Photo: Thomas Bennett // WSL
Joel Tudor is the surf world’s pre-eminent curmudgeon. Though he’s a uniquely accomplished longboarder, he’s perhaps equally known for complaining about modern surf culture and starting random internet beefs. Recently, he took his talents to Sterling Spencer’s podcast Pinch My Salt, where he fired a few barbs at soft-top surfboards, and what he calls a softening of surf culture as a whole.
Tudor’s appearance fueled a sprawling and often fascinating conversation, replete with insights from his long career. Subjects ranged from stories of being hazed by Laird Hamilton, to opinions on how mass manufacturing has affected the surfboard industtry, and the answer to the age-old question of whether Jonah Hill is more core than Kelly Slater.
But it wouldn’t be Joel if there wasn’t at least one complaint. After Spencer delivered the prompt “Who are we the most mad at now?” Tudor launched into a screed against the oft-maligned soft-top. “We’re all about trying to stop our carbon footprint, and we want to clean the environment,” he began. “The fact that we haven’t banned soft surfboards, which are basically gigantic Styrofoam cups. I mean, they’re worse than Styrofoam cups… So why don’t we just ban the soft-top altogether?”
However, his beef with foam wasn’t purely an environmental concern. He soon expanded into his own theory of how the beginner-friendly rides are enabling stoked beginners to change surf culture for what he thinks is the worse. “I will say that the introduction of them becoming so available has really changed the landscape of surf etiquette,” he continued. “People are just stoked, and I get it, you’re just trying to have a good time. But the kook meter factor and clueless behavior shit is wild.”
He also opined on how he believes the craft are emblematic of a shift in surf culture at large. “I feel like everything’s gotten soft, pun intended,” he said. “Just surf in general. Companies used to run ads that were like, ‘If you don’t surf, don’t start.’ They wanted to have people starting and doing it, but there was also this big push on, ‘If you’re going to do it, don’t be a goober. If you’re going to be a goober, fix it.’ You know, learn the ways of the lineup and the etiquette and all the other stuff. Nowadays it’s ‘toxic,’ right?
“So you’ve got this change in what people expect when they go. The culture of hazing is slowly moving away. So it’s just a more inviting thing for beginners, right? It used to be like starting surfing was kind of gnarly, you’d go out and someone would bark at you. You can’t really do anything anymore.”
Listen to the rest of his thoughts, below.
