The American Dream mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is home to the largest indoor surfing wave pool in the U.S. What’s the experience like for someone who grew up surfing in San Diego . . . outside? Are predictable artificial waves the future of this coastal pastime? Alexander Sammon writes an enjoyable, thoughtful essay on the trend, as well as the privatization and commodification of surfing and subcultures in general.
It’s tempting, of course, to stand on the hunched shoulders of Didion and Wolfe, the two patron saints of disdain, to blast this thing. But I felt so much more conflicted about it.
Because yes: The artifice was extreme, the wave was mediocre, and the whole thing was aggressively unnatural, near, and perhaps well beyond, the point of perversion.
And yet: Despite the surfeit of Shreks, despite its spot in the mall, despite seeming like the fakest fucking thing imaginable for an activity obsessed with authenticity, there was actually something somewhat legit in the root of the experience. As anyone who surfs will tell you, the surf anywhere almost always sucks. The wind is always wrong, or the size is too big or too small, or the tide is too high or too low, or there are too many people in the water, or none of those things are wrong but you just aren’t surfing that well that day and it’s easier to blame the conditions. So, yeah, the surf kind of sucked, which made it seem realer and certainly more democratic—more so, at least, than any of the perfection Kelly Slater cooked up.
Did I have fun? Yeah, I guess so. Did I get better at surfing? Maybe. Describing it as memorable seems a bit saccharine, but it’s not wrong.
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