The Curious Case of Gabriel Medina

It started just like any other day, sitting on a plastic chair in the yard, drinking my morning coffee, trading glances with the ocean and my phone. To say I was at peace would be an understatement. The earth was waking up slowly with the cool, wet morning, and so was I, my mind in the transition state between night and day. But then it hit me and the earth flipped on its side. I knew, in that instant, that things would never be the same. 

It was an instagram post by Stab, with a link in their bio, sending me to the magazine’s interview series, Stab Unplugged. The episode was titled, “What if Gabriel Medina was Secretly a Good Guy?” For a few moments I just stared. Then I put my phone in my pocket, walked inside, sat at my laptop, and tried my best to forget what had just happened. 

Gabriel Medina is notoriously evil in the eyes of the surfing community. He is a sell out, an asshole, and an antithesis to the laid-back surf lifestyle. It’s safe to say that in the U.S, he is the most hated man in surfing. As bold of a statement as this is, it’s legitimately difficult to find people who disagree. Flat out, Gabe just pisses people off. And I’ll admit that I am no exception. I don’t think I’ve ever rooted for Gabe in a contest. In fact, I actively root against him. 

This post by Stab, or perhaps just seeing it in words, forced me to take a step back and unpack some of these negative feelings. Why do we hate Gabe? Yes, I know I just mentioned a few reasons above (see: sellout, asshole, etc.). But why specifically Gabe? These descriptions sound a lot like those used to describe professional surfing in general. Are we projecting something here? I think Gabriel Medina might just be the scapegoat that surfing has been waiting for. 

Let’s break this down piece by piece. Gabe is a sellout. Yes! He most definitely is. But aren’t all professional surfers sellouts at the core?  Isn’t that exactly what professional surfing is? If surfers weren’t chasing the money, or didn’t have to chase the money, there would be no need to go pro in the first place. The entire point of becoming a professional surfer is to profit off of your talent, name, and likeliness. Gabe, obviously, took this to another level with his advertisements for Gillette and Audi (both of which are not traditional surf sponsors) and it’s admittedly funny to watch him shave his armpits in the shower, but somehow we seem to ignore all of the other surfer-sponsor relationships exist. 

More so than in any other sport, the lines between the surf industry and surf culture are blurred, thus making it easy to forget that companies use surfers solely for profit. Surfers are walking advertisements. This isn’t necessarily bad either, the (although often imbalanced) symbiosis between brand and surfer work hand in hand to allow surfers to continue to travel to contests and produce edits, while we, the consumers, continue to eat it all up. But what I’m saying here, is that to look down on Gabriel for embracing this relationship is a little hypocritical and a little silly. This “problem” we are now seemingly worried about stems from far more from the surf industry, rather than any one individual. 

The next argument is that Gabe is an asshole. If you’ve tuned in to any of the WSL contests, you’ve seen it. We’ve all watched him drop in on fellow competitors, paddle battle people across the lineup, and complain to the judges. He’s never smiling (except on the podium) and his only friend on the tour appears to his cheerleader step-dad on the beach. In any other situation or lineup, these actions would be grounds to get called out, and, in some places, *cough cough Hawai‘i* get his ass beat. But we don’t stare aimlessly at the live-stream to watch the top surfers kick it in some sort of expression session. They are literally there to compete against each other.

This cognitive dissonance that we experience as surf fans is tearing us apart and Gabe Medina appears to be right in the middle. If professional surfing and casual surfing were turned into a venn diagram, the only overlap would probably be the fact that, in both cases, the surfers are riding waves. Yet we continue to treat the two as if they are the same. Gabe, along with every other surfer on tour, is fighting for a literal paycheck. Each heat has tens of thousands of dollars on the line. If we can finally start to grasp this idea that the WSL is a completely different entity from any other type of surfing, then maybe we can let go of this hatred for surf athletes who are simply out there competing. In no other sport is competitiveness looked down upon, and I understand that professional surfing isn’t like any other sport, but, like, is it really not? 

We have this deeply ingrained, pent up aggression towards professional surfing that goes back for decades. The judges and the sponsorship deals and the endless advertisements all seem to clash with that raw, natural feeling that drew us to waves in the first place. Surf culture, and competition culture, and counterculture, are all mixed in a bowl and presented with the same name. And it’s frustrating and difficult to piece apart where we stand in the middle of it. By being unable to differentiate within the tree of surfing, we end up building resentment for the very thing we love. 

Gabriel Medina isn’t some evil guy out to ruin everyone’s day (although that armpit shaving stunt says otherwise), he’s simply the only surfer that has fully identified themselves as a professional athlete. The surfing that he has done is groundbreaking, and the time and money that he has invested in the youth of the sport is unparalleled. He is a creator, innovator, and the most skilled goofy-footer to ever ride a wave. But he has also committed himself to the very thing that so many have ran away from. Gabe is a professional athlete through and through. When we point fingers at him, because of our inability to separate surfing with professional surfing, we are really pointing fingers at an institution that we are all so deeply afraid of. 

To end this post, and at risk of sounding Kumbaya-y, I want to pull a quote directly from Gabe’s interview with Stab. “I just wish we all spoke the same language, man.” I think this is what I’ve been trying to say the whole time. In fear of putting surfing in a box, we have put this competitive, fiery, Portuguese speaking ripper in a box with little-to-no way to defend himself. And it’s so easy to direct hate towards someone that we’ve never really been able to understand. 

Here’s a link to the full interview.