Has surf media reached saturation to the point of what was once spectacular is now boring?
:)
It's an interesting point.
But, I think it's the same right across the board - not just in surfing. I am saturated by every single kind of media on a daily basis. Mainstream media is trying so desperately to stay relevant that they're crossing over into just about anything they can, whilst newcomers with deep pockets are challenging everyone's business models.
But as for Surf Media - it's always undergone changes. Much more rapidly now than in the past, but I don't think it's vastly disproportional to any other sport.
True, okay has media saturation made sport boring then?
yes,
already sick to death of wavepool footage and it's only just begun.
Hako o hakonde ni-biki no inu wrote:True, okay has media saturation made sport boring then?
Depends on where you sit.
As a surfer, sure - the increase in surf media websites/social media pages, plus surf coverage across mainstream media, has the potential to change your perception of the sport. Some surfers I know can't get enough. But others can't stand it.
On the other hand, as an armchair mountain climber (which I am), is the plethora of Mt Everest stories on the nightly news (around this time of year, as the teams make their ascents) making it boring? Not really. It's just making it easier for me to get my fix.
Which I don't know if I actually need or not, but that's besides the point.
How about the occasional skate video on your Facebook feed? I haven't skated since I was fourteen, but I reckon five or ten videos are 'shared' across my feed every day.
Footy? Personally, not a fan. But I see dozens of football clips - mainly highlight reels from the past few decades. And they're all baited for engagement, whether I'm a footy fan or not.
Mountainbiking? Haven't ridden one in years. But a couple of times a week I'm watching some daredevil maniac inch his way across a razor-thin ledge, just seconds away from death.
Etc etc.
And my point on all of that is:
How do climbers feel about the Everest media saturation?
What do skaters think about thousands of skate videos doing the rounds on Social Media, with lots of non-skaters interacting?
Footy fans - do they care whether there's an every increasing stream of of vids, memes, stories, websites and live events? How about the AFL building its own in-house media team? (apparently around 120 full time staff). Once upon a time the bulk of the coverage was limited to a live broadcast on a Friday night, the back pages of the local paper, and the on-ground footy guide.
Does an increase in mountainbike content change the perception and value of the sport to its riders?
Not to mention the Curling or Syncronised Swimming media blitz.
you're spot on hako
the problem is too many small timers trying to outdo eachother, and I don't even mean swellnet
while ben provides some reasonable parallels, I think the difference is how many amateaur photogs there are in surfing in comparison to participants. way out of proportion to football or even the other examples. normally numbers make for competition and opportunity but not in surfing because there really aren't that many customers or people that care, especially if its not ten foot footage because joe average just doesn't understand surfing
and footy has fans!! millions of stark raving mad ones. the only fans like that in surfing are the hundred or so people on snapper beach once a year that appear to have had a frontal lobotomy. these numbers are bumped up with hundreds of industry hangers on to give the appearance of a spectacle to behold, but your average surfer doesn't give a shit
as a result of all this there's thousands of photographers all trying to outdo eachother fighting like a pack of seagulls for a chip. so nearly every surfing event (swell, contest, storm, a pro fart) is heavily documented from start to finish with very little money changing hands except for the chosen few. geez just look at that burger in bali video, I could put that shaky footage together myself from my last bali trip, no one cares though unless there's a celebrity involved. so rip curl paid some b grade photog to put some b grade clip together because he's connected but really there's thousands of clips like that flying around with very few getting paid.
luckily for swellnet and the like this makes for an endless supply of ok quality footage that's free or incredibly cheap (just like surfers) but unless it's extreme it carries no weight with the general public.
the big wave stuff does, but even that's a flash on the nightly news, and with so much of that getting around now even that barely gets a run nowadays. this really is the only footage appealing to joe average and I'm surprised it's not used for more marketing and guys like camel don't get a fairer share of the spoils as that's what's selling clothes to the plebs, and that's what it's all about. but back to hako's original point even this stuff becomes boring if available all the time.
Hako im pretty sure you would find it boring after saturating yourself daily for months on end , I know what you mean but . theres a never ending supply of media if you look hard enough . I think the sickening part is due to hours on an electronic device makes one sick no matter what u are looking at
Ben, where do you get the time to go through the crap, to come up with the stuff that you think is worthy to put up.
What is the % of what makes the cut after sifting through the shit, do you have people that regularly send you stuff they have just come across with no actual connection to it.
great topic, but I'm missing the role of narcissism / vanity / self validation in this conversation. While we can point our fingers to "the media" "they" just feed us with the crap "we" so desire. On top of that Social Media facilitates inflated egos to reach even greater heights of stupidity... the ego will never be saturated or satisfied
More so this generation of technology, that is killing everybody's social communication.
I see it everywhere, trains, planes, buses, camps, pubs etc.
Words on the internet, don't do justice at all!
Just meet/talk with me and you'll know.
speaking of narcissism and the ever growing ills of society Kate Tempest describes it pretty well...
Has surf media reached saturation to the point of what was once spectacular is now boring?
Perhaps not boring but we are desensitized to it before the internet we cherished surf vids or surf mags now it's yeah okay click watch move on.
Not limited to surfing though, porn is an even better example.
Geez, I remember being stoked to just see the 15 seconds of surfing during Brownies Coastwatch! Surfing on the tele! Now I can rarely be assed to sit through a full clip on the internet most of the time....
Yeah a good mate of mine (hi Scotty!) used to keep a blank cassette in his VCR at the ready, in case any surfing came up on the nightly news, or on Wide World of Sports. He then ended up with a couple of hours of patchwork surf footage - almost all of it competition highlights - in ten second spurts.
