Here’s the conspiracy theory: American surf media produces banal catalogs because of the brands. Those greedy bastards only care about selling more threads to the masses, which means surfing must be packaged in a sunny, positive, healthy wrapper for the conservative hoards. The brands control the media, because without the advertising dollars of the major brands, the mags/websites would fold. So when someone in the media steps out of line, and says something unfavorable, the brands have them disappeared. According to this conspiracy theory, I said something unfavorable about Billabong – so Billabong had me canned.
It makes for a good story – but it’s not true. As far as I know Billabong had nothing to do with me being fired. Instead, surf media editors censor themselves, dilute their own content, and spoon-feed surfers pablum each month because the surf media is run by uncreative ball-lickers who are all but incapable of original thought. They rely on the brands to provide them with stories via press releases, contests, and sponsor-organized photo trips.
Yesterday, Billabong linked to PostSurf from their , saying “He writes the EFF out of us regularly, but if you can't laugh at yourself then what's the point... here is Lewis Samuels.” Oh, the irony.
Back when I used to write for the official surf media, I’d always bring a few copies of to editorial meetings. Invariably editors would shoot down my pitches as “too controversial” or cut unfavorable comments about team riders from my articles. “We can’t print that!” the editors would tell me. “We have a responsibility to our advertisers.” At that point I’d bust out an issue of Vice, and open up to a random page. I’d hold up a picture of, say, a topless ex-stripper holding a shotgun while breastfeeding a 5-year-old. I’d show the picture to the editor, and then flip back a few pages to the full-page ad spreads paid for by Quiksilver and Volcom.
“It’s not the brands who are making surfing boring,” I’d tell them. “The brands are willing to be associated with this fuckery! We’re the ones making surfing boring.”
So while Vice documents leper colonies, submarine drug-smuggling, and the Chinese government harvesting internal organs of political prisoners, we get "When Groms Attack." While Vice puts up photo essays of naked hipster chicks, teens huffing nitrous, and amputee veterans, we get another advertorial “story” about the making of a Taylor Steele film. Don’t blame Quiksilver – they put their Retro Boarshsort ad in Vice’s Mexican issue, which included a lengthy article on homemade Mexican porn.
I'm not suggesting that US surf mags should look like Vice - I'm just suggesting that they have more lattitude than they think to reflect the subversive and anti-establishment roots of surfing.
Vices. Note the Quik and Von Zipper ads, along with images and articles that no US surf mag would publish.
why don’t you just start your own mag?
One of the best post you wrote, lewis. congrats.
fucking spot on lewis. these are the kind of dots that need to connected for readers, advertisers, editors, CEOs, marketing types, publishers… many people (including myself) write off Vice upon first glance, due to the snarky tone, but the magazine’s wide-open cross-section of music, art, culture, politics, etc. is really a formula that many, many more magazines could follow to success.
If you consider Volcom’s premise, counterculture, editorial risk is nothing but good. If the kid’s correlated Volcom’s IPO to that premise, they’d be in trouble.
No publicity is bad publicity and nothing you wrote was so heinous to PNaude. Surflie is scared, fear creates homogeny, homogeny dictates a path of least resistance. The Prime Media twin girls suffer the same fate, only double.
That’s the thing about Chris Cote. This is a historic opportunity for him to recalibrate his poor product, and emerge 6 months later as a beacon of independence.
The best time to accumulate market share is in a down market. Econ 101 and Chris is poised to blow up.
Hire Lewis as editorial director, hire an art director and nothing is stopping you, Cote. The others will have no choice but to follow. You’ll turn the jeers to cheers, mate.
Poor little Toto.
Behind closed doors, there is all sorts of screaming going on.
Some one is forcing the “refs to blow his whistle”.
I fully agree, no matter what you write, as long as the journalism is top notch there will always be a market. And where there’s a market there will always be a advertisers trying to get a slice. Surfing journalism has licked the business side’s balls for too long while in all reality the people who buy their mags are your everyday surfers who don’t give a fuck what board shorts Bruce is wearing. It’s sad how rare you hear about the darker sides of surfing considering where the sport came from. Quit selling surfing and try just writing about it.
In this fuckery we call the marketing of surfing, poor Toto.
The pup always gets the blame.
And some sorry ass bollock of a person or persons, always kicks the dog.
Goliath is worried.
