8 ms·

Wetsuit Shaming in San Francisco Divides Bay Area Swimmers

9 points by jbredeche 4y ago

LinuxBender 4y ago
Non-JS Readable Version [1] [1] - https://archive.ph/Qw8t6 https://archive.ph/Qw8t6
NickC25 4y ago
A total non-story. If someone wants to wear a wet suit, let them. Those who choose to go without one, can go without one. Those who don't have all the right to shame those who do, but those who wear them have the same right to ignore the haters, because at the end of the day it's a fucking wet suit. People seem to suffer from some sort of amnesia when it comes to the choices of others, and that "what works for me might not work for someone else, and since I'm not perfect, aggressively making fun of someone for what they wear while swimming is totally fucking immature".
- derbOac 4y ago
  I agree with you about letting people choose what they want, but I've seen very aggressive arguments erupt about it. I'm really not sure why. I think the question is why is this happening? The article mentions people having their wetsuits stolen, for example. Maybe it's a simple matter of people trying to impose some kind of code of behavior on others, like so much else in life. But I'm not sure in this case what the resentment is about. With some things it makes sense. For example, in triathlon and some open water swim meets, wearing a wetsuit does give someone a speed advantage, and people kind of abuse it (for lack of a better word) to improve times when it's not necessary to wear them from a temperature perspective. But defining those boundaries where it makes sense from a safety perspective is difficult. So maybe in some cases people are worried at some level about having to purchase and use an item they don't see as necessary for themselves? Like they're worried they'll eventually become required for whatever reason? In any event, arguments about it can get surprisingly heated.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
    > But I'm not sure in this case what the resentment is about. I believe these are all of the relevant statements from the article, in the order in which they appear: > And yet, some Bay swimmers refuse to wear these potentially lifesaving devices because they consider them a form of cheating. > Tom Linthicum, a swimmer called “Reptile,” has made the mile-and-a-quarter water trek from Alcatraz to San Francisco more than 200 times, but never in a wetsuit. With a wetsuit, he says, “you’re not really enjoying the cold.” > “The land brain wants to go home, take a nap, forget about it,” he says. During times like this, he instead channels his “reptile brain,” which he believes to be an evolutionary vestige. “The reptile brain just comes out and says, ‘enjoy the water; enjoy the cold,’ ” he says. “Our ancestors may never have had a warm shower in their entire life.” The first one isn't really backed up from what I could see. Regardless, it seems people are stealing things and throwing them away or causing damage to them[0] because they have a personal preference to not use those things. Suddenly I'm completely on the side of the outraged wetsuiters. [0] > Over the years, in actual cold cases, wetsuits have mysteriously vanished from the changing room ... Later, the suits turned up in garbage cans or, in one case, hanging outdoors from a nail on the second floor of the building
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - derbOac 4y ago
      I guess the issue is why is "cheating" relevant if there's no competition? Or are most of the Bay area swimmers also doing races?
      - Doxin 4y ago
        Probably because not everyone agrees whether or not there is competition. You can have competition without it being an organized race. There are two variables in play, whether a specific person wears a wetsuit, and whether a specific person feels like there is competition. This leads to roughly four groups: A) non-competitive wetsuit wearers B) competitive wetsuit wearers C) non-competitive non-wetsuit wearers D) competitive non-wetsuit wearers It's not hard to see how you could get strife between group D and groups A and B. People in group A wear a wetsuit and don't see any harm because they aren't competing anyways. People in group B probably figure wearing a wetsuit is a valid way to improve your times. People in group D probably figure wearing a wetsuit is a cheaty way to improve your times and get upset. Having this strife between groups B and D makes some amount of sense, but since this is not an official competition there's no centralized authority to decide on the issue. Group A just gets caught in the crossfire.
