The Algorithm Will See You Now
Quikslver’s King Of The Groms event is about to enter its voting stage.
Quiksilver’s King Of The Groms has always been marketed as a talent search, but that’s only half of it.
It’s also a test of manners, stamina, and how a child behaves when a camera is pointed at them while they maneuver expensive floating toys with their feet.
This year, more than 120 kids from around the world, all 18 and under and scary good, posted their best clips with the appropriate tags. Griffin Colapinto and Kauli Vaast (whose Olympic medal had doubled in price since he won it two years ago) took to the Laird-forsaken tast of narrowing this field down to a top 8.
From January 30 through February 2, the process becomes a touch more Darwinian. The kids are thrown into head-to-head matchups on Quiksilver’s Instagram as carousel posts with polls. Twitchy thumbs decide whether they remain in the arena. After 24 hours, the surfer with the most votes moves on.
That suffrage narrows the field to four, who repeat the exercise on February 6 and 7. Same rules, with one important caveat: In the final voting round, clips must be unseen. No recycling allowed. Only fresh clips and something we haven’t liked before will be eligible. Let’s hope these kids have been playing enough COD to have developed proprety strategy.
Two finalists then emerge by popular vote. Griffin and Kauli also hand-pick two additional surfers from the top eight, and the final four are invited to the Quiksilver Pipe House for five days in late February.
At these hallowed grounds (and waters), the KOTG judges turn their screens facedown and watch the groms go live and in the flesh. Here, only the (free) surfing matters.
Only one surfer walks away with $10,000, which may be deposited into their back account under the supervision of a guardian, and an invite to compete in the next edition of the Quiksilver Festival in France.
Want to exercise your right to democracy before it all comes crashing down? Eyes on the Quik channel this weekend. And if you want to do some research on the candidates to see how they got here, we got you:
Rajo Barrel
Loci Cullen
Kash Brown
Lukas Skinner
Brody Mulik
Dylan Donegan
Mananalu Chandler
Steve Roberson
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