launching our media resources page!!!
In my early days of surfing, I recall watching a lot of Youtube. I gravitated toward watching tutorials by white Australian men (thank you Kale Brock) because I felt like they were the frothiest, most legit dudes to learn from. Without consciously knowing, I had already internalized the centrality of whiteness and masculinity in surfing. I grew up in wave-laden San Diego County, but I never felt that surfing was for me. Surfing to me was for white kids whose parents pushed them into their first waves, whose dads were lifelong members of the Swami’s board riders club, you know the type. So it’s not necessarily surprising that I sought out Youtube instruction from who I thought was a “real surfer,” distilling surfing down to stereotypes that reflect a narrow, singular perspective.
When I moved to Rhode Island in 2021, as a fresh college graduate embarking upon a cross country journey for grad school, I had a similar experience while researching the Rhode Island surf scene. I watched clips from filmmakers from Newport and other parts of Rhode Island, I read the surf reports, all the random blog posts and from what it looked like, the only folks who surfed these frigid waters were white dudes chasing frosty barrels. Again, I asked myself, where am I to fit in? For me, this is how my cycle of internalization worked. Positive feedback loop after positive feedback loop fueled my brain's imagery of who belonged in surfing and who didn’t.
And I always didn’t.
That is until I met other women of color in real life, who looked like me–whose mom’s looked like mine, whose experiences even a coast away were so reminiscent of my own and who also had a deep love and passion for board riding. This for me broke the cycle.
In this journey with Colorful Lineup, I often envision my surfing journey, dreaming of ways to soften the learning curve of surfing for women like me. I know that media isn’t a good representation of what’s actually out there, but it’s a cue into what is valued and for many new surfers, it’s the first gateway into learning about the sport especially if you don’t have role models to look up to. I daydream about Googling “how to surf” and having Ikit Agudo (one of my favorite surfers from the Philippines) and or Ishita Malaviya (India’s first professional surfer) as my first options to learn from.
It’s obvious that surf media has a whiteness problem. It always has but I sincerely believe the tide is shifting and that our Colorful Lineup community can contribute to this change. I’ve begun to curate a list of podcasts, books, Instagram accounts, interviews and surf films that privilege female-identifying voices of color in hopes that we can bypass the feelings of otherness that are perpetuated by our current media outlets. I hope you’ll take some time to enjoy them as I have.
– Lauren Zane