The curtain is being pulled.
yeahhh… i thought stab are giving it a go butthey seem to be swerving dangerously into nathan barley territory these days…especially with that pool party (that i still would have enjoyed but only for the tans and all that femme bending over that apeared to be going on).
I hate the surf media dictating the stories and vibe.
Reminds me of that song REM used to sing? “Shiny, Happy, People everywhere, Shiny Happy people.”
I want shiny, but not all the time, that would equate to fuckery.
I just don’t want Jefferey Dahmer to be the Editor of the next surf Mag.
And by Dahmer I mean BR.
VICE rules. Worth a subscription, as is Modern Drunkard Magazine. Thrasher, too.
Well if this isn’t the land of the self promoting quasi-intellectuals. How many times do you rehash your comments through google-thaurus nerds. Keep pretending to be insightful, I will drown you with equations.
Just got back from a trip. Congrats to Mark. Check out this video I shot of Alana Blanchard ripping…
What did I miss? Has the revolution started? Should I put my safety goggles on? Can I resume fucking swine?
Thurso finals today.
Vice just got bought by MTV Lewis. Everyone has a price. What’s yours? Not much I bet.
The only “surf” writer of any substance was Derek Hynd….everyone wanted to see his take on the trained monkeys
volcom. talk about fuckery, those laguna guys take the friggin cake!
It seems we’re finally waking up to how boring the surf media is. And how much of the real story we get to read about.
Sites like PostSurf (and its commenters) and the forums of the major surf websites (’cept for Surfline obviously) are starting to question the shite editorial standards that passes for surf journalism.
So the question is, who’s going to step up? Transworld? Stab (jeez, have you seen the latest Stab? A bunch of Q&A interviews with illiterate man-childs and a sarcastic Little Weeds promotion)?
the ho does not provide sex out of the goodness of her heart. but for some strange reason, it all works out.
everyones a slut.
BravO maN!
Great job. Viva the revolution. Let’s tear some shit up. It’s about time someone really got out a can of whoop ass and showed the surf industry how dumb they are. Hopefully they’ll all go out of business and LS can make a real magazine that matters, like Vice, National Lampoon, Mad Magazine, or Cracked. I think someone offered earlier to start collecting some real money for LS to make this happen since he doesn’t have his job at Surfline anymore. Let’s put together a paypal tip jar or something so he can see how serious we are about getting this off the ground. We could all post ideas on this blog and then he could pick the best ones and put on the site or his magazine, or whatever. Seems like Mark and Peter Pan would have some really good ideas too. I’d ask the BR guy but I think that is LS, the voice seems to be pretty similar, but sometimes I think it might be a young Aussie kid who wants to be like LS. Hard to say.
Anyway, I’m working on a follow up to that last Alex Knost piece called, “Heckle My Weenie You Beyatch”. It’s like a cross between Jackass and Road Rules, sort of making fun of both and knocking the hipster bullshit at the same time. Like ride a retro board across a baby pool filled with jello you lamer. It will be like Bruno/Borat style but edgier. When I’m done with it, I’ll pass it by you guys and see what you think. We could have like a little editorial session of our own. Like the Onion but right here on these comments. And it would be pretty funny. We could even put these comments in the new magazine, that would be cool, people haven’t really done that before. It’s a cross over thing.
If anyone knows anyone in the industry we could pitch this too, that would help. You know, let them know what the new up and coming thing is.
They’ll probably want to get on board early so they can be cool first.
Or maybe we just do Google Ads here first to get a little pocket change.
It would be great if we could send LS to at least one WCT event this year. Think about how in their face that would be, LS back in the saddle slinging his good stuff right in their feces. Busted.
I’m gonna work on that article tonight and get back on it tomorrow. Let me know if you guys have anymore ideas.
Peace. PW
I agree with the previous poster about starting your own zine, online or otherwise. There’s a niche there to do something more edgy–I think everyone here seems to agree. My opinion: it could focus less on calling people out and making fun as your blog and some previous editorials have been, but rather focus on the true characters in surfing and leaving out the people/things you hate. Or perhaps be a bit more subtle. One thing I’ve learned first hand is that surfers are very protective about their image across the board, which is also what I think drives these editorial decisions. As soon as someone burns a bridge, you’re out of an entire network of surfers in the industry. I’m not sure if there’s any way around that one. Surfers do take themselves a bit seriously, so you may need to ease into the whole Vice-thing. If you look at the surf-related content on Vice, even it is quite even-keeled, so to speak.
