Waves of simulation: Arguing authenticity in an era of surfing the hyperreal

Introduction

In December of 2015, the 11-time-world-champion professional surfer Kelly Slater unveiled what many in the surfing community are calling the best man-made wave ever created (Housman, 2015). Within one week of uploading his video on the internet, Slater had over 9 million views (Mozingo, 2016). Nobody in the surfing community who has seen the wave can deny that the technical achievement is remarkable. Slater and his team of engineers at the Kelly Slater Wave Company (KSWC) have accomplished what has so far remained out of reach for previous builders of artificial wave pools: a perfectly peeling, barreling wave that goes on for over 500 yards. ¹ Surfers will no longer have to search for the perfect wave; it will now be delivered by remote control. In a twist of irony, it was none other than Bruce Brown, director of the classic 1966 surf documentary Endless Summer – the subtitle of which is ‘in search of the perfect wave’ – who said, upon finding the perfect wave in Cape St. Francis, South Africa, ‘the waves looked like they had been made by some kind of machine’. Scouring coastal regions for perfect waves was, once-upon-a-time, the core of the ‘scene’ that constituted the post-war subculture of surfers in Southern California. According to Irwin (1973), ‘going surfing, besides lots of wave riding, meant hours or days passed on a remote beach away from the “ugliness” of civilised life’ (185, emphasis ours). One wonders: what sort of scene might emerge out of the recently constructed wave parks (by companies competing with KSWC) in the landlocked suburban areas of Texas, Australia and the United Kingdom? ²

Slater’s Surf Ranch will be used by professional surfers as a training facility of sorts as well as a venue to hold officially sanctioned competitions in order to make the case that surfing can join the Olympics full time in wave pool environments after its inaugural inclusion as an ocean-based sport in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The recent sale of a majority stake in Slater’s company to the World Surf League (WSL) indicates these intentions (Dick-Read, 2017). The technology developed by Slater’s team has made surfing predictable, and therefore subject to the needs of the planners who schedule the Olympics years in advance, enough time to purchase and build one of Slater’s wave parks.

Although the simulated wave is remarkable for its technical achievement, we are more interested in the cultural questions that have been raised by the spectre of the ‘perfect’, artificial wave. Writing for the Surfer’s Journal, Brad Melekian (2018: 51) asks, ‘Is it surfing? Or is it riding waves? And is there a distinction between the two?’ What, if anything, is the essence of the surfing experience, which is said to provide the foundation for surfing culture? Can surfing an artificial wave be considered authentic surfing, and are surfers who surf in wave pools real surfers? Slater’s wave has become a menace for some high-profile surfers in the subcultural, specialist media who worry about what impact this technology will have upon the cultures that frame the practice of surfing. For example, Steve Hawk, former editor of Surfer Magazine, told a reporter from the Los Angeles Times that ‘we might have an Olympic champion surfer who has never duck-dived under a wave, never jumped off a pier, never put on a leash, never been scared out of their wits… I find that future thoroughly disheartening. It’s not real surfing’ (Mozingo, 2016). According to Slater, however, surfing in wave parks is merely a ‘branch of the tree’ that constitutes the history and tradition of surfing. Although he did admit that when he first saw the simulated wave he was ‘torn inside’ and asked himself, ‘what is it? There’s a whole unknown there’, suggesting that surfers have yet to figure out just what surfing artificial waves means for their culture and community. ³

In a press release issued by Slater’s company, Slater is quoted as saying his wave parks ‘will democratise surfing’, by bringing surfing to people who live far away from the ocean, but he has yet to convince the surfing community. ⁴ For instance, when http://www.Surfline.com published a story by Dashel Pierson about Slater’s wave park in 2017, it incited a spirited debate in the thread of comments beneath the story. One commentator said, ‘Great if you have the money, friends and connections. If this will only be open to the select few then keep it off social media’. ⁵ In May of 2018, Slater’s team scheduled a contest event that allowed well-heeled members of the public to surf the pool after the contest if they paid $9,500 for the privilege. The WSL marketed the package for those who want to ‘feel like the pros you just spent the weekend watching, with a personalised locker, coaching, and professional photography and videography from both land and water’ (Carroll, 2018). Some surfers worry that this might become a model for surf parks in the future, since the New York Times reported that wealthy investors who are outside of the surfing world are seeking to use Slater’s wave park technologies in order to ‘target high-paying customers – a Pebble Beach for surfers’ (McPhate, 2017). According to Travis Ferre (2017), writer for the countercultural-online magazine Whatyouth.com:

The way this whole wave-pool-WSL thing has been introduced to the world feels slimy. Elitist and weird… I get the same queasy feeling I get around private golf courses… riding a wave in the KS wave park [would likely] include waiting in line for a wave… surrounded by corporate executives in WSL polos looking to buy a wave park of their own. I’ll hack my golf ball down any old street before I pay to play that course. ⁶

An authoritative figure in the surfing community who is critical of the intentions of those developing artificial wave parks is Matt Warshaw, former editor of Surfer Magazine and author of The History of Surfing. In a recent editorial for Surfer he wrote,

At some level, we know – we feel – that we’re riding ocean-transported sunbeams and it is magical… it is what separates us from parkour…. The WSL just bought Kelly’s wave pool company, which means a ‘CT event in Lemoore next year or the year after, and then surfing in the Olympics, and oh man, I just hate all of it. I need to recheck my calculations, but Kelly’s wave pool makes surfing 75 percent less interesting. It turns surfers into gymnasts… I honestly think our sport is heading for – is perhaps already in the midst of – an existential crisis. (Warshaw, 2016).

