Facebook, the dark side of it.
Let’s first try to explain why studies are showing that 70% of the people who use social media report that their self-esteem plummets after looking at Facebook and that the more young people who use social media the more envy and dissatisfaction they feel.vWindsurfing magazines have historically done a good job of making you feel like your home break is worthless unless you live on the beach at Ho’okipa.
But even magazines can’t compete with the relentlessness of internet. Log onto the windsurfiest instagram accounts and you quickly begin to feel that you’re the only windsurfer on earth not scoring a perfect turquoise wave peeling for ever under a side offshore wind. You think your sunset was cool? It was bullshit, just check the ones which are posted – freaking rainbows arching over perfect spots! Oh and yes, your girlfriend pales in comparison with all those posted windsurf babes wearing tiny red bikinis.vSocial media creates frustration for every one of us, it is obvious. And what about the pro-riders themselves who make us feel crappy about our life and our windsurfing? Well social media have changed who they are too. Before Facebook landed in our daily life, let’s say about 10 years ago, to be a famous windsurfer you had to rip, that is to say to ride at world-class level, especially in contests. The goal was to destroy the wave in front of a thick crowd or at least in front of one “true pro-photographer” in order to please your sponsors through magazine coverage. But now they have to be social media experts too!vAs an example, I’ll ask you, have you ever actually seen footage of Alice Arutkin windsurfing? I am not criticizing Alice, and I certainly don’t mean to say that she isn’t a good windsurfer. Frankly I have no idea, I have never seen her windsurf. And that is exactly the point! Her rise as a “pro windsurfer” is more about her social media fame than her ability to ride. Alice is wearing the Red Bull hat and Thomas is not. Thomas is ripping but…hardly ever posting…Alice is just an example, but there are plenty more who understood that by posting enough shots of yourself ripping or of an especially attractive body part you will quickly get an army of followers. And the sponsors will follow. The problem of course is that apart from generating frustration and rewarding the worst kind of vain, narcissistic windsurf personalities, all this posting is chronically over-documenting and therefore diluting the wonderful act of windsurfing. Windsurfing is about that interaction between yourself and the elements: the wind, the wave, the current, the tide, the reef etc…it’s not about you and your beautiful girlfriend posing in front of a go-pro while attempting an air jibe.vAnd of course this also means that now that we are facing nice side shore waves at Backdoors, shouldn’t Jules focus on mind-windsurfing, that’s to say – where exactly is the drop zone and which turn he should try to pull out of each section instead of still being on Facebook? Probably, but it looks like it takes more than a night around a couple of rums to make him change his habits. But once on the water Jules got quickly connected, competing with Thomas on wave choice and on the art of riding them. A true festival of radical off the tops and airs, three days in a row. The last being the windiest, allowing both riders to satellite themselves into some huge one handed backloops.
“ Your surfing is finally free when you don’t feel like you need to be showing off or somehow meeting some expectation you have for yourself ” Mark Renneker