- lost_tourist 4y ago
  How is it a nonstory? The article was about a culture clash and not taking the position of either side, but you implied the author said to not wear a wetsuit. I wasn't aware of this clash of cultures, as dumb as it is, so the story worked for me as a human interest story; not everything has to be about wars and mass shootings.
  - NickC25 4y ago
    A non-story in the sense that a bunch of entitled people caring way too much about what is a trivial decision of someone else that has no effect on others whatsoever. This isn't about wearing a wetsuit for a competition. It's as if I made a big deal if you decided to wear a short sleeve shirt versus a long sleeve shirt during your workout....even though your choice of attire has no impact on my workout whatsoever.
    - jarden 4y ago
      You're missing the point. While trivial to you, the story is an example of the way in which individuals make choices that reflect their values and priorities. It's not just about the clothes we wear, but how we present ourselves to the world, and what we stand for. Therefore, the story can be seen as having relevance beyond the simple act of wearing or not wearing a wetsuit.
dredmorbius 4y ago
The interesting side of this may not be immediately apparent: open-water swimming in cold conditions is already a fairly niche activity, to which there's something of a natural tendency toward tribalism and clique-formation as well as an attraction to nonconformists generally. As with on land, what is worn (and why and how) says much about what tribe one belongs to, and an organisation with a long history (as the article notes, the South End Rowing Club dates its origin back 150 years) develops ... a certain institutional culture. There's also the physical and spiritual nature of the activity --- swimming in cold water is both quite bracing and less of a formidable challenge than many might expect, though of course there is a great deal of individual variance. Non-wetsuit-wearing swimmers still do wear caps (these are mandated for safety reasons, and are high-visibility colours), often insulating heavy silicone or neoprene. There may be a sense that wetsuit-wearers are violating these norms as well, perhaps because they are intruders or outsiders to an established community. On the pragmatic side, an improperly rinsed suit carries sand indoors which wears floors and paint, and clogs drains. Violating this practice can result in deserved criticism and sanction. That said, despite some basis in fact, the story here likely embellishes the overall nature of the culture clash.
- zeruch 4y ago
  "That said, despite some basis in fact, the story here likely embellishes the overall nature of the culture clash." That is the pithy, key, interpretation here.
j0hnyl 4y ago
Reminds me of this old classic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_Battle_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_Battle_Book
zardo 4y ago
What an embarrassment. I wouldn't want to swim in the bay without a wetsuit for fear of someone thinking I was one of these assholes.
somekyle 4y ago
This seems.. expected. Anything that makes something easier is gonna annoy some people for whom the difficulty was part of the point.
shellothere 4y ago
Unmentioned but likely related: the northern CA / SF surf culture, an adjacent group at least, has a huge contingent of shitty salty man-children intent on replaying their mediocre high school experiences of in crowd / out crowd nonsense and petty localism. (There’s plenty of great folks too of course. But the sheer volume of garbage is surprising).