The tension between the perspectives expressed by Hawk, Warshaw and Slater is the focus of the following pages. We use the occasion of the WSL Surf Ranch to examine the question of authenticity within surfing culture by appropriating Baudrillard’s (1983, 1994) theory of simulation, and Benjamin’s (1968 [1935]) theory of mechanical reproduction, both of which remain relatively under-developed by scholars who have discussed how the postmodern condition of late capitalism mediates the development and transformation of surf culture. The new wave-pool technologies are forcing surfers to reflect upon their relationship to nature as surfing becomes detached from the ocean and as nature itself has become harnessed in a new way. In short, a major feature of what we consider to be the postmodern condition of surfing involves the destabilisation of the binary paradigm nature/culture that has underpinned previous social constructions of authenticity. Our research builds upon previous work by scholars like Wheaton and Beal (2003: 164), who have examined how an ‘affinity with nature’ is central to the discourse of authenticity among sailboarders. Our work also compliments van Bottenburg and Salome (2010: 144), who have identified a similar phenomenon among rock climbers, where outdoor climbers are ‘wrapped up in nature’, and ‘indoor practitioners must necessarily surrender themselves to technology’. Our theoretical framing is used to situate data gathered from a combination of in-depth interviews and a survey of surfers asking them to provide feedback about their perspectives on the future of surfing in the wake of artificial wave parks. We begin with a Methods section and a Literature Review of scholarly work on the question of authenticity in surf culture and lifestyle sports more generally, followed by two sections that include our original theoretical framing and our analysis of interview data. We end with a discussion of plans for future research.

Methods

The data we examine in this paper were gathered from interviews and an online survey. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with two surf park technology developers, Greg Webber and Tom Lochtefeld; two surf park attraction developers, Nick Hounsfield and Andy Ainscough; John Luff, founder of Surf Park Central; and co-founder of Surf Park Summit and consulting firm Surf Park Solutions. Interviews varying between 40 and 90 min were conducted via Skype or in person and in both instances were video recorded, then transcribed. The data was then coded and themes within the data noted that form the main points of discussion.

The online survey consisted of 44 questions covering a range of issues and was live on the Qualtrics survey platform for two months. Participation was incentivised via a prize draw of a Firewire brand surfboard of the winner’s choice. ⁷ A snowball sampling approach was taken utilising the second author’s social media networks and those of the Center for Surf Research at San Diego State University. In total, 3049 surveys were attempted, yielding 2994 viable responses from 68 countries of origin. The vast majority of responses were from the United States (55%), followed by Australia (18%), France (4%), Germany (3%), the UK (3%), Spain (2%), New Zealand (2%) and Canada (2%). Sweden, South Africa, Portugal, Netherlands, Mexico and Brazil represented 1% of responses each.

The sample was 80% male with an average age of 34 and more than 10 years of surfing experience, surfing three times per week, owning four surfboards and with an mean annual household income of USD$75,000. Seventy-four percent ride shortboards most of the time. Sixty-four percent also ride longboards, but this is the main mode of surfing for only 27%. And although 27% of respondents also ride stand-up paddleboards periodically, it is the main surfcraft for only 6% of respondents.

The survey covered a broad range of academic territory from issues of sustainability, use of technology, and attitudes towards and potential usage patterns of surf parks. Only surf park data is considered in this paper. More specifically, when the question ‘Would you use a surf pool?’ was asked of participants, 22% answered no. Respondents were asked to respond qualitatively to the question ‘Why would you not consider using a surf pool?’ Their responses were coded and several clear themes emerged that form the basis of the discussion of the data.

Literature review

We see our research on wave pools as a contribution to the on-going examination of lifestyle sports that take place in artificial settings, what van Bottenburg and Salome (2010) refer to as the ‘indoorisation of outdoor sports’ where the question is whether or not ‘climbing and outside are inextricably linked to each other’ (Loynes, 1998). We also situate our research within the broader framework of what some call the ‘postmodernisation’ of sport (Redhead, 1998). Previous use of Baudrillard’s work in sports studies has looked at media representations of sport, and how, in Redhead’s (1998: 222) words, ‘sports coverage…. [is] not so much a record of events as a socially constructed phenomenon’ due to what Baudrillard (1993) refers to as the ‘disappearance’ of the ‘real’ referent in televised sporting events. We expand upon this research by looking at how computer-generated waves are signaling the disappearance of the ‘real referent’ in traditional surfing: namely, ocean waves.

