Maybe it's my fault for surfing in the wrong spots (wrong beach, place, time, whatever) but I've seen a handful of fancy GoPro cameras on the end of soft top longboards (or with people completely out of control)... What's up with that? Is the GoPro the latest sign to paddle away?
If you paddle away from a better peak or position just because you hear some loudmouth MF with an inflated sense of ability and/or place or because you see a gopro attached board, then you probably need to grow some thicker skin since these are unfortunate but frequent facts of life in the modern surfing world. That said, kooks DO love their gopros.
The mass proliferation has changed the meaning of surfing for many of the "brave" masses. For those (and I've witnessed a bunch), surfing is not riding a face of a wave but getting the courage up to step into the whitewater once and try to stand up heading straight into the beach. And in our narcissistic social media world, you have to document everything you do. Therefore, softtops and GoPros.
That describes 100% of the 3 surf videos I made on the gopro about 2 years ago. s/soft top/epoxy log/. 2 years later - s/epoxy log/thruster/ :P
I haven't paddled away (yet)... but it would be nice to get some credit on their youtube videos of me behind them and clearly in the right spot after they drop in on me! I'm stoked if you're stoked GoPro soft-top rider!
