Surface and substructure: beneath surfing's commodified surface

Abstract

This article discusses the important role that surfing's own ‘culture industry’ plays in the internal dynamics of the surfing subculture and at the nexus between the subculture and mainstream society. It looks at the ‘Big Three’ surfing culture companies – Quiksilver, Billabong and Rip Curl – and their trajectory from grass-roots, cottage-industry businesses to global corporations. An alternative model to Marx's modern (economic) base and (social) superstructure is proposed; i.e., an (economic) surface and (social) substructure. This alternative model provides a useful framework for examining the dynamic between the postmodern surfing subculture and the economy (both its own and the mainstream economy). The model depicts a substructure consisting of surfing's social formations and sectors, based upon shared foundational experience of transcendence– a sublime loss of self in the act of surfing. Surfing's culture industry is shown to provide goods for insiders and present a commodified surface of symbolic tokens for mainstream consumers of surfing style, and in the very process act both as a bulwark against mainstream subsumption and an agent of postmodernization within the mainstream.

Notes

¹ This has mostly been a non-commercial relationship over many years where I help out with marketing and manage the website and Nick (my brother) makes my surfboards (http://www.strangersurfboards.com).

² Stranger, Risk-taking & Postmodernity.

³ This paper draws on a monograph that updates the original thesis (Stranger, Surfing Life). This publication expands on the analysis presented here and includes chapters on the contemporary surfing subculture, self, risk and identity, and sportization, amongst others.

⁴ I use the term ‘post-modern’ in a broad sense to include a range of post and neo-modernist approaches that share an appreciation of the characteristics of contemporary social change, if not the terminology and trajectory (see Kumar, From Post-industrial to Post-modern Society).

⁵ Lash and Urry, Economies of Signs and Space; Crook, Pakulski and Waters, Postmodernization; Rojek, Leisure and Culture.

⁶ Stranger, ‘Aesthetics of Risk’; see also Ford and Brown, Surfing and Social Theory, 155–63; Stranger, ‘Sociology of Risk’.

⁷ Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi, Optimal Experience.

⁸ Stranger, ‘Aesthetics of Risk’, 273.

⁹ Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi, Optimal Experience, 33.

¹⁰ All interviews cited in this paper were conducted as part of the original research (Stranger, Risk-Taking & Postmodernity).

¹¹ Maslow, Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences. Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi, (Optimal Experience), drew on Maslow's concept of peak-experience for their flow theory.

¹² Durkheim, Division of Labour.

¹³ Stranger, Risk-taking & Postmodernity; Surfing Life.

¹⁴ Bauman, Intimations of Postmodernity.

¹⁵ Maffesoli, Time of the Tribes.

¹⁶ Simmel, ‘Sociability’.

¹⁷ Lyng, ‘Edgework’.

¹⁸ Stranger, Risk-taking & Postmodernity; Surfing Life. These grounded neo-tribes are consistent with an ‘oppositional postmodernism’ which Lash says is more oriented towards ‘collective identity’ rather than the isolated individualism of ‘mainstream postmodernism’ which corresponds with the ‘tragic’ transience of Maffesoli's concept of neo-tribes (Lash, Sociology of Postmodernism, 37–8).

¹⁹ This level of commitment is indicative of the mostly core surfers surveyed across Australia.

²⁰ Surfing Australia, ‘Surfing in Australia’. The Sweeney Report on sport in Australia is conducted every two years, covering over 50 sports and providing information on Australia's sporting interests, sponsorship, media, events and athlete profiles (http://www.sweeneyresearch.com.au). The surfer respondents in these reports are not representative of the core surfing population.

²¹ Wheaton, ‘Windsurfing’.

²² Farrelly and McGregor, Surfing Life, 21.

²³ Celsi, Rose and Leigh, ‘An Exploration of High-risk Leisure’; Stranger, Risk-taking & Postmodernity; ‘Sociology of Risk’; Surfing Life.

²⁴ Stranger, ‘Aesthetics of Risk’, 267.

²⁵ Thornton, Club Culture; Hodkinson, Goth; Muggleton and Weinzierl, Post-Subcultures Reader; Ford and Brown, Surfing and Social Theory; Wheaton, ‘After Sport Culture’.

²⁶ Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture; Hodkinson, Goth; Wheaton, ‘After Sport Culture’.

²⁷ Stranger, ‘Risk-taking and Postmodernity; Surfing Life.