The authenticity question is, of course, not an issue peculiar to surfing. Sports-studies scholars have examined the authenticity phenomenon in rock-climbing (Hardwell, 2009; van Bottenburg and Salome, 2010), skateboarding and windsurfing (Wheaton and Beal, 2003) to name a few. Surfing-studies scholars have interrogated the question of authenticity by examining the concept in relation to identity politics and power hierarchies (Comer, 2010; Wheaton, 2017), geographic regions (Booth, 1995; Ponting et al., 2005), commodification (Lawler, 2011; Stranger, 2010; Wheaton, 2013) and professionalisation (Booth, 1995). In terms of identity politics, the focus has been upon the ways in which the surfing-subcultural media have constructed a particular kind of simulated authenticity from the point of view of hegemonic masculinity coupled with whiteness (Evers, 2006; Henderson, 2001; Olive, 2015; Wheaton, 2017). By examining the changing content of surf magazines like Tracks, Henderson (2001) shows how the image of authenticity portrayed by surfing magazines has become the point of view of hyper-masculine men. Of course, women have challenged their exclusion. Rebecca Olive’s (2015) research looks at how women have resisted marginalisation in surf culture by using social media platforms like Instagram as a way to ‘reframe’ our understanding of surfing through producing images that are at odds with those from established magazines. In terms of age, research by Thorpe and Wheaton (2016) found that younger people in lifestyle sports have fewer issues with authenticity. Wheaton and Beal (2003) have argued that in addition to being framed by ‘maleness and whiteness’, the discourse of ‘keeping it real’ is produced by insiders who are perceived by their peers to be particularly skilled practitioners of their sport. Performances that display the mastery of very difficult maneuvers on waves or in skateboard parks are seen as an essential ingredient of authenticity. Furthermore, they argue that it is ‘misleading to think of a “pure”, “authentic” participant perspective outside of the of the commercialisation process’ (Wheaton and Beal, 2003: 158) because authenticity is made possible, in part, by the production and consumption of images in magazines: for example, ‘Windsurfer’s idealised and constructed image of the “soul” windsurfer at one with “nature”, unfettered by materialism distances itself from its discursive binary – the “civilised” urban and commercial spheres’ (Wheaton and Beal, 2003: 164). We seek to compliment this previous research by looking at how wave parks add another dimension to the relationship between authenticity and the commercialisation process.

Compared to race and gender, there has been relatively less research upon how class differences within the surfing community frame the authenticity question, but in some ways the issue of ‘professionalism’ does point to class distinction (Booth, 1995). In the 1970s, there was a movement among some surfers to ‘clean up’ surfing and make it respectable in the eyes of the public by using competitions in order to transform it into what Eichberg (1998) calls an ‘achievement’ sport like football, cricket, baseball, etc. The Australian surfers in particular, including the champions Ian Cairns and Peter Townend, formed the Australian Professional Surfers Association in 1975 in order to ‘project an image of authenticity and responsibility’ (Booth, 1995: 199). This was a radical break from the image portrayed by another famous Australian surfer, Nat Young, who identified with the anti-bourgeois ethos of the counterculture. In a letter to Tracks magazine, Young wrote, ‘by simply surfing we are supporting the revolution’ (Booth, 1995: 195). For all of these scholars, situating the concept of authenticity within particular standpoints framed by the intersection of commodification with race, gender, class, region and sexuality reveals how ‘authenticity’ is a socially constructed and socially contested phenomenon.

On the other hand, scholars like Stranger (2010) argue that although the commodification of surfing subcultures within a postmodern context of consumerism fragments communities of surfers, there remains a ‘foundational experience’ of surfing, upon which an inverted pyramid-shaped substructure and a top-level surface layer rests. The substructure is constituted by the surfing industry that supplies functional products like surfboards and wetsuits as well as lifestyle commodities like board shorts and flip flops. Above the substructure is the commodified ‘surface’, the symbolic dimension – movies, magazines, etc. – that involves the consumption practices of surfers and non-surfers alike, who seek to purchase a piece of the aura of authenticity. In other words, underneath the layers of simulated spaces of surfing subcultural media and the mainstream media of the culture industry, there exists something real. According to Stranger (2010: 1128), ‘Surfing… is not free floating; it is attached to something “real”, at least for surfers’. The foundational experience described by Stranger (2010: 1118) involves what he calls the ‘pursuit of an ecstatic communion with nature’. In earlier published research on the topic, Stranger (1999) argues that this ecstatic communion with nature creates the possibility for the experience of the ‘sublime’. ‘The appreciation of the romantic sublime is clear’, writes Stranger (1999: 270), ‘The mind of the observer is so overwhelmed by the object of its gaze that no rationalising thought can intrude’. To elaborate upon this experience of the sublime, Stranger quotes a surfer from the movie Metaphysical: Surfing on a Higher Level, who says, ‘when you paddle out and see [a huge wave] staring you in the face, it’s like “Oh my God”… Being a surfer and being involved with nature all the time gives you a different understanding of where you might find God’. This religious aspect of surfing is sometimes referred to as the perspective of the ‘soul’ surfer, a topic examined in detail in previous research by scholars like Booth (2001), Anderson (2013), and Taylor (2007).

