Surfing Waves

https://www.theinertia.com/surf/5-reasons-why-surfers-are-just-the-worst/

What do you think?

Surfers are a hodgepodge of people as varied as a countries entire society with the only thing in common is that they surf. There may be regularly occurring personality traits or styles of surfing but that doesn't make up most of the hodgepodge who are like the silent majority. The majority are just surfing without making noise about it. That's my opinion.

My answers depend on what part of life I look at.

Selfishness
In my prime, the demands of work and a young family made surf trips very rare and I felt pressure to get the most out of every session. I was focused on my goals and not so much on everyone else. I was selfish. Not a dick, but selfish. Later in life, stress melted away, I became a grandpa and I could surf whenever the conditions were right. I became patient, helpful and quick to hoot anyone's good ride.

Violence
At 5'7" and 140 lbs. this was never an option.

Terrible for the environment
As a younger man I bought what I needed and drove where I wanted without concern for my carbon imprint. The only good thing I did was pack out my trash. In retirement I regularly volunteer with my grandson in coastal cleanups and ride a bike for most errands around town. I am committed to surfing my existing board and wetsuit until they fail and only then getting eco-replacements. Does anyone have experience with Patagonia wetsuits?

We're the cool kids
I used to bore my friends with exaggerated surf stories and now realize they could care less. It's also not thrilling to describe how I made the drop on a 3 foot runner!

From my own perspective
Selfish? I tried very hard to follow the rules but used them to get waves for myself. But my basic approach is if it's too crowded I go somewhere else rather than battling it out for the waves. These days if someone drops in on me it's usually because they don't think I can make it from where I am. If I can make it I ride behind them ore go around them and ride in front. If I can't make it whatever problem solved already it's their wave. Either way I don't get angry or confrontational. Perhaps as I was learning to surf I did not consider anyone else but then I lived on my own and had no one dependent on me but I did not skip work to surf and paid my bills and rent on my own. Although maybe I surfed every day after work

violence? I became a pacifist as I got into high school. I would fight but did what I could to avoid it. I had not even started surfing yet so Not violent at all

environment?. back when I learned to surf I felt connected to the ocean and used to do my own beach cleanups although originally for a selfish reason because I wanted to go barefoot and there was too much glass around. So originally I picked up only the glass but it was such a small amount of the trash there I decided to go ahead and clean it all up in order to honor the beach.

cool kids I was the kid who was friends with anyone who wanted to be friends with me regardless if they were "cool" or not. Not an elitist. I always realized there were those who were better than me.

liar LOL yeah hmm. I was quite the liar when I was younger but that went away before I started surfing. For a while I was on an honesty kick and my friends would shy away from me because they weren't interested in the bare bones truth I was delivering. Most people don't want to know the entire truth but just enough to make superficial conversation. Hey but fishermen are a bunch of liars.... or not LOL

My humble opinion agrees with OMS' first post in the thread and in some ways the article, I feel I get a good sense of this bearing in mind being a surfer where I live forces you to surf one peak with no other options to surf for a substantial amount of miles most days, with 50 people in one take off zone give or take (kind of like pipeline but way smaller and hardly comparable in any way other than the crowd lol), you get very selfish people, good surfers, Londoners who travel down for a swell because of its proximity, uni students, some from more optimal surf zones which obviously shows in their surfing, beginners and your locals. 'Sharing waves' is a given and snaking is very common, and a lot of clashes happen, but we associate this with the whole crowd, even if only one or two guys are being a dick. The rest of the crowd are a bunch of men and women who share a love for surfing, and get stoked on other peoples waves (unless your caught inside), surfers are the coolest people on the planet, but we associate other surfers with the bad ones. There is always surfers better and worse than you, there are always dicks but that's surfing. call people into waves, follow the rules and smile and wherever you surf it makes the experience better, because deep down the surfing community is awesome and don't let a few people or experiences change your mind. Bit of a disorganised ramble but I will post this anyways haha

Here’s where I stand per the article:

1. We’re selfish.
Depends on the lineup. Surf with locals on a less crowded day there is the pecking order but sharing underlies that. Crowded days so long as you can control your board it is survival of the fittest and jungle rules apply.

2. We still glamorize violence.
Guilty; but it works and the threat of it keeps lineups in order.

3. We’re terrible for the environment.
Not even a blip on the world wide radar as far as the effect surfing has on the environment. Looking at a river after it rains here for just 5min and Im sure more garbage washes by than what is created in a year in this island attributed to surfing. I you can see pipes sticking out of hi rises in Jakarta that spew raw sewage into the once storied canals. The environment has bigger enemies than snapped boards.

4. We think we’re the cool kids.
We were all beginners once but I live in a tourist magnet and the sheer numbers of the poorly schooled and improperly initiated can leave one with a (not entirely wrong) sense of superiority and entitlement.

5. We’re liars.
What’s so bad about a little spice on good story?!

Hi, I kinda believe that it really depends on the spot and the location. And it's actually very fascinating that such an amazing activity pulls many territorials surfers who believe the break is theirs for eternity.