²⁸ The surfing-culture industry includes surfing tourism, media, surfing schools, professional surfing, clothing and fashion accessories, wetsuits, surfboard manufacturing, and other surfing-related accessories.

²⁹ Lash, Sociology of Postmodernism; Jameson, Postmodernism; Crook, Pakulski and Waters, Postmodernization; Lash and Urry, Economies of Signs and Space; Kumar, Post-industrial to Post-modern Society; Featherstone, Undoing Culture; Welsch, ‘Aestheticization Processes’; Malpas, Postmodern.

³⁰ Lash, Sociology of Postmodernism, 197.

³¹ Jameson, Postmodernism, xv.

³² Pearson, Surfing Subcultures of Australia; Booth, ‘Surfing '60s’; Irwin, ‘Surfing’.

³³ McGregor, Profile of Australia, 285.

³⁴ Irwin, ‘Surfing’.

³⁵ Booth, ‘Surfing '60s’.

³⁶ Law, ‘Surfing the Safety Net’; Booth, ‘Surfing’.

³⁷ Goatley, ‘Barons in Boardshorts’, 71–9. By discussing these companies as a group, I may give the impression that the Big Three form some kind of cartel. This is not my intention. However, while they are separate and competitive companies, their strategies in regard to the areas of interest here have been so similar as to justify this approach.

³⁸ Ford and Brown, Surfing and Social Theory, 56.

³⁹ Gliddon, ‘Mad Wax’; Fitzsimmons, ‘Sounds of Summer’; Booth, ‘Paradoxes of Material Culture’.

⁴⁰ Booth, ‘Paradoxes of Material Culture’; Wheaton, ‘Selling Out?’.

⁴¹ Prior to the availability of purpose-built wetsuits (first manufactured by O'Neil in the USA), surfers either used scuba-diving suits – which severely restricted movement when paddling and surfing – or they braved the cold. During the Tasmanian winter, for example, surfers often wore woollen football jumpers rather than the restrictive and expensive diving suits (Mike interview).

⁴² Goatley, ‘Barons in Boardshorts’, 79; Jarratt, ‘Boys Town: Torquay’, 76.

⁴³ Hoy, ‘Surfwear Companies Ride the Tide’.

⁴⁴ LaFrenz, ‘Strong Quits Rip Curl’. ‘Board sports’ include surfing and its derivatives, such as snowboarding, skateboarding, windsurfing, and kite-surfing. This classification reflects the strategy of these companies to expand beyond surfing by first incorporating these related sports. According to Bob McKnight, Quiksilver CEO, the longer-term goal for his company is to become ‘the dominant lifestyle brand for the global youth market’ (Transworld Business, ‘Quiksilver Buys Australian’). The potential implications of these strategies for the role and standing of the companies within the subculture and for the integrity of the subculture itself are significant (for a discussion of these matters see Stranger, Surfing Life).

⁴⁵ Transworld Business, ‘Quiksilver Buys Australian’.

⁴⁶ Hoy, ‘Surfwear Companies Ride the Tide’.

⁴⁷ Boardshorts were designed in the US to withstand the punishment that conventional bathing costumes could not (Doyle, Morning Glass). They were longer in the leg, which helped prevent chaffing on the inside of surfers' legs that occurred as a result of straddling the board while waiting their turn in the line-up for waves. The shorts became a medium for the display of surfing style (through colour, prints and cut) and an enduring symbolic token for the subculture.

⁴⁸ Hoy, ‘Surfwear Companies Ride the Tide’.

⁴⁹ Gail Austen and Bill interviews. See also Goatley, ‘Barons in Boardshorts’; Doyle, Morning Glass; Lanagan, ‘Dropping In’.

⁵⁰ Increasingly the symbolic community is operating online. Independent forums are emerging that are beyond the direct influence of the surfing industry.

⁵¹ Goatley, ‘Barons in Boardshorts’, 72.

⁵² This ‘policy’ mimics the surf-shop and board-factory norms of earlier days when a sign on the door might declare the business shut and the staff ‘gone surfing’. Whether or not this policy is adhered to by executive and other ‘backstage’ staff, it certainly isn't the case for retail staff in the Big Three's own superstores.

⁵³ Doug Warbrick in Pawle, ‘On a Wave’, 13.

⁵⁴ Wax is rubbed onto the deck of the surfboard to provide grip while surfing. A leg-rope is a flexible cord that is attached to the surfboard and the surfer's leg so that the board is not swept or blown away when the surfer falls off or otherwise loses contact with it.

⁵⁵ MacCannell, Empty Meeting Grounds.

⁵⁶ See also Goatley, ‘Barons in Boardshorts’, 72; Gliddon, ‘Mad Wax’; Lanagan, ‘Dropping In’. This appear to be less the case outside Australia.

⁵⁷ Billabong adopted this slogan referring to surfers' shared knowledge of sublime experience.

⁵⁸ Irwin, ‘Surfing’.

⁵⁹ Welsch, ‘Aestheticization Processes’, 3–4.

⁶⁰ Maffesoli, Time of the Tribes, 90–1.

⁶¹ There are two ‘ideal type’ orientations within surfing subculture: those who support the ‘sportization’ and typically the commercialization and professionalization of surfing, at one end of a continuum (Elias and Dunning, Quest for Excitement); at the other end are those who oppose the organization and commercialization of, what they consider to be, an art form – a form of self-expression that should be kept remote from the hype and interference of sporting bureaucracies and the interests of big money. The latter were dubbed ‘soul surfers’ when surfing culture was predominantly embedded in the counter-culture scene of the late 60s and early 70s (Pearson, Surfing Subcultures of Australia). While the link with a counter-culture lifestyle is no longer a dominant feature of surfing culture, the soul ethos is an important trope within the subculture, central to the way many, if not most, surfers think about surfing – including professional surfers and industry operatives. In reality, the distinction between these two ‘ideal types’ is blurry and best understood in terms of the dialectical relationship between the post-modern subculture and a post-modernizing dominant culture (Stranger, Risk-taking & Postmodernity; Surfing Life).

⁶² DiMaggio and Powell, ‘The Iron Cage Revisited’.

⁶³ Bernstein, Introduction to The Culture Industry.

⁶⁴ Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 198.

⁶⁵ Gliddon, ‘Mad Wax’; Lanagan, ‘Surfing’; Beal and Weidman, ‘Authenticity’; Wheaton and Beal, ‘Keeping it Real’; Wheaton, ‘Selling Out?’ Ford and Brown, Surfing and Social Theory.

⁶⁶ It is also interesting to note that the largest percentage of respondents who wear no surf label clothing are from urban areas. However, the data is distorted for the remote areas in this regard. At one of the two remote locations surveyed (both isolated coastal desert surf camps – no running water or electricity but plenty of sharks and snakes), I was unable to get responses from the long-term locals, who, from my own observations (which were supported by regular visitors) completely shun the wearing of any surf label clothing. Their anti-commercial stance stretches to actively resisting any surf-media coverage of the location. See Green, ‘Terror in the Saltbush’ for a journalist's account of this location and the locals' antagonism towards the media and professional surfing.

⁶⁷ Bauman, Intimations of Postmodernity, 191.

⁶⁸ Versace, Fashion and Fanatics, 19–20. See also Ford and Brown, Surfing and Social Theory, 72–77. For other sports see Donnelly and Young, ‘The Construction of Identity’; Wheaton, ‘Just Do It’; ‘Windsurfing’; ‘Selling Out?’.

⁶⁹ Ford and Brown, Surfing and Social Theory, 72–77; Stranger, Surfing Life; see also Wheaton, ‘Selling Out?’.

⁷⁰ Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture.

⁷¹ Giddens, ‘Risk, Trust, Reflexivity’, 186.

⁷² Clarke et al, ‘Subcultures, Cultures and Class’, 188.

⁷³ Crook, Pakulski and Waters, Postmodernization, 36.

⁷⁴ McGuigan, Cultural Populism, 96.

⁷⁵ Humphreys, ‘Snowboarders’; Goatley, ‘Barons in Boardshorts’.

⁷⁶ Stranger, Surfing Life.

⁷⁷ Lanagan, ‘Dropping In’, 181.

⁷⁸ DiMaggio and Powell, ‘The Iron Cage Revisited’.

⁷⁹ Lanagan, ‘Dropping In’. Rip Curl is also expected to go public, but at the time of writing, they have not done so (LaFrenz, ‘Strong Quits Rip Curl’).

⁸⁰ This point has not been lost on at least one smaller company, with Kuta Lines declaring in a magazine advertisement: ‘No shareholders just surfers’ in Tracks, November 2002.

⁸¹ Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action.

⁸² Lash, Sociology of Postmodernism, 137–8.

⁸³ Ibid.

⁸⁴ These issues are discussed in detail in Stranger, Surfing Life.