Taylor (2007: 943) examines the spiritual aspects of surfing by defining ‘soul surfers’ as those who experience ‘a feeling of belonging and communion with other living things, the earth and even the universe itself, as well as a perception that such connections are transformative and healing’. Central to the identity of a ‘soul surfer’ is the ‘reverence for and protection of nature’ (Taylor, 2007: 923). He argues further that soul surfing is growing into a social movement of sorts, claiming that ‘as the practice of surfing continues to spread globally, there is every reason to expect that its construction as a contemporary religious alternative will continue to grow as well’ (Taylor, 2007: 946). This movement exists in tension with the growth of neoliberal ideology that drives the expansion of the global surfing industry because soul surfers view commodification as a ‘defiling act’ that blocks access to ‘one’s authentic self’ (Taylor, 2007: 925, 934). In short, according to Taylor (2007: 925) ‘a significant part of the evolving global, surfing world can be understood as a new religious movement in which sensual experiences constitute its sacred center’.

Benjamin, Baudrillard and Bogus Barrels

Although man-made waves are understood as artificial, we have now reached a point where, from the narrow point of view of simply riding a wave, a simulated wave might be better, or even more ‘real’, perhaps, than natural ones. Previous generations of wave-creating machines were placed within what were essentially over-sized swimming pools, whereas Slater’s park is much larger (700 m long, 150 m wide), as are most of the new wave parks that look more like small lakes than large swimming pools. Indeed, wave pools were once the object of ridicule, a phenomenon portrayed in the popular surf film from 1987, North Shore. The main protagonist, Rick Kane, begins his journey as a ‘kook’ who wins a surfing competition in a wave pool in the state of Arizona. Only after he makes a pilgrimage to the North Shore of Oahu in Hawai’i – where he learns the value of ‘soul surfing’ from old school locals – does he abandon professional surfing and become an ‘authentic’ surfer.

The following question frames our theoretical intervention and our empirical analysis: what will become the main referent for the culture of surfing? Will it be the perfectly simulated wave, or will it remain waves made by natural conditions? These questions invite serious reflection upon what the postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard calls the phenomenon of the hyperreal, that which is made possible through the process of simulation. By hyperreal, Baudrillard (1983) means something ‘real’ that has been produced by a model, which for him means that we can no longer speak of a copy of something as being based upon an original. The areas of modern social life where this issue was first considered were the media and the arts, by the critical theorist Walter Benjamin (1968 [1935]), in his essay, ‘the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’. The mechanical reproduction of a work of art signals the dissolution or liquidation of what Benjamin calls the ‘aura’ that surrounds it. For Benjamin (1968 [1935]: 220), the aura of a work of art is its authority made possible by ‘its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be… the presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity’. There is something almost magical about being in the presence of the original, according to Benjamin, where the object returns the gaze of the spectator. In pre-modern cultures ‘aura’ was often grounded in religious experiences. ‘In other words’, writes Benjamin (1968 [1935]: 224), ‘the unique value of the ‘authentic’ work of art has its basis in ritual’. In terms of the religious context of an aura, in the history of surfing we can look to the roots of surfing in 5th century AD Hawai’i, and examine the ways in which surfing and the construction of surfboards were integrated into the religion of the Hawaiian people who built religious temples that were sometimes designated as places to pray for surf, like the Kuemanu Heiau, an historical landmark that is located on Kona, the big island in the Hawaiian archipelago (Finney and Houston, 1996). ⁸

Modern-capitalist technology has liquidated this aspect of the experience of art. Before photography, for example, one had to be present before a beautiful work of architecture in order to experience and appreciate it. After photography, writes Benjamin (1968 [1935]: 221), ‘the cathedral leaves its locale to be received in the studio of a lover of art’. In photography, not only is it the case that a negative can be used to produce an infinite number of prints, but in addition the reproductions allow the viewer a more detailed view of the object than that rendered by the human eye. Something similar occurs with waves created by computers. What is most relevant for us is Benjamin’s (1968[1935]: 221) claim that ‘the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition’. Although surfboards – here understood as works of art – were in some sense removed from Hawaiian traditions when surfing was imported to Southern California in the 1920s by surfers like Tom Blake and George Freeth, the distancing of surfing from tradition accelerated in the 1960s when the culture industry commodified surf culture and, in the process, imploded the subcultural community of surfers (Stedman, 1997). This process of detachment is now accelerating even faster with the removal of the wave itself from an ocean environment, the context which has framed the ritual practices of surfing for centuries. Thus, not only aesthetic objects – surfboards – but also the aesthetic activity itself – surfing – is moving further away from tradition as coastal geographies and cultures will have little effect upon the framing of the activity in wave parks constructed in landlocked areas. There is not the space here to cover all the implications raised by Benjamin’s essay, but in comparison to the practice of surfing on ocean waves, surfers often place a value upon this particular aspect of surfing: namely, that every individual wave is unique in time and place. This adds to the mystique of what some call ‘soul surfing’.

