[ambicapter]

"To be fair, the situation is even worse than you describe" I think this is called damning with faint praise?

[trealira]

"Damning with faint praise" is more like when you try to think of some good quality in someone but fail. Something like this:

"What were your parents like when you were a child?"

"They were fine; they even let us make friends with other children sometimes."

Actually, I guess this really is a "damning with faint praise situation."

[danenania]

Point is this is (unfortunately imo) part of surf culture in general and isn't specific to Hawaii. Hawaii is known for localism, but so are many other places around the world. Santa Cruz CA, for example, is one of the worst.