We were wondering who might take on some leadership and put out a message which supports the efforts we all have been making to contain the COVID -19 crisis. Well, Team O’Neill stuck their necks out a bit on what has become a controversial subject: To surf or not?

You may not agree, but at least appreciate the brand attempting to do what they think is right and putting it out there.

The red herring that keeps getting thrown around about how “safe” it is to surf completely misses the most obvious point in all of this: It’s not the act of surfing but the drawing of crowds to the beaches, parking lots, etc. when they see surfing on the nightly news. Perfect world, the locals who can simply walk to the beach and paddle out should be allowed, in theory, but how do you stop everyone else from heading to the beach when they see it’s open to surfing?

From there it then creates a “they’re doing their thing, I’ll do mine” mentality and pretty soon everyone is outside again. Yes, should the road bike guys, for instance, be banned too? Absolutely. Which is exactly the point: We see them out riding around in large groups and wonder why we can’t surf.

The US is smack-dab in the middle of what would be Spring Break. It would be a shit show if the beaches were open. We already saw that in Florida.

However, if your one of those gov-conspiracy tin-hatters who think this is all part of some secret plan to hold you down, sorry, we can’t help ya there.

We’re backing ya O’Neill.

What Youth