Baudrillard further develops Benjamin’s line of criticism. ‘The very definition of the real’, writes Baudrillard (1983: 146), ‘becomes that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction… At the limit of this process of reproducibility, the real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced’. Using cartography as an example Baudrillard (1983: 2) argues,

Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory – PRECESSION OF SIMULACRA – it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map. It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire, but our own. The desert of the real itself.

For Baurdillard, hyperrealism is the distinguishing mode of social and cultural life in the postmodern condition. In the realm of the hyperreal, the very distinction between real and simulated is said to have imploded. Can we say something similar is on the horizon for the postmodern surfing world after the introduction of the perfectly simulated wave? Is the artificial wave park in the world of surfing the rough equivalent to the map in the world of cartography? Kelly Slater’s wave, for example, was created in a computer by engineers; it is the product of a model. This is the case for all of the companies creating simulated waves today.

Before Slater’s wave, ocean waves were the main referent for surfers, which is to say that waves in the ocean served as the measuring stick for how to judge the value of a human-made wave. Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu has long been the gold-standard for measuring the kinds of waves that surfers think about when they think of the perfect wave. For instance, the professional surfer Rob Machado said in an interview that took place years prior to the creation of Slater’s wave park, ‘if you talk about any wave in the world, people always try to compare it to Pipeline’. ⁹ Earlier wave pools were seen as inferior because they could never create a wave that approached the shape of Pipeline: namely, a large enough tube section to allow a surfer to maneuver inside of it. This relationship seems to be in the process of reversal with the emergence of Slater’s wave. It seems that the simulated wave may become the new standard by which surfers evaluate ocean waves.

For instance, after an eight-year hiatus, the Rip Curl corporation relaunched its ad campaign called ‘the Search’ in 2015 (Tracks, 2015), which features a series of short video clips showcasing celebrity surfers surfing in ‘exotic’, locations all over the world. Rip Curl co-founder Doug Warbrick says of the campaign, ‘the search represented what we genuinely believed was the true spirit of surfing and the behaviors of surfers and what they really liked’. Among the videos produced and released so far, the one that has generated the most attention online is the segment titled ‘Ain’t No Wave Pool’. It features three-time world-surfing champion Mick Fanning in what seems to be a remote, desert coastal area, surfing alone on a very fast-peeling, overhead-barreling wave dubbed ‘the Snake’. ¹⁰ After Slater’s video of December 2015, Fanning’s video has been the most talked about internet video in the surfing community, with online magazines saying things like ‘this is absolutely the best surf clip you’ve seen since Kelly Slater unveiled the first vision of his artificial wave spot’. ¹¹ What is relevant for our research is how they frame the segment with the title ‘Ain’t No Wave Pool’, signaling that perfect ocean waves must now be measured by Slater’s wave. Even when the claim is made that ocean waves are better than Slater’s wave, the fact that Slater’s wave is mentioned demonstrates the change in referent brought on by what Baurdrillard calls ‘the precession of the simulacra’. On their webpage that features Fanning’s segment, one of the Rip Curl writers claims, ‘unlike a man-made, engineered wave, which is planned and contoured and sensibly designed within an inch of its life, “The Snake” actually defies logic’, an expression that supports Stranger’s (1999) claim about the irrational aspect of the ‘foundational experience’ of surfing. ¹² In short, the foundational experience is now mediated by the simulacrum.

After Fanning’s video went viral, the Red Bull Corporation joined the fray by publishing a story on their website titled, ‘Mick Fanning and the Surf Discovery of the Decade’. ¹³ Once again, a story about the traditional search for and discovery of a perfect ocean wave is framed by a comparison to Slater’s pool. The writer of the story describes ‘the Snake’ by saying, ‘the wave has no single flaw, not a drop of water is out of place, and it will remind many of the surreal wave pool visions that Kelly Slater dropped last year’. In a similar vein, Stab Magazine claims that Mick’s wave ‘rivals Kelly’s pool’. ¹⁴ A few months after Fanning’s video went viral the inevitable happened: he was invited to surf Slater’s wave. Surfer Magazine covered the event in a story titled ‘Mick Fanning Finally Invited to Kelly Slater’s Wave Pool’, (Douglas, 2017) and asked the question that readers were eager to get an answer for: ‘How does Mick’s wave compare to Kelly’s wave?’ For the viewing pleasure of its readers, Surfer posted both videos on the webpage. ¹⁵ When asked about Kelly’s wave, Fanning replied, ‘It was, like, real. It didn’t feel like a wave pool; it felt like a real wave’.