9 points by jbredeche 4y ago

Non-JS Readable Version [1] [1] - https://archive.ph/Qw8t6 https://archive.ph/Qw8t6

A total non-story. If someone wants to wear a wet suit, let them. Those who choose to go without one, can go without one. Those who don't have all the right to shame those who do, but those who wear them have the same right to ignore the haters, because at the end of the day it's a fucking wet suit. People seem to suffer from some sort of amnesia when it comes to the choices of others, and that "what works for me might not work for someone else, and since I'm not perfect, aggressively making fun of someone for what they wear while swimming is totally fucking immature".

derbOac 4y ago
I agree with you about letting people choose what they want, but I've seen very aggressive arguments erupt about it. I'm really not sure why. I think the question is why is this happening? The article mentions people having their wetsuits stolen, for example. Maybe it's a simple matter of people trying to impose some kind of code of behavior on others, like so much else in life. But I'm not sure in this case what the resentment is about. With some things it makes sense. For example, in triathlon and some open water swim meets, wearing a wetsuit does give someone a speed advantage, and people kind of abuse it (for lack of a better word) to improve times when it's not necessary to wear them from a temperature perspective. But defining those boundaries where it makes sense from a safety perspective is difficult. So maybe in some cases people are worried at some level about having to purchase and use an item they don't see as necessary for themselves? Like they're worried they'll eventually become required for whatever reason? In any event, arguments about it can get surprisingly heated.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  > But I'm not sure in this case what the resentment is about. I believe these are all of the relevant statements from the article, in the order in which they appear: > And yet, some Bay swimmers refuse to wear these potentially lifesaving devices because they consider them a form of cheating. > Tom Linthicum, a swimmer called “Reptile,” has made the mile-and-a-quarter water trek from Alcatraz to San Francisco more than 200 times, but never in a wetsuit. With a wetsuit, he says, “you’re not really enjoying the cold.” > “The land brain wants to go home, take a nap, forget about it,” he says. During times like this, he instead channels his “reptile brain,” which he believes to be an evolutionary vestige. “The reptile brain just comes out and says, ‘enjoy the water; enjoy the cold,’ ” he says. “Our ancestors may never have had a warm shower in their entire life.” The first one isn't really backed up from what I could see. Regardless, it seems people are stealing things and throwing them away or causing damage to them[0] because they have a personal preference to not use those things. Suddenly I'm completely on the side of the outraged wetsuiters. [0] > Over the years, in actual cold cases, wetsuits have mysteriously vanished from the changing room ... Later, the suits turned up in garbage cans or, in one case, hanging outdoors from a nail on the second floor of the building
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - derbOac 4y ago
    I guess the issue is why is "cheating" relevant if there's no competition? Or are most of the Bay area swimmers also doing races?
    - Doxin 4y ago
      Probably because not everyone agrees whether or not there is competition. You can have competition without it being an organized race. There are two variables in play, whether a specific person wears a wetsuit, and whether a specific person feels like there is competition. This leads to roughly four groups: A) non-competitive wetsuit wearers B) competitive wetsuit wearers C) non-competitive non-wetsuit wearers D) competitive non-wetsuit wearers It's not hard to see how you could get strife between group D and groups A and B. People in group A wear a wetsuit and don't see any harm because they aren't competing anyways. People in group B probably figure wearing a wetsuit is a valid way to improve your times. People in group D probably figure wearing a wetsuit is a cheaty way to improve your times and get upset. Having this strife between groups B and D makes some amount of sense, but since this is not an official competition there's no centralized authority to decide on the issue. Group A just gets caught in the crossfire.
lost_tourist 4y ago
How is it a nonstory? The article was about a culture clash and not taking the position of either side, but you implied the author said to not wear a wetsuit. I wasn't aware of this clash of cultures, as dumb as it is, so the story worked for me as a human interest story; not everything has to be about wars and mass shootings.
- NickC25 4y ago
  A non-story in the sense that a bunch of entitled people caring way too much about what is a trivial decision of someone else that has no effect on others whatsoever. This isn't about wearing a wetsuit for a competition. It's as if I made a big deal if you decided to wear a short sleeve shirt versus a long sleeve shirt during your workout....even though your choice of attire has no impact on my workout whatsoever.
  - jarden 4y ago
    You're missing the point. While trivial to you, the story is an example of the way in which individuals make choices that reflect their values and priorities. It's not just about the clothes we wear, but how we present ourselves to the world, and what we stand for. Therefore, the story can be seen as having relevance beyond the simple act of wearing or not wearing a wetsuit.

dredmorbius 4y ago

The interesting side of this may not be immediately apparent: open-water swimming in cold conditions is already a fairly niche activity, to which there's something of a natural tendency toward tribalism and clique-formation as well as an attraction to nonconformists generally. As with on land, what is worn (and why and how) says much about what tribe one belongs to, and an organisation with a long history (as the article notes, the South End Rowing Club dates its origin back 150 years) develops ... a certain institutional culture. There's also the physical and spiritual nature of the activity --- swimming in cold water is both quite bracing and less of a formidable challenge than many might expect, though of course there is a great deal of individual variance. Non-wetsuit-wearing swimmers still do wear caps (these are mandated for safety reasons, and are high-visibility colours), often insulating heavy silicone or neoprene. There may be a sense that wetsuit-wearers are violating these norms as well, perhaps because they are intruders or outsiders to an established community. On the pragmatic side, an improperly rinsed suit carries sand indoors which wears floors and paint, and clogs drains. Violating this practice can result in deserved criticism and sanction. That said, despite some basis in fact, the story here likely embellishes the overall nature of the culture clash.

zeruch 4y ago
"That said, despite some basis in fact, the story here likely embellishes the overall nature of the culture clash." That is the pithy, key, interpretation here.

j0hnyl 4y ago

Reminds me of this old classic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_Battle_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_Battle_Book

zardo 4y ago

What an embarrassment. I wouldn't want to swim in the bay without a wetsuit for fear of someone thinking I was one of these assholes.

somekyle 4y ago

This seems.. expected. Anything that makes something easier is gonna annoy some people for whom the difficulty was part of the point.

shellothere 4y ago

Unmentioned but likely related: the northern CA / SF surf culture, an adjacent group at least, has a huge contingent of shitty salty man-children intent on replaying their mediocre high school experiences of in crowd / out crowd nonsense and petty localism. (There’s plenty of great folks too of course. But the sheer volume of garbage is surprising).