Kids don't know how good they've got it these days.
thermalben wrote:Yeah a good mate of mine (hi Scotty!) used to keep a blank cassette in his VCR at the ready, in case any surfing came up on the nightly news, or on Wide World of Sports. He then ended up with a couple of hours of patchwork surf footage - almost all of it competition highlights - in ten second spurts.
Kids don't know how good they've got it these days.
Yeh, I used to tape clips they put up on NRG and stuff.
I remember recording the whole event (well, highlights of every heat)of the skins at sandon point that Shane bevan won. Best thing was, they added great music to it.
indo-dreaming wrote:Has surf media reached saturation to the point of what was once spectacular is now boring?
Perhaps not boring but we are desensitized to it before the internet we cherished surf vids or surf mags now it's yeah okay click watch move on.
Not limited to surfing though, porn is an even better example.
Yeah.....never thought I'd get sick of porn :D maybe I've just had to much of both.
Hako o hakonde ni-biki no inu wrote:indo-dreaming wrote:Has surf media reached saturation to the point of what was once spectacular is now boring?
Perhaps not boring but we are desensitized to it before the internet we cherished surf vids or surf mags now it's yeah okay click watch move on.
Not limited to surfing though, porn is an even better example.
Yeah.....never thought I'd get sick of porn :D maybe I've just had to much of both.
Not so much sick of, but these days we are one click away from millions of porn clips its a far cry from the days as a grommet you cherished that porn mag you kept under your bed.
thermalben wrote:Hako o hakonde ni-biki no inu wrote:True, okay has media saturation made sport boring then?
Depends on where you sit.
As a surfer, sure - the increase in surf media websites/social media pages, plus surf coverage across mainstream media, has the potential to change your perception of the sport. Some surfers I know can't get enough. But others can't stand it.
On the other hand, as an armchair mountain climber (which I am), is the plethora of Mt Everest stories on the nightly news (around this time of year, as the teams make their ascents) making it boring? Not really. It's just making it easier for me to get my fix.
Which I don't know if I actually need or not, but that's besides the point.
How about the occasional skate video on your Facebook feed? I haven't skated since I was fourteen, but I reckon five or ten videos are 'shared' across my feed every day.
Footy? Personally, not a fan. But I see dozens of football clips - mainly highlight reels from the past few decades. And they're all baited for engagement, whether I'm a footy fan or not.
Mountainbiking? Haven't ridden one in years. But a couple of times a week I'm watching some daredevil maniac inch his way across a razor-thin ledge, just seconds away from death.
Etc etc.
So was it all that talk about the weather that got interested in Mount Everest, I mean when they talk about a killer cold front coming in there, that's what it means.
Social media, is that really the right description for it?
When I was a kid I'd have a stack of surf mags that I would study that was it for home based surfing media.
To go and see surfing in motion it was down to the town hall or where ever to see the latest surf flick, where I would get to see and/or meet most of the surfers in my immediate area. I think this was more social than clicking a link to the latest search video from my home computer.
jesse wrote:Geez, I remember just bring stoked to see the 15 seconds of surfing during Brownies Coastwatch! Surfing on the tele! Now I can rarely be assed to sit through a full clip on the internet most of the time....
I remember that, was a bit of a novelty for us as we were on the vast network so we got queensland tv in vicco. :)
thermalben wrote:Yeah a good mate of mine (hi Scotty!) used to keep a blank cassette in his VCR at the ready, in case any surfing came up on the nightly news, or on Wide World of Sports. He then ended up with a couple of hours of patchwork surf footage - almost all of it competition highlights - in ten second spurts.
Kids don't know how good they've got it these days.
They would always say, coming up next but the surfing was right at the end of the show after horse racing.
I can get jaded with great surf footage and information.
But should we, like some bloated king, complain about a surfeit of riches?
wally wrote:I can get jaded with great surf footage and information.
But should we, like some bloated king, complain about a surfeit of riches?
Wally you would of heard this thousands of times x 3000000000000000.902673868347
"Money doesn't buy you happiness"?
That one has me stumped!
Only saturation, which makes things boring..... ;)
Simple really, when you get wet, all the time, that's called saturation eh?
So why do surfers love getting wet!
uuummmmmmm, got me stumped again, bring back the old mag where, YOU CAN'T GET THE MAG WET.!!!
Unless you fall asleep on it and end up like all these young muppets, with comic pictures all over themselves..
Cut my rant short.
IMO, the more you get involved and overloaded with anything in particular, you end up getting well wet;)
Yeah but how is some of the footage coming out of cloudbreak today!!
stickyson wrote:Yeah but how is some of the footage coming out of cloudbreak today!!
Yep for sure Stickyson, but I'm not keeping up with it tho.
What I was trying to explain was.
When SOME human being do things over and over (Saturation) yeah, it becomes boring.
Next satisfaction for some, is to increase the boredom!
Simple.
I remember smoking my first joint with my brother, age 16 every time after that!
Boring.
Had too much shit.
Heroin was way better, then!
Boring,
Shit I'm gonna die;)
Took some acid for the first time last week and first time went surfing!
Boring.
Shit I could die!
Went in an indoor snow park 2 days ago!
Boring.
I couldn't shit.
So flew in a Helicopter and dropped some steep unridden slopes,
Boring,
Shit ;)
Then we all climbed the steep slopes.
We all shat?????
Mavericks footage in the immediate aftermath of some of those Jaws swells was sadly underwhelming.
I'm on the drug.
After seeing JOB surfing a soft top at pipe and was he the bloke that set himself alight at chopes? He is a really hot surfer and for him to go to these lengths to stand out and have his photo taken so he can keep sponsors happy and stay on the payroll is a bit ...I don't know.
I'm a bit over seeing endless pics of "the right" and I don't need to see another inside the barrel sequence on the nightly news, I'm sure it would be wearing off on non surfers after they have seen it the tenth time.
What do yer reckon?