Hope you all enjoy.

The more things change...

People say the more things change the more they stay the same. I guess this used to
be true when I was a grom. But now, I don't think it is true. It seems the more things
change the more they really do. No longer are the times controlled by what drives us,
but are driven by bottom lines and cost.

This evening as I was going through my latest issue of Surfing Magazine looking at the
spread of Pat Gudauskas at page 30, I noticed the issue said Jul/Aug 2016. I was like
wait, what the heck? Am I reading this right? Is Surfing no longer a great monthly
magazine I look forward to receiving in the mail every month? This cannot be true.

I raced back to the publishing page and scrolled down to the bottom and read the fine
print. Surfing is published ten times a year. I could not believe it, I have been
receiving Surfing every month for at least 20 years, maybe longer. It's one of those
things you look forward to when you are a surfer here in Florida, and the summer
doldrums roll through and it is flat for months on end.

However, I guess I have to accept it, as the digital age is changing our ever-growing
appetite for on demand content. No longer is print media the only way to attain the
content of what we wish to be and our dreams of surfing great. We now have the
speed of the Internet at our fingertips that allows us to see who the next up and
coming surfer is. Kelly Slatter is no longer on top of the CT and not doing well in
contest. It's surfers we have never heard of before until they uploaded a 2 minute
video of them ripping their local break and the big power house sponsors pick them up,
groom them, and coach them to stand out from the crowd. Kids now don't surf for fun;
they surf to be the next big thing, to chase a dream that we all once had.

People keep saying that print media will live on, but I feel different about it. I believe
as print continues to grow in cost, companies will use their resources more wisely and
decide to spend it on content that is cheaper to access and more freely available to
most people when they are idle. In today's always on the go society, it is hard to find
time to truly slow down and enjoy the novelty of something that was once considered
only the affluent could afford.

During the ages of kings and queens, pharos and rulers, only those of the upper
echelon could enjoy the finer things in life, and enjoy the books from around the world.
At one time if one could not afford to purchase books or printed media, one was
considered insolvent or of poor class. Now the idea of printed media is considered a
waste on resources and the environment as the process of printed media creates some
unsustainable toxins that the earth cannot rid itself of easily.

This notion that printed media shall never die and live on is almost laughable. If you
look to the schools now, most do not purchase books, but kindles, nooks, iPads and
other digital devices to teach children. No longer is it required in some schools to know
how to write in cursive or at all. They all teach the skill of typing and allow word
processor programs correct their grammatical errors.

I know I was a prodigy of this teaching method. My friends could not understand how I
could type so fast, but I was a digi-baby that had a video game system and a
computer in our family room. This allowed me to build the skill required for hand-eye
coordination. I used to spend hours playing games on my SNES and PS 1. I spent
even more hours at the computer because of the dial up Internet at the time,
something most younger Millennials know nothing about.

This lifestyle has groomed me to be one of the people the big surf companies want to
capture. They want to be able to reach me in a way that most do through digital
media. However they failed to realize that not everyone enjoys reading or watching
everything on a bloody four-inch screen, or having a screen glowing at them for hours
on end, causing eye strained and headaches. Some of us still enjoy the softness of
paper that will live on until it degrades to nothingness, just like us.

No my friends, it looks like the more things change the more they really do. Surfing
Magazine has to succumb to advertising dollars and cost effectiveness to stay afloat or
end up like Transworld Surf; an online magazine only that most have forgotten about.
Hopefully they will live on and start to publish monthly again, however I highly doubt
it. It is much easier to just upload the article and forget about it, hoping that it will be
read and enjoyed by many. Thus producing the click-ad revenue they need in order to
continue paying for exotic surf trips that we all envy. The times have changed, and the
digital age will forever rule, or at least until the next age comes and wipes out our
current state of mind.




-------------------------
Ride the mountain.

Edited: 04/27/2017 at 07:33 PM by 2nd Light Forums Moderator

Well said! Thanks for sharing mang.

-------------------------
SK8 AND DESTROY

Grade school or brain trauma?

PRINTING ARTICLES LIKE THIS IS WHY THE SURFING MAGAZINE IS NO LONGER IN EXISTENCE. THE REGURGITAION OF RAMBLING MINUTIA, AND THEN REPRINT THE CRAP. YOU WOULD LOVE MEIN KAMPT. RIP VAN WINKLE IS A MUST READ. 

This is true. I hope this was printed as a letter to the editor and not an actual article or side bar.


-------------------------
Do you know what Wubba-LubbA-Dub-Dub means in BirdPerson language?