We’re currently in Australia filming for a new What Youth film series called This Is Us. So far, in the first two days we’ve survived the 50-year storm. Had a late night skate session fueled by the lights on our cars, searched every nook and cranny along this section of Australian coast and met some quality surfers. Let’s start with Ryan Callinan, who’s featured above with a nasty whip in front of prehistoric rock. Ryan is polite, he does dishes, he’s super positive, not obsessed with his phone and is more surf psyched than anyone we’ve ever met — which believe it or not are all very rare qualities. He’s #theboys — and is single handedly bringing back the high five. The second is Creed McTaggart, a Western Australian bad ass with the gentlest of demeanors. He’s the guy you want in the car. He’s soft spoken but has the timing of a comedian. He’s got a Pink Panther tattoo and is full of rad stories and insight at just the right time. The guy loves Mitch Hedberg. He also says rad shit out of nowhere, like, “Dammit! I left my mojo in the other car!” There’s also Fox’s newest team rider Chippa Wilson, who continues to prove there is no one more right now on the face of the earth. Between his rock and roll’s in the skatepark, to his ridiculous pull ratio during free surfs, Chippa maintains his reputation as the coolest kid at school. The fourth surfer we have is Dillon Perillo. Dillon spends most of his day debating existence and reading quotes from the novels he’s reading. Just a man and his search for meaning in a meaningless world. We love him.

Aside from that, we’ve decided unanimously that Instragram is ruining surf trips and life in general. Between the incessant checks, posts and the ridiculous access it lends us to scantily clad women, it’s hard to find an iPhone free enough to even put on a sick song to get you psyched to surf. We’re addicted and we hate our addiction. And we’re not blaming anyone, we realize we’re all addicted together — this is just an observation. We all want to check ourselves out. Our loved ones out. The one’s we once loved. The loose girls from down the road. Bad publicity stunts. What everyone is promoting at any given moment or just what it is “Jalana” is up to. I mean, cleavage is around every corner…the boys know. But how many followers we have and how many likes one has is dominating the conversation and it’s beginning to make us hate ourselves. It’s all a dirty game and we’re playing right along, but as the driver of a dusty Subaru searching back beaches and dirt roads for fun waves to rip, the Instagram obsession is detrimental to boys being bad ass. Conversation was once based on girls, waves, madmen we’ve met and bad ass moments in history. It’s now silent. A bunch of brain dead personalities staring into little black bricks. But we’ll change. Judging by the upbeat vibes and ability to leave the iPhone back at the house, I like the lead our crew is taking so far.

Anyway, that’s what we’re doing. Stay tuned for more upbeats from our exploration of the Australian coastline as the swell turns up later this week.