“so to speak”
The key to scoring a great interview is much like broaching the topic of anal sex with your loved one.
At first they whine, clench up, tell you that you’re a disgusting human, and that you’re just going too far; but then with a little booze, some lube and a machete, you patiently wait for that one misstep where they bend over just a little too far – and BLAMO!
CHRIS COTE SUX!
… as long as this ppl make money they will not change the formula.
Spot on… you’re back on the right path again LS. Media should control the media.
Yeah, I agree. Spot on. But I must say Lewis, for someone with such antipathy towards hipsters, I find your choice of journalistic standard to which you hope future surf-related writers and writings be held a little bit ironic, dontchathink? The people who run Vice- and most of the people who read Vice- make your good buddy A. Knost look like this guy from your “If you don’t surf, start…” post:
“The frosted blond tips, the manicured faux-casual Miami Vice stubble beards, the ironed jeans, leather loafers, and tucked in Gap button-ups.”
can you see my roots?
“Think to reflect the subversive and anti-establishment roots of surfing.” I only got to know who you when they fired you, I just wish I could hire you. Great stuff bru. keep riding. Pura Vida
Epic Lewis.
LS, how can you write about the “subversive and anti-establishment roots of surfing” and write the Power Rankings on the one keyboard?
Lewis couldn’t hold my jock, let alone start a mag on his own. He doesn’t know talent and probably laughed at the Georges when they did that great educational trip to Indo.
It is subtle, but is everyone missing Lewis’ real point here?….
Donavon Frankenreiter.
Best known as Downey Donnie.
The type of guy who rolls up every generation or so, bringing back the past. Basically saying, I liked stuff better when it sucked.
The great thing about Lewis’ site is that he is not only free to say what he wants about the surf industry and the main target of his vendetta hard-on Sean Collins, but also that he can post replies to his original posts using as many aliae (is that a word?) as he wishes. Not only furthering his dialogue, but furthering the confusion over whether or not there are actually as many people as he’d like to have us think who are into surfing but can also string together a sentence. (and visiting PostSurf) I could, in fact, be one of Samuels’ aliases (or is it aliae?). In the end, while I find this site entertaining (The Laird pic is slaying my innards) there’s way more attribution to the world ending importance of whether or not the surf media lick advertiser balls. Of course they do. And whether surfer journos are smart or not. Of course many aren’t - they ain’t getting paid jack. And there’s the rub. People in the surf industry - whether the wordsmiths, or the adsmiths, or the hopeful but doomed huckster at ASR - are in the surf industry because they 1> love surfing and will do any ass-scratching job in ‘the biz’ so they don’t have to shuck mortgages in a Newport sweatshop 2> Don’t know any other world. There’s only a limited amount of scratch to go round in this surf world, regardless of whether Bong and Quik have stores in Times squre, and to wish for some grand combination of Mad, Cracked, Esquire, Vanity Fair and Vice is about as wishful thinking as you’re gonna get. When you get to it, the ‘upper eschelon’ of our so-called industry is a pretty small world. We all know each other. We don’t really like to be demeaned all that much. And we all like to hold on to our meager earnings. The pleading for some ‘revolution’ in the surf media - that the truth shall set you free - is great pablum for a ‘revolutionary’ website devoted to overthrowing the surf status quo, but to expect that Surfer, Surfing or Surfline are going to run photos of Alana Blanchard breastfeeding Rob Machado while smoking crack and cradling an sawed off Parker Brothers double barrel is, methinks, to expect too much. To expect Hunter Thompsonesque journalism at 50 cents a word, is equally wishful thinking. But keep on raging against the dying of the light Lewis. Maybe I’ll keep wasting hundreds of words at a time on your worthless website. Oh, by the way, my rate is at least a buck a word. You can paypal me.
@Bob Dobb,
Donavon Frankenreiter is on the background of the official Billabong Twitter Feed (TM) because he’s marketing his brand new Billabong (TM) Donavon Frankenreiter (TM) collection by Billabong, set for release this season. Based on the duel fantasy of music and surfing, the line includes a very personal take on boardshorts, t-shirts, hats and accessories. “The collection embraces my surfing philosophy and the musical side of my life and everything that surrounds it,” says Donavon. “It’s a reflection of my life over the past 15 years.”
