There are a lot of things that sound great in theory, but, are questionable in practice. Front deck traction, telling yourself one more beer will do the trick, surfing after a heavy rain, moving to Los Angeles to “find yourself” and now, walkie-talkie surfboards.
If for some reason you haven’t already heard the news, this last week Samsung Mobile Brazil unveiled their new Samsung Galaxy Surfboard™ (trumpets). The reveal was packaged within a dramatic three minute long commercial starring none other than superstar Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina — a World Champion in his own right both in the water and on the silver-screen — alongside the WSL’s live broadcast of the Oi Rio Pro.
In case you haven’t seen the now infamous commercial already; it begins with Medina paddling out on a dark, stormy day at what looks to be some Brazilian beach break as text reading, “SURFING CAN BE A SOLITARY SPORT,” ominously looms over his head. There Medina sits; a surfer, alone in the middle of the ocean, disconnected from both his coach and fans (this may-or-may not be original wording) and oh-no! He’s gone down after a botched air, whatever will Gabriel do? Cue board shaping montage (did they just shove a phone into the blank?). Cut back to poor, downtrodden Medina. What’s this? The section of the board he usually waxes over lights up with a blue interface. “HIT THE LIP WITH MORE POWER,” it reads, the message of course being sent from his dad, and coach, Mr. Medina, who stands observingly on the beach.
I’ll avoid further details, but, the commercial carries on with showing off Medina’s new Tron-esque board in all its water-resistant electronic glory — reading off text messages from friends, family and more which inspire him to surf, and succeed, beyond his limits.
The 195 second digitalized explosion of shock and awe of course sent both heads spinning and the internet — the ruthlessly unemotional wasteland that it is — reeling. While laptop audiences stood and cheered, comment sections lit up with reckless abandon. It was in all sense of the term a standard, run-of-the-mill internet-based announcement.
But frankly, I’m all about the omniscient Samsung/Skynet shortboard. I can text my mates when the waves are firing, record every air-reverse I pull in real time, get live updates of wind and sea conditions when I’m out in the water — the opportunities are essentially endless. We may have been born too late to explore the North Shore for the first time, and too early to explore interplanetary point breaks on Mars. But, we were born just in time to send nudies while pig-dogging a shore break closeout. What a time to be alive it is indeed.
Sarcasm aside though, Samsung could be on to something here. Imagine you get stuck miles offshore after some horrible turn of events and you need to call for help? Well, phone-board has got your back. Or, suppose you find some amazing, remote secret spot by chance and need to remember where it is? Guess what, phone-board can take a note of it. Are you a WSL judge and the final call on who wins an epic showdown at Pipe between Julian and Wilko comes down to answering the question of who shot out of the barrel the fastest? Time to literally call up phone-board and see which GPS readout registered a higher speed (of course, Julian and Wilko have to be riding patented Samsung sleds in the first place for this to happen).
Call it an achievement, or, call it an abomination. You can raise your fists in the air and scream that nothing is sacred anymore all you want, but, the truth is what is done is done. The real question to ask now is; if I’m a 177cm intermediate-to-advanced level surfer, should I get the 16 gigabyte or the 32 gigabyte model? Asking for a friend.
