Making Friends With The Neighbours

I remember a time when I rolled my eyes at the idea of new surf films as they arrived on the scene. For so long, surf films told the same story over and over and over and over, and over and over and over. I stopped watching them. But that changed, and I had to start to eat my cynicism. Surf films got diverse. They got interesting. Part of this is the acceptance of new people as surfing's storytellers; letting surfing be more than men, more than sunshine, more than grunting descriptions of getting barrelled and feeling stoked, more than roadtrips, more than power turns, late drop ins and airs. New stories about surfing that suggested surfing was more than the worst of it. Well hello there, A Lunar Cycle . You might have heard about the latest offering in this new world of surf films, that was directed by Andrew Kaineder, and written by and featuring Irish surfer, Easkey Britton . If you haven't heard of Easkey, then you haven't been paying much attention to surfi...

*The title of this essay is inspired by  Kylie Maslen's recent article about women's sport, 'Skin in the Game '. The essay itself is dedicated to my friends in the Institute of Women's Surfing (Europe), with my thanks for sharing your stories and friendship and resources. I. Oh hey, surf media! Surf media is such an interesting world. I used to consume it voraciously, reading everything I could find - every book, magazine, website, and blog. I was trying to understand it, to understand the world it was describing, to see the patterns and themes as well as the points of difference and resistance. I wasn't out to create a typology or anything like that, but to get my head around what it is that we say to ourselves as writers, editors, photographers and readers. I wanted to know who was talking and who might be reading and to know what was missing from these stories; to find the gaps. It didn't take long for me to turn away from mainstream print magazin...

It's a truth universally acknowledged that social media can be a real drag. Arguments, comparisons, bitchiness, nastiness, narcissism and more all play out across Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, blogs and more. I've had my fair share of shitty social media interactions, but what I've found is that it doesn't have to be that way. Most of my experiences on social media has been really positive, and I've made some wonderful connections over the years with wonderful people. I've met so many folk through blogging and Instagram, and are people I care about and have various relationships with. Like me, Jamie, Toddy, Mick, Sarah and Felix are people you might have come across on your digital travels, and they are people I've come to care about and to , different degrees, to know. For me, these relationships are some of the best of social media. I love connecting with people and projects in various places around the world, and being able to watch their work develo...