Billabong also sends you this personal message, Bob Dobb:
Hey yall! We are rocking our facebook page now if you want to join us!
Also, you might be interested to know that Donavon’s wife Petra just launched a website featuring her custom children’s clothing! Check it out at !
Mood: Cosmic Love
For someone ‘bringing back the past’, Bob Dobb, Donavon Frankenreiter appears to be very good at marketing himself as a product and knows how to really use the internet and social media to sell his ‘lifestyle’. This guy makes the Dream Tour crew look like soul surfers.
Donavon Frankenreiter plays acoustic guitar, probably ukulele, and is friends with Jack Johnson. That alone is grounds for a severe tongue lashing from Blasphemy Rottmouth, president of the Japanese Motors fan club.
Come to think of it I can’t decide whether to be a hipster or a hippie this summer. Must get to Surfline and check out the new summer boardshort buyers guide.
Buktu,
anyone can check sites like Compete or Alexa and see, Lewis’ Postsurf.com is pulling major, twitter like trajectory uniques. And it’s just got started.
this site is a skyrock!
BTW, throw in a paragraph already.
Scott Bass, Don’t ever come on here again.
As far as Vice goes. Vice is like the hipster handbook made by Canadians. As everyone knows Canadians suck and so does there beer. Al Knost is signed by Vice records. Kind of strange, Vice is and interesting read at some point but it’s so Williamburg Brooklyn.
yes PP, you set me straight.
those boards he rides didn’t suck back in the day. and they suck even less now.
thanks. it’s like i’ve just been born anew.
or ripped anew.
can’t tell the difference now that Billabong is on Twitter!
@Jim Buktu
The days of people who write like you getting more than a buck a word are over. Your editors are already clearing out their desks. Might want to give them a call.
PS: Try the ‘enter’ or ‘return’ key, it’s on the right side of your keyboard.
I’m open for a new gig as well. As long as it’s in Cardiff. I’m a local there.
P.P.,
what the f are with Petra’s pants for kids? does she not realize, any kid who’s parents stuff them into a pair of those things will end up with photos as well as multiple comments on a Viceland DO’s and DONT’s page?
Talk about ruining your child’s self esteem.
@highlighted hair
Can you see my cock?? Apparently they can see it from the int’l space station, it even showed up on NOGAPS.
PeterPerfect,
Everyone was rolling in these this past season. And i suspect, the amounts that sold, they’ll soon roll out the summer shorts version just in time.
Local cut and sew factories are running over time.
depends, TS. do you want us to see it?
they have names for folks like that.
@Bob dobb
1.) by local cut and sew factories do you mean indonesian, chinese, malaysian, rawandan sweatshops?
2.) Did michealangelo want people to see that sistine chapel thing?
TZ, by local, i mean by any means necessary.
shoots yea, Mike wanted everyone to see it. isn’t that why he had it dangling from above?
funny thing, the Pope of his day commissioned, and paid for it.
That comment was full of more shit than your asshole on DP night at the gay bar where you work. But then again, it just proves the old adage: “If you shove enough shit up your cornhole, you’ll eventually defecate through your mouth.”
What the hell did Jim Buktooth just write? Someone order me the Cliff’s Notes version, ‘cuz I’m dizzier that LiLo at an all-you-can-drink Vodka Buffet.
And I just read the first two sentences, fer Crissakes. For once… just once, I’d like to see someone here sidestep the Hunter S. Thompson crutch in their put-down and instead; re-enact the last 30 seconds of his existence.
Is that too much to ask?
@BD
1.) Well, at least they’re making them out of old water bottles, tires, and flip flops.
2.) he he he…..
Yes, I cut and pasted the first ‘paragraph’ of my comment from last night on purpose…
… wishin’ I woulda saved that fucker for tonight.
And I did get a good chuckle from the Scott Bass impresonator.
Is that you Mark?
Have fun trolling.
@Bob Dobb:
I had not actually clicked that link for Petra’s pants for kids. Sweet Jesus. I guess that if you are going to have your kids really resent you, start young.
And those blanket dresses in that video reminded me of the fucking Western hippies who used to wear the Moroccan djellaba at Marrakech and Essaouira. Come to think of it, the Donavon Frankenreiter types.
Off topic but this needs to be addressed. To all the caption writers - and I’ve seen this (glory hole) on the cover of at least one major surf magazine - here are two items to fact check:
1. ‘Glory hole’ - a term to describe a hole in a wall where one sticks his dick through to be serviced anonymously, not a hellman driving hard through a heaving barrel on the edge of our flat world (or not).
