I think the surfing crowd is probably a lot like the hiking crowd, the offroad crowd, the sailing crowd and the horse crowd. Each of these subcultures include a prevailing mainstream with its own established ideas of what is and isn’t acceptable; as well as the people who are coming in from the outside who do not assimilate, whether by ignorance or by arrogance.
Try blasting a boombox on a hiking trail or tacking the wrong way on the bay or sporting an all-new set of Nike boots, chaps, hat and saddle down at the stables and see if you don’t generate the equivalent of the surfers’ stinkeye from those hikers or sailors or riders who comprise their respective mainstreams. Unlike football and basketball and even soccer, these other activities are not considered sports by most people who regularly participate in them, but are lifestyles.
