5 indicators that surf culture is changing
Medina goes viral. There’s so much to unpack here.
Surfing is not a very popular sport. It has become astoundingly less popular and profitable than it was 20 years ago. In the early 2000s, clothing lines from brands like Billabong, Hurley, Rip Curl, RVCA, and Quicksilver brought tons of capital into the surf industry. 10 to 15 years later they died (financially) as fashion trends moved on and the culture they cultivated started going out of favor.
The lesser known cultures of surfing in places like Hawaii and Brazil, just to name a couple, have existed far longer than the images of surfing circulated worldwide by American culture. Today, the prominence of native Hawaiin and Brazilian surf culture, plus new cultures maturing in Costa Rica, Peru, Malaysia, South Africa, Morocco, Ghana, Portugal… they are changing the definition of what it means to surf and to be a surfer. This is causing surfing to make a comeback.
5 notable events that exemplify the dramatic change of surfing culture
🇧🇷 In 2014 Medina was the first Brazilian to win a world title. He now has 3 and Brazil has 5.
🏆 In 2016 Argentinian Fernando Aguerre finally was able to get surfing included in the Olympics.
🤦♀️ In 2019 the women finally started receiving equal pay to men in professional surf contests.
🌊 Since 2020 the number of surfers worldwide has grown 35%.
🏄🏾 Today Black people are the fastest growing demographic in surfing.
These are just a few of the events that have directly caused the little upturn at the end of this chart.
