You know how often the waves look like this for most surfers? Almost never. Photo: Nick White
Some days The Internet is a real bastard, and I hate hate hate it. Some days I feel like just pulling the plug and walking in a straight line until I hit a piece of coastline with surfable waves and no bloody WiFi. When you can’t get in the water, surfing and The Internet are the awkward couple at a school disco, captured spasmodically in tones of sepia by Kai Neville as they dance and spin merrily round and round to the jaunty tune of Noa Deane playing a tin flute through his arsehole. Meaningless, superficial, and annoying as deep, blue, infinite fuck.
I’ve been having a personal crisis of sorts, partly because I will become a father this year, and partly because it’s the damn summer, and none of this is likely to mean more opportunities to go surfing. I should add that I am genuinely excited about being a dad. I look forward to forcing my children to fulfill all my wasted potential. I’m not worried about the runaway train of impending responsibility, nor having mashed soft fruits stuck to my clothes and face in public. I’m not even worried about becoming a modern young father who passive-aggressively swipes pictures of grinning baby nothingness at you. However, I am worried about my relationship with The Internet in lieu of surfing, because it tends to make me a bit negative.
Surfing and The Internet are deeply awkward bedfellows. On one hand: a vast, virtual world of imagined realities, complex human constructs, and videos of cats pushing things off tables. And on the other: the tangible, brutal elements of nature, and thick, cold lips smashing into your head. Surfing doesn’t translate well online. There is no way to enjoy it vicariously. It can’t be falsified, replicated or diluted to a glossy pout. There isn’t a Snapchat filter for it. I’m beginning to feel that if I can’t do it, there is no point in even thinking about it. Seeing others do it just makes me miserable.
Have you noticed that everyone on The Internet is getting better waves than you? Great waves on The Internet never die. They don’t come and go with weather patterns. They roll on into the infinite future, taunting you. No one posts pictures of bad waves. Instagram captions don’t read: “Drove for six hours for this dribbly, weak shit. Should have stayed at home. Plucking hairs out of my ball sac would have been preferable to this foamy shorebreak shitfight.”
No, they make proclamations like ‘Best waves of my life! Unbelievable surf today! Barreled off my tits – noodle arms!’ Well good for you, sport. Good for fucking you.
In periods of drought (like British summertime), The Internet is unbearable. Waves online are always ideal, everyone you know and everyone you don’t is surfing more often than you, taking more surf trips than you, and undoubtedly surfing better than you. Surf content online is a shouty notification of all the good swell you ever missed, a permanent record of all the surfing you haven’t done hacked deeply into the trenches of your mind. It is a lingering hangover of resentment, jealousy, anger, sadness, guilt…a stinking cocktail of pure surf envy. I hate it.
Where are all the videos of the days when you’ve forgotten wax, or lost a fin? Where are all the clips of hours spent battling a rip, or the frustrating shuttles between spots in search of an acceptable wave? Where are the clips of people digging the nose, slipping and headbutting the board, or bogging bottom turns then epileptically pumping in the whitewater in a vain effort to rescue the wave? Not on The Internet, my friend. Not in the tanned, groomed, perky, perfect surfing lives of others! Only in your drizzly, grey, piddling reality. Surfing on The Internet just exists to make you feel inadequate.
Oh but you’ve got a new board, you say? A fish like Ryan Burch in Psychic Migrations, you say? Well, you will swiftly realize that you’re not Ryan Burch, no matter how many clips you’ve watched. But never fear! The Internet will help, because it’s definitely the board’s fault. It just wasn’t right for you. You didn’t really like Ryan Burch anyway. If you’re honest you think he looks like a really big rabbit. Best order a Hypto instead…or a Sci Fi…
I realize there are layers and layers of shite on The Internet. A “YouTuber” might as well be white-toothed, shiny haired extraterrestrial for all I can relate to them, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get wound up.
The core belief of Buddhism is that the cause of suffering is rooted in craving and desire. If you’re a surfer The Internet can only cause you pain. There is no salvation online.
Our lives as surfers are governed by actual physical things – air, water, rock, sand – and the Internet is nothing more than a peep show for things we can’t have.
Just like porn, it creates unrealistic expectations and taints our real life experiences. You spend your days squirming away behind your screen, whipped into a frothing frenzy for surfing, and then you go, and you realize that it’s all just a fat-arsed, inglorious lie. The waves are never as perfect as the ones you’ve coveted. Your ability is nowhere near the level you’ve mind-pitched yourself at. In the end you’re left with the smothering reality that you’ve been punching well above your weight during your mind surfs. It dawns on you that you really are a lazy, fat, unskilled waste of spunk, and worse: a poor fucking excuse for a surfer.
