"SW424 features our annual Surfing World’s 50 Most Interesting list. It’s a front-to-back snapshot of the surfing today, featuring profile stories by Derek Hynd, Nick Carroll, Lauren Hill, Steph Gilmore, Dave Rastovich, Jamie Brisick, Jed Smith, Sean Doherty and more. Wanna take a guess who finished number one?"

"Depending on which way you look at it, surfing has never been more interesting… or less. But good luck trying to put surfing today in a box. It’s simultaneously moving forward, backwards, sideways, nowhere… while shooting off into parallel dimensions."

The counterculture has been countered. Dangerous surfing ideas made safe. There’s equal parts evolution and de-evolution. There are single fins being ridden in wavepools. Surfing has long moved on from being a single culture. Today, it’s thousands of them.

But at the end of the day, this list is simply 50 surfers doing their thing. Three members of the list are presently living in their cars. Two have just won world titles. Another two are building a boat. One is sailing a boat made of rubbish across Bass Strait. One survived a shark attack. One survived Hollywood. One transitioned into someone else then transitioned back again. One doesn’t think he’s interesting at all, while another is the only Grammy-nominated member of Burleigh Boardriders.

Individually and collectively, this group probably says a lot about where surfing culture today is at. As they say, may you live in interesting times.