I think I’ve written many emails ranting about this. But today we go public. I hate that word. Content. That dumb buzz word. That stupid, lethargic, lazy, sellout of a word is about as hot to trot in the surf industry as e-commerce (another yawn). There are entire teams dedicated to branding your entertainment, turning it into “content.” It’s gross. And now there are brands trying to marry that dumb word with it’s ugly stepchild “commerce” and it’s literally killing me and probably you too.

You see, growing up, I never watched Focus or Campaign or Trilogy and thought, “Wow, this is great content.”  I thought it was sick surfing. Great music. Rad personalities. If I liked them enough, I’d probably try to copy them and I’d buy whatever wetsuit my favorite dude ripped in and that was surf commerce. Then we would all wear it, and people who didn’t live here who wanted people to think they did would buy it. That was the snowball. And it worked. That’s why people are sponsored. It aint perfect, but that’s what got us here, and before we got all high and mighty and Wall Street, we had us a nice thing going. Volcom sponsored wackos like Ozzie and Barney and had Pennywise play every other weekend so they were sick. Billabong had everyone from Benji to Sunny, Taj and all three Malloys, so you knew their shit worked. Quik had Kelly and Dane and Benny B so you never had to question them. And so on down the line. You’d even have small flair up brands like MCD and Counter Culture and SMP and they’d come in and ruffle some feathers and sponsors dudes like Bobby Martinez and young Andy Irons. They never made content. They made ads. And did things. They made things. Or made things happen. And said yes. Counter Culture threw a free comp every Tuesday in the summer called “Groms in the Pit.” You got a free tee and something to do on a mundane Tuesday. MCD made Raw Irons, a profile film that is about as underrated as it is amazing. Not content. Just sick, and totally immortal, just like Andy himself.

But now, today, we have content creation teams begging “athletes” to wear the right thing for an Instagram moment that’s supposed to drive consumer engagement and get some ROI (Return on Investment) on their boring websites. And the “content” is so soft because it’s been approved by 60 fuckers who don’t even know what they’re looking at. And they’re doing marketing campaigns and only running it internally. As “content.” And it’s not working. We’re all on to you. Please start having more fun. Stop planning and approving and start doing. It’s getting lonely here. Your creative team is bored. Wake them up and let them blow your mind. I know they will.

As for us, we aren’t going to be dragged into the mess. We will not be making content here. We’re here to entertain you. And inspire you. And we’ll keep doing it how we do it: documenting the people around us exactly how they are, in as raw, beautiful, fucked up a way as we can. And the day they call us content creators is the day I tear down this ramp and accept the fact that we’re done and there’s no way in hell we’re getting the security deposit back. —Travis