Al Knost cops a lot of heat for his infatuation with the past. I think he may be onto something

Four or five decades ago, there existed a beautiful simplicity to life; to products, to people and to surfing. Few simplicities remain today in the same form and those that do are often dispelled as hip or retro, but maybe, just maybe, the hipsters are onto something.

Forget for a second, the fixed-gear bikes, Holga’s and boat shoes, and imagine the surfing world as one big cycle. Surely evolution is simply that; a cycle that, as it rolls around in laps around us, gathers new moss whilst at the same time dredging up some geriatric mud from yesterday. Surfing is no different. Fashion is no different, there’s just simply no evidence of the cycle because the sport – the culture – is so young.

There are plenty of advantages and disadvantages to web surf checks

Perhaps some surfers feel like we reached a pinnacle in the early naughties and the only way back is to take a detour through the past? Maybe, people are simply too fed up with choices, with corporations and with bottom lines. Maybe they’ve had their fill of technology and price points for poorly made goods? Maybe they miss simplicity, maybe some have never experienced it before, maybe the latter group are craving a single fin and life pre-mobile phones and emoticons, where a surf check required legs not fingers and a status update was undertaken at a bar rather than a blog wall.

Forgive the nostalgia and please allow me to explain that I’m not a geriatric old geezer shaking a fist and whining away at the world and its technological advancements… no, I like a lot of you am a Generation Y internet guinea pig who has found solace in a few of the simplicities that generations before me enjoyed, like cars made from metal and surfboards that have lasted decades not months. A lack of childhood obesity and surfing before it was considered ‘cool’. Surfing before a pair of board shorts would cost you a week’s rent and a lack of digital sterility.

Ellis Ericson daring to be different

Don’t get me wrong; there is a place for sterility. High Def, Photoshop, iPads, (or ‘I’ anything’s for that matter), blogs and social networking all play a major roll in all of our lives and all offer their high-speed, golobal goodness in an instant. I mean without it, how would my Twitter followers know about my ham and cheese sandwich as I was eating it? How else would I instantly share a funny photo of an even funnier looking person if it weren’t for Instagram? I can even time my surfs if I keep a video stream of my local up on my phone at all times to make sure I get the best tides and the best waves…GENIUS!

Modern surfboard ‘shaping’.

I do however have a lot of time for the people who dare to be different, who enjoy a good cutback on a well made board, chronicle the lives of their friends via a roll of film rather than a digital filter, the ones you can’t ever seem to reach via a mobile phone and aren’t loosing hair over a crashed hard drive, because to me it’s those people who seem to be having the most fun, like they’re actually on the inside of the circle looking out at us slaves of technology and laughing, because in the end, it’s going to be the least technologically advanced who stand the bigger chance of survival in a world that’s evolving quicker than any of us can keep up with. If it all comes crashing down, it will be those people whose lives and memories still remain simple, who can still shape you a surfboard off a rusted saw and feel of the foam between their fingers and it’ll be those primitive hipsters who will listen to your story about the ham sandwich you ate at lunch.