Analysis of interviews and surveys: competing discourses on authenticity

We have found in our analysis of interview and survey data that the wave park phenomenon has involved divergent discourses on the question of authenticity in surf culture. One discourse has emerged from experienced surfers who oppose the development of artificial waves, whereas an affirmative discourse emerged out of those who have participated in the design, engineering and marketing of the wave parks.

In the first discourse, surfers have responded to the ways in which surf parks represent surfing and the surfer lifestyle with a discursive strategy that we are calling the ‘spiritual divide’. By the phrase ‘spiritual divide’ we mean the discursive creation of a split between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ surfing that is based upon a perceived difference between surfing in nature and surfing in a capitalist, for-profit, man-made environment. This notion was clearly articulated by the following response to our survey:

Surf pools can never be authentic. Surfing is about connecting with nature and its energy. I go surfing not only to surf, but to be in a natural environment of which I am a small element. It reminds me to be humble, to appreciate the beauty of nature, and it calms my soul. A concrete, highly chlorinated, machine[-]enabled wave pool would do nothing more than reduce a precious resource and rejuvenating experience to a simple commodity. I enjoy surfing because I enjoy the ocean, not because I want to catch waves. ¹⁶

The emphasis on the ‘soul’ in the quote above is a common trope created by experienced surfers that goes back to the era of the 1970s when a cultural divide developed within the surfing community between professional surfers who are paid to surf and ‘soul’ surfers, those who surf for the enjoyment of experiencing a deep connection to nature (Taylor, 2007). Surfing for money is perceived by soul surfers as ‘selling-out’, a process that contributes to the commodification of surfing and the implosion of what was once a distinct subculture. Another survey participant wrote, ‘I hate the whole commercial side of surfing… I would rather be somewhere with my mates and no crowds’. Surf parks are positioned as lacking enchantment because a reliance on machines and chemicals spoils the spiritual experience one has when surfing in the ocean. Other responses that contribute to the construction of the spiritual divide discourse include comments like ‘surfing in a pool is not surfing to me, you need a direct connection with nature’. Claims that ‘manufactured’ waves or ‘over-engineered’ waves are not appealing was also a typical response by those surfers who replied that they will not surf in wave parks because ‘nothing can copy the ocean’. Soul surfers who distance themselves from surf parks connect their understanding of being in nature with a feeling of being free. Another respondent replied, ‘Surfing is freedom to me, and surfing in a contained area is not being [sic] free’. Sometimes soul surfers replied with one word, like ‘chlorine’. The following passage was a social media response to a post about the KSWC pool and gets to the crux of the discourse that positions the advent of surf parks as contributing to a process where the sacred becomes profane as a result of the commodification of surfing:

Here’s hoping the spotlight, hoopla and cameras all head inland to the wave pools. The rest of the world likes the ‘idea’ of surfing precisely because it takes place in wild beautiful spaces where you risk getting eaten alive or drowning. It is one of the few activities that can actually connect you with your soul. Queuing with your board beside a concrete pond in your wetsuit surrounded by ‘surfers’ aligning their Go Pro mounts and starting their trajectory trackers will confirm that your soul has been bought. So good luck with your wave ponds and Olympic bids, now fuck off and leave us in peace. ¹⁷

Those who are not troubled by the process of detaching the riding of waves from surfing tradition(s), along with those who have a financial stake in this position, have created an affirmative discourse on surf parks that we are calling the ‘Holy Grail Effect’, a perspective that emphasises surfing perfect waves unaffected by weather and tidal conditions, in shark-free waters without being hassled by other surfers. Surf park developers and operators are keenly aware of the perceptions of inauthenticity that experienced surfers associate with artificial waves, which is why associating the pools with high-profile professional surfers like Kelly Slater has helped provide a sense of legitimacy to artificial waves.

Mark Price is a former professional surfer and CEO of Firewire Surfboards, which is majority-owned by a group of investors led by Kelly Slater. Price was in the first group of surfers to test Kelly Slater’s wave pool and freely admits to being a surf park booster. He reacts strongly to the surf media discourse of surf purism that derides surf parks as a bastardisation of the surfing experience. Price affirms the removal of the act of surfing from the ocean to argue that stoke is stoke, regardless of place and that therefore surf parks have a place in providing access to the stoke of surfing for those who have limited or no access to it in natural surfing environments. According to Price,

