How Zeke Lau Became Surfing’s Villain | StabMic Ep. 30

Almost everyone, in the privacy of their own mind, thinks they’re one of the good guys.

The Puritan burning a witch because the alternative was allowing Satan to run loose in the village. A man with three YouTube subscribers trying to warn his family about 5G, because he loves them.

Viewed through that lens, humanity becomes slightly harder to hate. Most of us aren’t villains, exactly, we’re just confused little mammals.

“I feel like people made up their minds that I was the villain,” says Zeke Lau in this episode of StabMic. “I just felt like that was my role. And it would’ve been scarier for me to go, ‘No, I’m not that guy,’ than just leaning into it and being like, ‘Okay then, I’ll be that guy.’”

Coming into this year’s Surf100 Challenger Series, Zeke Lau’s reputation preceded him.

Part of the calculation in casting him was that his history of hyper-competitive, occasionally confrontational surfing might make for good television. Zeke as antagonist, Zeke as disruptor, Zeke as villain.

But, as anyone who’s been keeping up with the show knows, Zeke doesn’t really seem to be that guy anymore.

He was also only a kid when he was on tour. Now he’s a dad, humble in defeat, generous with the other contestants, and enthusiastic about drinking beer.

Josiah even wrote an essay about how much he loves him.

Here, in episode 30 of StabMic, Zeke revisits both the John John incident at Bells and the Jacob Willcox incident at Margaret River, offering previously unknown context around what led to each, alongside a little insight into his upbringing and psychology that might explain why he did what he did.

And looking back eight years on, does anyone even still have a problem with Zeke big-dogging John?

Sport is, after all, a ritualised form of conflict. The old human appetite for competition, dominance and spectacle, with most of the blood taken out. We’ve agreed not to kill anybody these days, but the appetite hasn’t changed.

Conflict creates stakes, and stakes are what make us care.

Every good story needs a bastard, and Zeke, for a while, seemed happy enough to volunteer.

We could certainly use one on tour now, eh?

Thanks to our partners at Red Bull, Vaer, Dome Dust, TurtleBox, Visit Dominican Republic, and Devium, for making StabMic possible.