2. ‘Golden shower’ - a fetish that involves the act of urinating on another person usually as part of a sex act, not the spray of a snap floating through the sinking light of a sunset.
@phizen
You forgot ‘Money Shot’.
phizen.
no wall needed. it’s all out in the open.
what ever you do, don’t Google and click, Zombietime. Up Your Alley.
If Wayne could market and sell $3,000 to $5,000 Evolution surfboards to celebrities, surely Petra can flog $82 dollar pants to celebrities and their keikis.
And thats what we love about them.
@Bob Dobb,
Good Lawd man! Are your typing with finger paste? Did you finish parochial school?
Otherwise, carry on good sir.
Wasn’t me Rot. I retired last night. Must have been some other really funny Tater.
P.S. Has Mike or Stu ever scored a COTW? Didn’t think so.
Welcome back Brett Favre… I mean Mark. Let’s hope your next wave of comments doesn’t mimic Brett’s last Jets season.
I you follow Vicemag and wish surfing mags should be more daring then why dont you write about the other side of pro surfing? more fuckery and more substance abuse. Surfers are all asswholes unless they are really not. Im counting on you, asswhole!
I hate to say it, but I’m with my man Coco Aine on this one.
And by ’say it,’ I mean ’snort it.’
I feel here that I must put my foot down. Henceforth, Hunter Thompson will no longer be invoked as the golden standard (or golden shower) of eccentric journalism; for once, I find myself siding with the abuser of both Cialis and Maxoderm otherwise known as Blasphemy Rottmouth.
Secondly, and more important, is that I make mention of the fact that I could collate a conglomeration of your collective cocks and they would still pale in comparison to the mountain of man meat that resides within my Hanes.
Carry on, but tread with caution…
hey, Lewis, I dig your blog. you should check out the lame excuse for south african surfmags. Your words ring true here bru!!!
Our mags are more like infomercials and the editorials are extremely juvenile, but every prostitute has a pimp and here in sa, there is no shortages of wannabe prostitutes.
Keep up the good work.
@lazer
Congrats on the successful penis transplant. I hear they’re doing Knost next.
BTW: BR has started recycling his own material. He’s outta gas.
Wait till you see my ” Favre goes to the Vikings and wins the super bowl” esque comments that will be coming once I take the lead in Fanatasy Surfer!
Damn spot on! When i saw “When groms attack” on Surfline, I wanted to vomit chunks, give me the real shit, I dont want to see groms on luxury surf trips, I want to see normal hard working fuckers enjoying the trip of a lifetime! Keep it up, and I agree start your own mag…
Does anyone remember the short life span of Beach Culture? It was ahead of it’s time and David Carson was feeling it. I still have a few issues but the problem with something like that happening in the present is that there aren’t any real Stussy’s, Shroff’s or traveling raw retired Gerlachs anymore in our culture. Alot of plastic cats marketing themselves instead of just being real and letting true style ooze out non marketed. I love Machado but how can he be this soul surfing solo drifter in Indo with a technical Hollywood mega crowd following your every pee pee and jerk off move? Dora would have slapped him for that one. There are guys like Camel at G-Land that are the exception to the rule though that Dora would of high fived.
BTW/ what the fuck was up with Machado, O’connel and some other chude doing whip ins at a full on further north east North Shore secret spot last winter and posting it by Hurley on Surfline soon there after? Lame as shit. They don’t live there full time so do they care? Real locals like Tamayo Perry were outraged. Thanks for poaching endangered species secret spots rich privileged pro ho’s. Lost some respect for Machado for that shit. Don’t you have enough footage without revealing secret mellow spots to everyone on the net? To much Medaglia D’Oro for me this morn, time for a fruit smoothie and fed ‘ex Hawaiian in a supa clean alcohol and kosher salt 10 year old J.B.
