Jamie O’Brien. Koa Rothman. If you’re a surfer who’s ever ventured into the curious abyss that is YouTube, you’ve heard of the guys. Combined, they dominate a massive, massive chunk of the surf vlogosphere. So when a video notification pops up with both of their names in the headline, you also know it’s a must-watch — a match made in vlog heaven.
What do Koa Rothman and Jamie O’Brien do when they occupy the same space with the cameras rolling? They kill time on a late summer afternoon on the North Shore doing the kind of stuff that made J.O.B. so darn popular: bomb drops (no, they’re not acid drops).
Watching O’Brien take the younger of the Rothman brothers under his wing is reminiscent of his days running around with Poopies. Only this time, the Robin to J.O.B.’s Batman isn’t jumping off cliffs with reckless abandon, which is interesting when you consider Rothman sits in the top tier of big wave surfing’s hellmen.
“This is like the most scared I’ve been surfing in years,” Rothman says, standing on the cliff, still hesitant to jump. “..not the safest thing I’ve ever done,” he adds later.
“Yeah right,” O’Brien retorts. “This guy was just at like, hundred-foot Chopes, and now he’s over here bomb droppin’.”
Honestly, these two matched together is something we should see more of. You’d be hard-pressed to find a pair of polar opposites that are as entertaining for such different reasons.
