Mason Ho: Freesurfing's Second Wind?

Remember Reef''s 'Party Starter' sandals commercial for the 2018 Fanning Low?

Wild toes up top.

Bottle opener on bottom.

Who could forget the ultimate beach-party footwear? This was the quintessential 20 something year old vogue that spoke to heavy consumers of domestic lites like myself at the time (2025 brands could never).

Fun thong design aside, I nearly choked on my own laughter watching the ad, particularly when a bottle of beer orbited into Mason Ho''s hand and he twirled his eyes with that trademark Mason Ho "I''m definitely scheming" grin.

I was reminiscing about this ad after recently realizing — shit, my algorithm is routing me a lot of Mason Ho lately! Let''s stackrank the recents:

- Ho & Pringle''s edit from Swatch Nine''s 2025 absolute shred fest dropped this summer. - Multiple socratically unstructured, yet exciting Jamie O/MasonHo podcast eps. - Another Velzy sesh with Papa Ho, the only living human to charge double overhead Pipe with a trademark Boomer stance. Oh, and a gnarly Indo cliff sesh. - Presumably, another youtube edit ripping with a few pros and Baby Bear is in the near future.

Mason Ho is on a freesurf career tear, and he is moreover, filling a surf content void viewers are slowly realizing they have been imprisoned to — we can only watch a pro travel around the world chasing perfect waves so many times, eventually some personality is going to have to kick in (y''all know who you are).

This is where Mason Ho is a beacon of hope.

- Bushy 80s up-do - Happy Go-Lucky at all costs - Suspiciously Psychedelic - Peter Dinklage ahh body, yet rips all waves – any size, shape, condition, bodily risk.

A godplex figure that aurafaming surfers of all ages aspire to attain.

His youtube channel is overwhelmed with the most playful surfing viewers will ever witness, in less than death defying shallow surf, all from someone in their mid-30s. Always polished off with low-volume high-res close up POVs of mason inspecting his surfboard design, wax, and damage in a rather sexual demeanor.

Would I let this guy do my taxes? Unlikely.

Do I want more of his content? Kindly.

We don''t quite understand Mason Ho, but his energy makes us forget all of the surf anxieties in the news — WSL mis-scorings, great white attacks, localism run-ins, dare I say geo-politics? Ho''s energy reminds us to not sweat the hard stuff. Chill out, share the ocean, surf with your paps, maybe jump off a cliff onto some live coral. Fuck it, live; be a party starter.