While we’re at it can we please do away with holding Miki Dora as the gold standard for counter culturalism. Let’s not forget that anytime Dora was down on his luck (often) he turned to his friends at Quiksolver faster than Trauzersnake turns to comments about his cock when he’s run out of interesting things to say (also often).
oh, lewis. if only you had an idea.
observe:
For each identification (the creation or cobbling together of identity) creates a figure that provides a material for its investment by the market. There is nothing more captive, so far as commercial investment is concerned, nothing more amenable to the invention of new figures of monetary homogeneity, than a community and its territory or territories. The semblance of non-equivalence is required so that equivalence itself can constitute a process. What inexhaustible potential for mercantile investments is this upsurge — taking the form of communities demanding recognition and so-called cultural singularities — of women, homosexuals, the disabled, Arabs! And these infinite combinations of predictive traits, what a godsend! Black homosexuals, disabled Serbs, Catholic pedophiles, moderate Muslims, married priests, ecologist yuppies, the submissive unemployed, prematurely aged youth! Each time, a social image authorizes new products, specialized magazines, improved shopping malls, “free” radio stations, targeted advertising networks, and finally, heady “public debates” at peak viewing times. Deluze put it perfectly: capitalist deterritorialization requires a constant reterritorialization. Capital demands a permanent creation of subjective and territorial identities in order for its principle of movement to homogenize its space of action; identities, moreover, that demand anything but the right to be exposed in the same way as others to the uniform prerogatives of the market.
~ Alain Badiou, Saint Paul: The Foundations of Universalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 2003), 10-11.
Hey why use Vice, next time go in there with an early issue of Big brother that shit was the best magazine for skateboarding ever hands down. porn, how to including: kill yourself, gonzo style journo and it was started by the guy who started world industries. funny that it started sucking when Larry Flint bought it.
My cock is so big it sometimes makes me giggle when it brushes the ticklish spot behind my knees. You know - the knees on my ankles.
And it has its own mustache and beard.
Alain Badiou said what?? To Stephen Hawkingish for my 4 year Hospitality Degree.
Hunter S, Thompson? isn’t he the guy who wrote on decent book, and a whole lifetime’s worth of absolute remainder bin dreck?
damn, all it takes is one. and then it’s residuals are cool.
I’ll bet if we put up the tip jar idea we could get at least $200 together, maybe more, and we could contribute that towards a plane ticket for LS to Tahiti for the contest and maybe he could put the rest up. Imagine the look on everyone’s faces when LS swaggered in and they all knew he was going to rip them a new a**hole. Come up with some fresh meat you lamers because you’re about to be served. The Hobgoods would be so stoked and I’m sure Kelly would high five him, imagine when Billabong saw Kelly high fiving LS, they’d be so pissed.
One idea I had last night (I didn’t finish my story) was that ESPN would be the best site to hire LS on. Those guys appreciate thinking outside the box and would probably love to have LS breaking down the pro tour on their site. I’ll be they could even give him a small part on SportsCenter when there are good waves at a contest like Chopes or the Pipe. Then the rest of the surf media would have to pay attention. LS on ESPN you bitches, while you’re still serving up the same old dog food to the dogs. Yawn.
@BR… glue. hey i got to try that!
will it turn me into a Machadoesqe Caveman?
now that Andy Irons is off, of all the ASP pros, (other than Chris Ward), which would be most likely to pull a Ron Artest, bolt into the stands and start wildly swinging on a Lewis Samuels?
I say none. they’ve all been pretty much deballed by the way the games being marketed.
and who’s going to become the ASP commish?
@ Bitter-Much? May 5, 2009 at 2:03 pm says “Vice just got bought by MTV Lewis.”
Vice wasn’t bought by MTV. That VBS channel they do (which has the absolutely great surf show Hi Shredibility) was funded by MTV but Vice owns it. It’s pretty well documented:
Anyway, great article Lewis. Glad to see it got all the industry kooks worked up.
Lewis you nailed it. Vice magazine has long pushed the limits of what can and should be published, and to top it all off it makes a profit as a FREE mag!! I firmly believe its the best periodical publication out there.
The mainstream surf media is the most watered down of all the action sports media outlets.. it feels like reading Us weekly half the time.
Surfers talk shit like we have so much more soul than Snowboarders because of the purity and freedom involved with surfing, but even their mags are more core than ours now… And Skateboarding has more core media than both others combined… Sad. I miss the days when being surfing as a whole was subculture, because the mags had no choice but to be the same…
I laugh out loud at the prospect of AI charging anyone. That guy couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag. Now, if I catch AI in Cardiff trying to be a local when he’s clearly just a visiting pro (which falls below local and regular on the “who gets waves” scale) he may have to protect himself. No, no, just kidding. Instead, he’d have to fend me off as I attempted to get him on my crappy radio show where I could blow him and then write about it on the surfermag forums and ban anyone who dared call me a homo.
