Surfing, Skateboarding, Music, Photography, Travel, Culture and general antics of the youth on the run.

“It’s still not on!” The WSL learning surfing is still a shit show

While I’m quite certain Samsung Galaxy’s products are not for anyone, the WSL and Samsung may be learning the hard way that surfing is definitely not for everyone. A 9th 10th straight lay day has forced the WSL to extend the waiting period for the Quiksilver Pro until Friday the 13th, in turn costing them a lot of money, forcing us to watch more average commercials disguised as “content,” giving us even more “lay days” to track our favorite surfers on “social media,” more commercials and more sound bite quotes like this from Kieren Perrow: “We’ll continue to monitor conditions and make another call at 11:30 a.m.”

Makes you wonder if “It’s on!” was the best slogan for the tour, when that essentially is only uttered a maximum 36 times all year out of 132 attempts. Might be time to field test: “WSL: We are off for the day and we’ll come back tomorrow and reassess conditions!”

Maybe this is just the first sign of the WSL and it’s list of corporate sponsors and big executive teams back in Los Angeles realizing: wow, surfing is a damn shit show! Maybe we should have stuck to softball. Or golf. Or hockey. Because who in their right mind would think you could package this all up SportsCenter-tight, add some carefully-curated polo shirts and cliche and sell it to the masses? Apple sure as hell wouldn’t.

Surfing doesn’t package neatly for us or the masses, and I don’t think many of us really want it to anyway. —Travis

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^^This is what happens when you quit hanging with Dill. 

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Peter Mel and Strider Wasilewski hanging with Dill in NYC. PHOTO: Oblow

 

Indonesia Boat Trip Cluster Filming Yoyo Island Creed McTaggart Brendon Gibbens Craig Anderson Thom Pringle Surfing Dear Youth What Youth

Dear Youth Field notes from the outer islands

A five-day trip to get the fuck outta Bali and film for ClusterTM with Craig Anderson, Brendon Gibbens, Creed McTaggart & Thom Pringle. We slept in dungeon style cell rooms with a shitty fan, all of us. Tucked tight together with mattresses on the floor. This was Indo at it’s best. A real surf trip….

Indonesia, mitch coleborn chippa wilson what youth

Dear Youth Noa Deane and Mitch Coleborn getting it done

This is just one of those photos that makes you want to drop everything and max out your credit card and book a boat trip with your buddies. Mitch Coleborn is paddling out and Noa Deane is about to get really barreled. What more needs to be said? It’s all happening. —Nate Lawrence

Karate Zen Dear Youth What Youth Filming Kai Neville

Dear Youth Can you hear me? Where has my zen gone?

Time’s spinning by at a wild pace. I need to reflect on what went down over the last…the last month. West oz road tripping, a boat trip, Maccas camp post up, back to back. I think we may need to just chill. I love the hustle, but… Don’t get me wrong, this shit is sick. I…

Quinn Matthews Dillon Perillo Salina Cruz Surfing What Youth Dear Youth

Dear Youth Quinn Matthews in Training

Editor’s Note: Quinn Matthews is a talented young photographer. And we like him a lot. He brought creative angles to the North Shore. And hung with the boys in West OZ. That’s step one and two of success in this game. But there are more steps which are a bit trickier to explain. Last week, Quinn…

dion Agius dane reynolds craig anderson what youth

Dear Youth Craig Anderson, Dion Agius, Dane Reynolds in New Zealand, filming for Dear Suburbia, 2012

Editor’s Note: Blake Myers is Kai Neville and What Youth’s mascot/employee/filmmaker/creative Kiwi. He’s been making Lego videos and films for years now, and he’s also pretty good at snapping interesting photos along the way. The moments that usually go unoticed — which we thrive on. He’ll be contributing to Photo Credit and unearthing his archive…

Kai Neville Creed McTaggart Noa Deane Dear Youth What Youth Music

Dear Youth Click happy

“Popular is not the same as important, or often, not the same as good.” — Seth Godin Yesterday, sitting in the boiling cauldron that is Los Angeles traffic, I tuned the radio dial to 88.9, which is KXLU, a tiny independent radio station broadcasting from the campus at Loyola Marymount. It’s not world famous and…

Chippa Wilson getting barreled for cluster what youth

Dear Youth Chippa Wilson, Indonesia, Last week

Nate Lawrence: “Chippa Wilson is more known for his airs than his barrel riding skills, but damn can he ride the barrel well. We just finished a good ol’ fashioned Mentawai boat trip and it did not disappoint. There’s something about bobbing on a boat for 12 days with your friends that will never get…

Noa Deane Surfing Cluster What Youth Dear Youth

Dear Youth Noa Deane’s washed up traveler kit

A lot of people like to snap photos of their ultra-curated travel kits: vintage camera, neat bag, perfectly-folded shirt, passport, funny hat, postcards, Moleskin, etc. You know the shot. Well, over the past few years the travel kits we’ve seen don’t exactly look like that. They’re more like this. So here’s the first in a…

Noa Deana Indonesia Cluster Kai Neville Surfing Dear Youth What Youth

Dear Youth Noa Deane’s Indo stitch up

The ramps were good and the crowd was super mellow with the stiff breeze. 30 minutes into the surf Noa boned a pretty big Stalefish. Off target, his fin caught his arm and left him with a nice open gash. He bellied in and I started wondering why the hell he was coming in —…

mitch coleborn jack freestone noa deane what youth cluster

Dear Youth Nate on the Run

Editor’s note: Nate Lawrence is a good employee. Fills our hard drives with photographic gold all year long and is just one of the best dudes you’ll find. However, occasionally, he disappears. Doesn’t usually take us long to see that it often coincides with an active Indian Ocean, which just so happens to be firing…

Craig anderson surfing what youth

Dear Youth Boy to Man: Quinn Mathews returns from Western Australia

Photographer Quinn Matthews just walked in the door here at What Youth. Quinn is 18. Super talented. And up until now hadn’t been on too many surf trips. He was a green grom and we sent him into the wild. He went to Western Australia for 8 weeks to take photos and prove his worth…

Jordy smith what youth

Dear Youth Jordy Smith’s Indonesian Salon

Jordy Smith and Rob Bain, Indonesia 2013 “This here is a photo of Jordy just starting to dive into a fresh haircut for his boss, Rob Bain. It was the last night of the trip and Jordy had a line of people ready to get haircuts. What Youth photographer Hamish Humphreys had just got his…

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