was the start of modern high performance surfing. But I digress...
The personal stuff on Zoltan is really unfortunate though. Perhaps it’s a case of collective sour grapes considering that a goofy footer of average ability bagged 10 000 US dollars from Volcom and got his name splashed all over the internet.
On Medina's World title win last year. The comments from the Internet peanut gallery cover a large span of insults. (again please look away if you’re pure of mind and spirit...)
From the very sexual, ‘Medina is such a faggot. I wish that the WSL judges would remove his 2inch dick from their collective ass and wake up to how shit his surfing is.’ -Rackhawaii
To the very to the point, ‘I wish all Brasillian’s (*deliberate mispelling) should just fucking die already.’ –Mitch_Vaader
To the totally nonsensical, ‘Fuk dat lilbitch brazoz’ -smoke_em9
So now is the time to air my own personal prejudice: I’m not a massive Medina fan. No it’s not because he’s Brazilian, and as a fellow skew footer I rather like his surfing, I just find him a bit irritating post heat. That and I don’t like the fact that he shaves his nipples so masterfully. In my grudging opinion, he certainly out surfed everyone else on the tour last year by leagues.
However, lately there does seem to be a strange trend starting with professional surfers and their videographers. The too-cool-for-school, smoke lots of cigarettes, dress like an extra from the set of Easy Rider, spoiled brat freesurfer ‘thing’ going on. If one were to strain ones eyes for the full 60 minutes of Kai Neville’s Cluster to decipher the actual surfing through the grainy, underexposed, 8mm X-pro II instagram plugin it looks like he used for the ENTIRE VIDEO, one might feel a bit pissy towards the so called hero’s of our sport.
‘Dear Noa Deane and Creed McTaggert. Yes you surf very well indeed but I’m not surprised that you are in somewhat short supply of adoring fans. We in fact really dislike your silly pretentious attitudes.’ – Jonathan_Gilks
Sometimes we are our own worst enemies.
Of course none of us can surf anything like Medina, or Noa or Creed and here’s thing: Would we, or would I, ever say anything like that to their faces? In a crowded lineup? How about in a bar? If in a very unlikely version of an alternate universe, Gabby, Noa and Creed walked into my local bar without their entourage of stylists and videographers in tow, I’d probably be the first to buy them a drink and bask in the glow that is professional sport’s slavish devotion to notoriety and fame.
Comment’s section aside: I am a surf fanboy. You probably are too.
Ahhhh. The great beauty and the malignant curse of the great semi anonymous platform that is the internet: Say what you want without having to face the consequences. Pretend to be tough. Become the grey man.
Perhaps next time, before we vomit up our vitriol laced bile under the comments section of RVCA’s latest clip or Zoltan’s triple kickflip attempt we could consider the timeless teachings of the great Buddha:
bsurf
buddhasurf2
Bbuddha