What Is Surf Culture ?

When you mention the words surf and culture to people, many will instantly have an image in their head largely built from their viewpoint on the world around them.

For some, surf culture, speaks of freedom and escape. Of a counter culture moving against the norms of society and capitalism to embrace something on a deeper, more spiritual level. We all have that first wave, right? Where suddenly we are weightless, lifted from our mortal bodies as we skim across a surface of perfect turquoise and tumbling white water as the door to this otherworldly place opens wide. Right? I’m sure it wasn’t just me.

Yet for others, surfing is for little rubber people who don’t shave yet. Not my words, but those of Point Break’s Johnny Utah…before he too had his spiritual awakening on the water, of course.

But what is surf culture?

In the ‘60s surfing was drenched in adventure and travel to exotic places to ride previously untouched breaks in the hidden corners of the back of beyond. It carried a spirit of breaking free and sucking the marrow from life itself, whilst also appearing the absolute antithesis of societal norms and expectations. The term ‘soul surfer’ could be framed as the description of the times, and nodded to the spiritual side of surfing in the ‘60s.

Thirty years later, in the ‘90s we welcomed the new guardians of surfing culture and cool as Kelly Slater, Shane Dorian, Rob Machado, and Co rode in on the back of a Taylor Steele fueled wave and the guitars of bands such as Bad Religion and Pennywise. Suddenly surf culture had an edge that married perfectly with the decade’s Generation X philosophy and grunge-soaked soundtrack. It was cool, it was alternative, and it was exciting.

And now another thirty years have passed by. Kelly Slater is about to turn 50 and still surfs like he’s 25, and Rob Machado just got cooler with every passing season. But where is surf culture in the third decade of the 21st century?

Well, in some respects it seems to have become the counter culture to the original counter culture. No longer a pursuit solely for the outsider, or the nomadic traveler, nor is it a badge of cool set aside for the Gen X kid seeking something for themselves. Now, surfing is a family affair.

Surfing saw an explosion the shockwaves of which still reverberate today. Every person and their dog – often literally – are out there in the lineup, jostling for waves. Surfing is a well-established mainstream sport that has long-since lost the badges of being the cool alternative for the cool alternative.

Apocalypse Now gave us the line, ‘Charlie don’t surf.’

Well, nowadays, everyone surfs.

Surfing has become the extreme sport for all the family.

This new growth is not without clear benefits.

Surfing has become a sport that is less male dominated. This is always a welcome move in any sporting platform and is to be embraced.

Surfing offers new, exciting ways for people to get fresh air and exercise. A means to grab vitamin D and vitamin sea in one life-affirming move. These fresh lungfuls of coastal air are the beginnings of re-awakenings for people rekindling the flames of long-forgotten connections to nature and an ocean environment. This connection can lay foundations for change.

Surfers tend to have a natural affinity to the ocean and nature that places them frequently at the forefront in tackling environmental issues. The work of organisations built by surfers, such as Surfrider and Surfers Against Sewage still make huge impacts throughout the world. Surfers make positive moves every day because they get it. They understand the value of picking up plastic from a beach, or leaving a place as you found it. And these smaller actions across a world of nature-infused surfers makes a real difference.

Today, surfing is a powerful force for good. Much as it always has been, even in its, often misunderstood, adolescent years.

Meanwhile, surfing culture today has arguably seen the biggest shift from its first blooms back in the ‘60s.

Surfers are no longer dwelling on the fringes of society as the misunderstood rebels who, deep down, actually loved the role they had been cast in. The rebels and outliers still exist of course, but now they hunt giants far from the coast and ride faces of water like mountains that leave mere mortals in open-mouthed awe.

For those of us lacking the taste for riding giants, surfing holds other rewards that despite having always been there, are only really beginning to be properly noticed by the non-surfing population.

Surfing means wellbeing.

The positive mental effect of surfing on the mind and wellbeing now makes waves throughout the world as big as those that crash from the heights at Nazaré.

At a time where mental health has come to the forefront of a person’s wellbeing, surfing’s explosion as the extreme sport for all the family, is playing a huge role.

It is a vessel to a better place mentally for many who paddle out. In fact, I would argue that the waves you might catch and the way you might ride play second fiddle to the area that transcends everything, that of the feeling.

Surfing is drenched by moments that illicit something special in a person. Sure, riding the wave goes without saying, but there are myriad others. The dawn patrol walk across the cool sand of a secluded beach. Watching the sun dip towards the horizon and bleed red across the gentle sea that lifts and lowers you. Sharing a smile or a whoop of encouragement with a fellow surfer. Popping up from a wipeout in one piece and letting a huge grin plaster your lips. All of these moments, and more besides, play into wellbeing. Each leaves a mark that will return from time to time when most needed.

And it is this wellbeing that also has the clearest line back to the ‘60s. Because, everyone who has ever understood that surfing is more than a sport, realised its power to change a life for the better was simply tapping into the spirituality of riding a wave. The only change is that today, we consider the spiritual side from a positive mental health and wellbeing angle. But that spiritual connection is unchanged. The freedom is still clear. The escape as evident as it ever was. That feeling of being elevated to higher planes powered by mother nature and the rising swell is still felt today by everyone who succumbs to surfing’s many charms. Just as it was sixty years ago.

In some ways surf culture is a vastly different place. In others it seems almost unchanged. And perhaps it is the bits that are unchanged that are the most important part of surfing culture. The seeking of freedom. From what, is up to you.

There is no doubt that echoes from the ghosts of surfing culture past still resonate today. They just go by a different name.