I think there’s this overly romanticised view of [surfing as] … this exotic travel and the romance of going to these foreign places, and the soul and the spirit and all this stuff… For the vast majority of surfers, they’re juggling careers, families, kids with time in the water. The stoke for them is literally the stoke when… [a] movement of water picks you up and starts carrying you towards the shore and you stand up on your equipment and you start riding the wave. It’s not about where that wave may be…You’ve got to look at surfing as the act of riding moving bodies of water. I’ve seen guys on the artificial standing wave in Montreal just freaking out. They are stoked! Just as stoked as I am surfing my local spot and anywhere else. So I think once you define surfing in those terms, how could you argue that wave parks are not legitimate? ¹⁸

This point of view demonstrates what we refer to as ‘arguing authenticity’ because as Price says, the question is how one defines surfing. One can see a difference between the competing discourses in terms of the language used to describe a surfboard. Here, the language is quite technical, where surfboards are referred to as ‘equipment’, and waves are merely ‘moving bodies of water’, signaling a perspective framed by instrumental reason – surfboard as tool – as opposed to the more aesthetically oriented perspective of the soul surfer who views the surfboard as a work of art and waves as ‘ocean-transported sunbeams’ that connect them to the universe.

Another popular argument against surf parks is centered on a cultural distaste for directly paying to ride a wave, as many surfers hold dear the notion that waves are free. Price provided an alternative perspective:

The other argument I’ve heard is “hey I don’t pay for waves, man, that’s not cool,” said by people who get on planes and fly to Tavarua for five grand a week. Now, you can divide the number of waves you caught that week by what you paid for your trip and that’s what you paid for each wave. Or even driving to your local surf spot. Take your gas and your lunch, you’re paying for waves. So I think these arguments, when you really peel them apart, they all just fall on their face. ¹⁹

The key components of the affirmative discourse on the simulated surf experience are the guaranteed number of waves per surfer, a complete lack of ‘hassling’ from other surfers and perfectly shaped waves. For example, Surf Snowdonia is able to guarantee its advanced surfers 12–13 high quality, hassle-free waves in a 1 h session. In addition to wave count, surf parks are able to guarantee wave size, shape and quality and the absence of sharks, rip currents and other ocean dangers. Naturally occurring surf breaks are of poor quality far more often than they are breaking at high quality. High-quality waves require the alignment of a complex array of factors including swell size, period, direction, tide, local wind direction and strength and bathymetry. Surf parks remove most of these variables. For soul surfers, on the other hand, the use of science to create a controlled environment represents what Max Weber (2004) referred to as the ‘disenchantment’ of nature that permeates modern-capitalist culture, meaning that the world has become a cold, predictable and rational place, emptied of the magic and wonder that once animated it.

Interestingly, surf park developers have divergent but interrelated ideas on what the key elements of a successful surf park might be. Greg Webber, of Webber Wave Pools, opined that the fulcrum for success in the industry can be distilled down to a single surf pool attribute – wave quality:

This question is absolutely fundamental to the success of this whole industry. The critical thing that surfers look for is really just the wave itself. It’s so narrow it’s ridiculous. … the experience of doing it [surfing] is fundamentally a transformation of your sense of place, because while you’re doing it time is distorted. Place is irrelevant in the moment. It will come down to[:] are the waves good? ²⁰

In essence, because of the promise of high-quality waves on demand, and the assertion of the primacy of high-quality waves in the surfing experience, Webber points out that the act of wave riding will become completely disembodied from any particular geographic or cultural setting and become an end in itself. The ability to produce waves on demand also comes with the ability to control surfing space and remove not only the nature-based variables that threaten a high quality surfing experience but also many of the human factors. In particular, in a private surf park setting, control of crowding and hassling fall under the purview of surf park operations. Greg Webber noted this element of the Holy Grail effect: ‘We won’t have to have all that [crowding and hassling] crap. All you’ll be doing is queuing up for a few minutes and then you know for sure that no one is hassling you at all’. ²¹ Here we find overlap with research by van Bottenburg and Salome (2010: 151) who use the work of Ritzer (2008) to examine how lifestyle sports practiced in artificial settings ‘are oriented towards efficiency, predictability, calculability and the control of service provision’, which are the hallmarks of what Rizter refers to as the ‘McDonaldisation of Society’, where marketers now package ‘adventure in a bun’ (Loynes, 1998). The problem for the operators of surf parks, like that of the operators of indoor climbing walls, is how to maintain a sense of excitement in such a rationalised environment.

Surf park developer Nick Hounsfield – who considers his pending project, ‘The Wave, Bristol’ to be a public service facility with positive health and wellness implications for many – addressed the worries that surf park space may become detached from important cultural experiences and historical and social reference points of the sport and specific locations. He believes that many of these issues can and should be considered in the design, operation and construction of surfing space at surf parks:

The trick will be designing it so its looks like it hasn’t just landed there and is sticking out of the ground…The design challenge is creating that reveal moment where you would go over the top of a sand dune and suddenly see waves. That sense of search and getting lost in the landscape is a really important part of what you lose by having an inland surfing lake, but potentially if you do it right you could bring that back in a slightly quirky way. ²²

Here we see the expanded development of the hyperreal beyond the wave itself, as not only is the perfect wave created by means of a computer; the surrounding environment is also the product of computer models in what Baudrillard calls ‘the precession of the simulacra’. Note the emphasis on ‘bringing back’ the ‘sense of search’ in the passage above. As mentioned above, authenticity in surfing culture has relied upon an emphasis on the experience of searching for waves. In this manner, Nick Hounsfield takes a different perspective than that of Greg Webber, who focuses exclusively on the wave regardless of environment.