I don’t blame the brands, I blame Obama.
>Vice magazine has long pushed the limits of what can and should be >published, and to top it all off it makes a profit as a FREE mag!! I >firmly believe its the best periodical publication out there.
sometimes you just have to say it out loud.
again:
Deluze put it perfectly: capitalist deterritorialization requires a constant reterritorialization.
Lewis, call Scott Bass and record the call haha
———— begin ————–
internet tough guys ruined surfing
re: ls - still not sure why he even wastes her time with my shitty opinions and writing ability.
I’m a moron and a kook we get it… next…
Too bad he doesn’t have the balls to call me and discuss.
———- end ————-
Edgy for edgy sake does not sound that good. I would like to see the monthly mags expand their universe and write about more surfers than just the bros and pros. Hiring writers with actual journalism degrees would be a good call.
Stu is trying to bait Mark into commenting but I don’t think it will work.
MuckFark is Lewis. I can just FEEL it.
Not LS….you feel wrong.
GREAT POST, Lewis!
Vice is on big brothers nuts, they were doing that shit in 1991 in the quise of a skate mag.
@Yeah,
Fuck Bourdieu and PostModernism. Al that crap collapsed in on itself a decade ago. Get hip: it’s back to Virlio and hypermodernism.
Chris Cote is just a self-deluding actor in a dromological nightmare of auto-erasure in a fascist climate of resource acquisition in a technocratic consumerist house of mirrors. His narcissism radiates through his illusion of self expression as practiced on his body, in order to inhabit an ever more rarified space for simulated reproduction of labour.
The result? Skanks go for it big time, as they respond to the symbols of self-selected identity within a range of possible signifiers. Hence: not everything goes - it’s a consumerist options grid, and only serves to distract them from their own self-alienation as both actors and field in the hypersped (hence, dromological) clusterfuck these morons call culture.
Skip cultural studies - culture is just the bowfront of the industrial consumerist machine and its political wing, the military.
Blameless?
A Ferrari surfboard for $5000 (only 499 made! buy 10!)
Odds on it’s made by Surftech or some other popout factory overseas for $10?
You guys are funny. Perhaps the clueless hacks at Surfer or Surfing should start publishing photo essays featuring Alana Blanchard with Rob Machado suckling at her breast while she’s holding an AK-47 and smoking the last of Pete Davi’s meth stash. That’ll generate readers. Get freaking real. Sure there’s a market for that - but “er and ‘ing are just as beholden to what their advertisers want as their readers. Do you any of you avant-gardening douchebags have any idea how many parents subscribe to these mags for their kids? The mags pull in heaps of crap from irate parents if a Reef ad shows a millimeter too much waxed Brazilian ass.
Sure there’s a market for a surfing version of Defamer/TheDirty/TMZ/Vice and Gawker - and obviously Lewis has tapped into it - and …Lost well before Lewis. But you guys will be smoking Kool Menthols w/Satan before you see Vicemag gratuity in the mainstream pubs. Remember - Nothing’s Been Shocking for awhile now, so what’s the point? And finally, believe me, I know my buck a word editors are folding up shop. That’s why I”m going to found my own version of PostSurf. It’ll be an aggregator of all the best posts from surf BB’s around the world. My mission will be to alternately riddle the stinking corpses of my idols with bullets of scorn while raging against the machine that feeds me while continuously sucking the neverending hard-on I generate with my own viagara dosed ego.
What the hell did you just write Jim?
Yes, good good journalism shouldn’t answer the Why, What, Where, When, and How, instead the magazine should ask, “will this offend the children?”
Personally, I’m not comfortable with soccer moms dictating what’s good journalism.
So tell me how a pic of a mom holding a gun w/a five year old sucking her boob represents good journalism, JW. Of course good journalism should answer why, what, where, when and how - but I never called surfer or surfing good journalism either. They are serving a constituency which, like it or not, includes the soccer moms who subscribe for their kids and howl if the mag presents something that they deem overly gratuitous. I’m not comfortable w/either the moms or the kids dictating what’s good journalism either, that’s why I read the NYTimes. My point, in case it escaped you, was that it’s ridiculous to expect bleeding edge material from either ‘er or ‘ing. That’s not what they do. What they do is serve a demographic and keep the surf machine spinning.
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