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

John John Florence is the World Champ And we’re backing that big time

Video: Hurley

While we were sleeping, John John Florence became the World Champ. He sliced and diced his way through Portugal, and in making the final, and with Jordy’s semifinal loss, we got us a John John crown. And this is nice news to wake up to. Because John John deserves this. We all deserve this. It’s been a while since someone who’s so relevant, so well-rounded, so fearless, so nice, so fun, so sick, and so radical has won a world title. Proving that sometimes, in this bizarre, surreal, absurd little world, stuff just makes sense. And this is that.

John John has traversed lots of ground in his career, going from a grom on a Dear Suburbia trip (below) to ruling the world, in all conditions. And we just realized it might be time to book some tickets to the North Shore, because we’re anticipating a serious good time in the islands this winter. Congrats John John, we fucking love ya dude.

Watch Episode 4 of John’s new vid series: “Twelve”:

Watch John John as a grom in Barbados filming for Dear Suburbia: 

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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