Stab Edit Of The Year 2025

All 2025 SEOTY entries can be found at the bottom of this page.

Instagram is the mother of all the living.

Let’s construct an axiom: Surf fans prefer full surf edits. But, alas, surf sponsorship contracts are now structured less around film projects and photos and more about analytics on a surfer’s social media profile. Which, in a sense, makes sense. T-shirts must be slung at the end of the day, after all, and our eyeballs are more and more drawn to short-form content.

But, the end game with Stab Edit of the Year is different. We believe that surf edits are the best way to foment and showcase surfing’s progression. So, to shift the incentives back toward the center, we bought two Bitcoins in 2021 (at $30k USD) as prizes for the edit of the year. Those were won by Kael Walsh (at $15k USD) and Russell Bierke/Andrew Kaneider (at $43k USD), who have both held their crypto through the recent bull run to over $100k USD.

Which is great for them — but it also means we weren’t able to secure a Bitcoin as this year’s prize. So instead, we’re doing this one for the love — of surfing, filmmaking, and the sweet sound of music. Let’s get after it.

Voting 

This year, the Stab Surfer Of The Year poll will account for 100% of the SEOTY vote. Why? Because, in past years, the Stab Premium Members and the Stab Surfer Of The Year poll aligned perfectly in choosing Kael Walsh’s ‘Idiot Box’ (2022), Russell Bierke’s ‘Outer Edge of Leisure (2023), and John John Florence’s “Here & There” (2024) as the runaway champs. And, once again, Stab Premium members will count for 10% of the voting in all Stab Surfer Of The Year categories in 2025.

Prize

Sunshine within.

All 2025 SEOTY Entries:

Keanu Miller:

Jai Glindeman:

Albee Layer:

Jacob Willcox:

Albee Layer’s Second Edit:

Michael Dunphy: