Surf culture

Surf culture is the culture surrounding the sport of surfing, originating during the 1950s and 1960s but which continues to this day.

Related Topics:
Culture - Surfing - 1950s - 1960s

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Surfing is often viewed as less of a sport and more of a lifestyle. Popularised in the United States during the 1950s, surf culture found increasing expression with mass-production of surf fashion, music and, later, the booming surf magazine and movie industries in the 1960s.

Related Topics:
Sport - Lifestyle - Surf fashion - Surf magazine

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Surfing culture can be seen in their slang: hang ten, gremmies, the Big Kahuna, the woodie, waxing my stick, the green room, etc., though many of these terms are now archaic. Partially due to the obsessive tendencies of its participants, and partly to the predominantly stylised media representation of them, surfing became embedded in the popular imagination as synonymous with either a naïve, pseudo-spiritual hippie idealism or a drug-addled, lazy, beach bum apathy. Neither of these is probably accurate. Though today such stereotypes have long since lost whatever relevance they may have had, surfing has still failed to completely divest itself of negative social connotations, despite the best attempts of various commercial marketing strategies.

Related Topics:
Hang ten - Kahuna - Woodie - Hippie - Beach bum

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If there is one fair generalisation concerning the sport, it is the fanatical enthusiasm of its devotees. One famous Australian surfer, Nat Young, once tried to register the sport as a religion, but to no avail. Surfing Magazine, founded in the 1960s when surfing had gained popularity with teenagers, used to say that if they were hard at work and someone yelled "Surf's up!" the office would suddenly be empty.

Related Topics:
Nat Young - Surfing Magazine

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