Opinion: It’s Time To Hate Longboarding Again

They say that even in the midst of summer, there is, within us all, an invincible winter — a blizzard of hatred brewing inside, waiting for the next time you get the chance to peg a snowball at somebody’s face.

That is why, in the year 2018, I believe that it is finally time to hate longboarding again. Or at least throw a couple snowballs at it.

2017 was the best year for logging since global warming came along with its deforestation laws. Longboards have surged in popularity, and not just among banana-hammock wearing mongoloids that you run into on a surf trip somewhere in Central America. They are no longer simply the board your dad rides after his stroke. They are now the board the guy with, pardon my French, a more complex understanding of fashion than you rides. They are the chosen shape of Instagram fame.

A few longboarding clips even snuck through and got posted here on the Stab site — a beacon of high-performance surfing.

So, what? Are the days of the longboard/shortboard rivalry over? Have SUPs and Foils taken over as surfing’s Public Enemies? Oh, wait just a minute…do you feel that? It’s a gust of winter blowing through the hallways of your heart. It’s time for you to let all that hatred out.

See, unlike longboarding, hatred has had a rough few years. Or at least expressed hatred has. Negative opinions have been replaced by passive aggression and faux positivity. It’s not like the good old days when you could just go around hating things in peace.

Now it’s time to change that. This year is for us. For the haters. And especially the haters of longboarding. Because, no offense, but longboarding is fucking stupid.

Single-fins. “Gliding.” Vans. Malibu. Hanging 10. Walking up and down the board like a dickhead. Mimicking maneuvers that were progressive 65 years ago. Getting older and completely giving up — all that sucks.

When I talk about hating them, though, I am not talking about deep and rational, physical hatred. There is no fun in deep and rational hatred. If you get that angry about longboarding, or anything in surfing, you are unfit for society and should move somewhere with lots of hookers and cheaper blow. Privately enjoy debilitating bouts of paranoia and buy as many firearms as you can. Hate however you want from way over there.  

The rest of us can keep our hatred light, fun and preferably irrational. We can embrace it and let it flow upon each other without bounds.

I like to ride weird boards and do ollies and shit. Plenty to make fun of there. You could take the timeless approach, pointing out the correlation between one’s penis size and board length. Or you could go the more ethical route, implying that my parents would have aborted me if they knew I’d become a grown man trying shuv-its.

That’s fair.

Because, in the era of wave pools, The Olympics, the WSL’s Instagram, and, no offense, stupid fucking longboarding, we must take nothing too seriously. But at the same time, we must not be afraid to voice our opinions.

So let’s make sure 2018 is remembered as the year we chose to stand together, hand in hand, smiling and hating each other (and longboarding) in peace.