King of the Surf Blogs

Korduroy.tv’s Cyrus Sutton Discusses The Battle of The Blogs Win

Last week, the independent San Diego-based surf blog Korduroy.tv beat out two of the most popular blogs in surf—Dane Reynolds’ Marine Layer Productions and Paul Fisher’s Follow The Fish—to take home the SURFER Battle of the Blogs title. We caught up with Korduroy’s founder, Cyrus Sutton, who gave us the lowdown on a how a little-known blog aimed at “spreading digital aloha through video how-to’s, short films, rants and interviews” earned themselves the title of the Best Blog in Surf.

Where you surprised at how well you did?

CYRUS: Yeah, I didn’t expect us to win at all. When I first heard of the contest I was apprehensive because I thought we would get overlooked with all of the big names in the running.

"I think Battle of the Blogs has also helped legitimize Korduroy to some people," said Cyrus Sutton, founder of Korduroy.tv. Photo: Ellis

During the Battle of the Blogs how many people were visiting the site?

There were around 3,000 people coming to the site everyday and I think normally our average is 1,500-2,000 viewers a day. Our base isn’t the hugest—it’s not like a Dane Reynolds’s fan base, but they were tenacious and got their friends onto it.

Do you think Battle of The Blogs benefited Korduroy?

Yeah, for sure. It got a lot of new people to look at the blog. I think Battle of the Blogs has also helped legitimize Korduroy to some people. I mean, SURFER Magazine is such an established brand, that I think it got past viewers saying, “Oh yeah, you guys really ARE doing cool stuff.”

Toward the end of the competition did you start to think, “This is fun, but now I want to win?”

I don’t think it ever got that way for me. I didn’t expect to get past Dane’s blog, so after we got past him in the semis, I was like “Alright, we’ve already won,” because he’s huge and has such a great blog. During the final I was swamped with the editing of my new surf film, so it was always fun escape and to check out the standings.

Then you got Paul “Follow The Fish” Fisher in the final—how did you think that one was going to go?

It’s pretty funny. I actually thought Surfy Surfy would make it to the final. I thought they were going to go all the way, because they had a blog when I didn’t know blogs even existed.

When you saw the support for your site did that make you want to take Korduroy to the next level?

I have a vision for what the blog’s going be and we’ve all been working hard on it for a year now, so yeah, it felt good to have people supporting us. And I think it really helped the younger guys who are part of the crew like Jack Chellemi, who’s the guy that shoots a lot of our videos. We’re not getting paid for this, and it just backed up the work we’ve been doing and made everybody feel appreciated.

Since you make your money doing mainstream commercial work, would you say Korduroy is your creative outlet?

Yeah totally. I started Korduroy, because I woke up one morning and realized all I knew was how to buy and sell stuff. I wanted to take steps towards becoming more self sufficient and thought a video blog would be a good way to combine my past media experience, with where I wanted to go in terms of learning the basic skills none us were ever taught in school.

What is next for Korduroy?

Right now we’re gearing up for our “Get Stoked Tour” which features my new film “Stoked and Broke” and a collection of short films. In the next couple months we’re branching out as a platform to help other stoked creative-types connect and inspire in this new media world that has left many high and dry. Other than that we’re just going to keep cranking out shows about things our viewers want to see.