Managing Director of Surf Snowdonia, Andy Ainscough noted the importance of having a ‘surfer at heart’ involved in creating the experience to, in essence, ‘gut check’ the commercial setting and product offering. In terms of maintaining a sense of authenticity beyond the embodied experience of actually surfing the wave, Ainscough has found that a staff of core surfers lends itself to recreating the kind of interactions surfers in surfing communities or in surf tourism destinations might expect: surfing during the day and telling surf stories by night.

Keep someone who is a surfer at heart right through the development…. throughout the build looking out over the Snowdonia mountain region we could see that if you were paddling out here it would be a great experience. It doesn’t mean you can’t have one in a city center. I think that would still work but I don’t think it would have quite the same soothing effect as it does with forest surrounding and a mountain backdrop like we have. Once you have a surf park and you employ 40 surf instructors and a similar number of lifeguards it keeps that vibe automatically where people surf during the day and go in the bar at night. You automatically capture the essence of surfing really just by the people you end up taking on to work here. ²³

Close parallels emerged from the in-depth interviews with the four symbolic elements of surfing Nirvanas in Indonesia described by Ponting et al. (2005) namely: perfect waves; uncrowded conditions; pristine environment; and, cushioned adventure where the feeling of adventure and perceived risk significantly outweighs the actual risk. The argument is that elements of exploration, freedom and adventure should remain but are noted to be elements that must be manufactured and specifically designed into facilities and operations. Similarly, creating an ‘authentic’ social and cultural experience is something that requires active design and management consideration. The setting remains important, but is not limited to pristine natural environments. Survey data suggests that surf park visitors will be more tightly focused on the controllable elements of a surfing experience promised by a surf park. Wave quality, a guaranteed wave count, length of ride and the ability to choose wave height were by far the most important elements in a surf park experience amongst survey participants.

Conclusion

In our research we have found that soul surfers’ opposition to wave parks is consistent with previous generations of soul surfers who have criticised the ways in which commodification of surf culture has defiled the sacred aspects of surfing (Taylor, 2007). We have also found some overlap with previous scholarship that has focused on how skateboard and sailboard companies represent ‘authenticity’ in their advertisements in order to remain ‘real’ to ‘hard-core’ practitioners who are their main consumer base that judges and legitimates claims on authenticity (Wheaton and Beal, 2003). The example of the Rip Curl Corporation discussed above is an example of this phenomenon. On the other hand, we see in our research how authenticity is challenged by a separate group of stakeholders who have a financial interest in the growth of artificial wave pools. These companies are compelled to challenge the soul surfers’ notion of authenticity in order to sell tickets to their wave parks. In some ways, the soul surfers mentioned in our analysis are similar to the ‘soul’ windsurfers studied by Wheaton and Beal (2003) because the soul surfers seem to be the most critical of how outsider investors colonise the lifeworld of surfers. On the other hand, the role of Kelly Slater as the face of the new technology is an attempt to garner approval from the skilled practitioners of the sport, as wave parks become more like skateboard parks, with surfers perfecting difficult tricks in controlled environments that mimic maneuvers developed by skateboarders. What has transformed the terrain of how authenticity is constructed and contested in the surfing world is the new technologies that have displaced ocean waves as the main referent for surfing culture, what Baudrillard (1983) refers to as the ‘precession of the simulacra’.

In future research, we will need to conduct interviews and surveys that allow for more detailed comparisons across the lines of race, class, gender, age and region in order to get a more nuanced picture of how experienced and novice surfers will respond to the advance of the perfectly simulated wave. The next phase of our research will also involve ethnographic analyses of the cultures that emerge from wave park environments. In terms of age, we want to find out if younger surfers are less concerned with questions of authenticity and less troubled by wave-pool technologies. In terms of gender, although Slater did invite professional women surfers to ride waves at his Surf Ranch, it remains unclear what effect wave-pool environments will have upon gender relations in surfing. The response by surfers to wave parks will vary by region, race and ethnicity, so we will be pursuing a cross-regional comparison of surfers in our next phase of research, as a way to build upon this study which has focused mainly on the United States and the figure of Kelly Slater and his Surf Ranch. Lastly, we plan future research on wave pools to focus on new class distinctions that seem to be emerging in the surfing community as wealthy investors and corporations from outside the surfing community continue to pour money into these new parks (McPhate, 2017). In the meantime, we hope that this phase of research – inspired by Baudrillard – has contributed to our understanding of the ‘post-modernising’ of sport.