"Super unfair!"

There was once a time when things were simple and people stayed in their assigned categories. Bad boys were bad. Society girls were rich. Jocks were sporty. Nerds were smart. Weirdos were weird. Surfers had heads filled with air. Society existing in perfect balance. Of course, as it goes with evolution, the main attribute of any in their designated camp was counterbalanced so as not to give one ultimate power. Bad boys, for example, smoldered and attracted society girls, bringing them down lest they rise too high. Nerds were ugly and awkward lest they combine their big brains and good looks to clean up all the babes. Surfers, empty and vapid, a good enough time but never taken seriously.

Harmony.

Alas, all has been shattered. While nerds like Mark Zuckerberg has been attempting to shed his ugly and awkward for years, it is clearly not working.

Enter the World’s Smartest Surfer

The world’s smartest surfer was, once, Bron Heussenstamm. The Southern Californian wasn’t a great surfer, though good enough to regularly have photos appear in magazines. He wasn’t that smart, but smart enough to get into USC. Barton Lynch and Ace Buchan also considered “smart” but by surf’s wonderfully low standard.

Now?

Kanoa Igarashi has shattered the status quo.

Yesterday, the Japan-by-way-of-Huntington-Beach 26-year-old posted a studious self portrait. Was he examining surf reports? Maybe putting items in his online basket then taking them back out again?

No.

He was attending class at Harvard.

Igarashi attends Harvard. He is the world’s sitting surfing silver medalist. He is the current World Surf League number 14. He has boy band good looks.

His only burden?

The voice of a muppet.

And occasional bouts with Tourettes.

Igarashi having so much, while others have so little, has sparked a new class war, one that threatens to undermine the last bits of peace and goodwill on earth. Picketing currently being planned for Portugal, where Igarashi also lives an incredibly rich and satisfying European life.

Super unfair.

"Where did we go wrong?"

Heartache is currently ripping through every house that a surf journalist calls home. Brothers Sam and Matt George Skyping, earnestly questioning the value of their divine drippings. Sean Doherty slamming his head against his Michael Peterson shrine. Nick Carroll telling his brother Tom that he wishes he was never born.

Much despair.

Yes, what was once a vaguely passable occupation has devolved into an embarrassing horror. A blighted landscape bathed with the flickering glow of Surfer magazine’s AI powered masthead. Where did we all go wrong? What could we have done differently?

It starts and ends in Nashville, as it turns out.

Taylor Swift Rules Everything

Newspapers, which have been busily firing people for decades now, have flipped a U-turn and are hiring again. Not surf journalists or political hacks or foreign correspondents, no, but dedicated Taylor Swift reporters.

Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the country, announced it was desperately seeking a cub to solely discuss the most popular woman on the planet two months ago. After hundreds of applications, Bryan West from Phoenix, Arizona was pegged.

“I would say this position’s no different than being a sports journalist who’s a fan of the home team,” West told Variety. “I just came from Phoenix, and all of the anchors there were wearing Diamondbacks gear; they want the Diamondbacks to win. I’m just a fan of Taylor Swift and I have followed her her whole career, but I also have that journalistic background: going to Northwestern, winning awards, working in newsrooms across the nation. I think that’s the fun of this job is that, yeah, you can talk Easter eggs, but it really is more of the seriousness, like the impact that she has on society and business and music.”

He believes that the “biggest moment of contention” is going to be Taylor Swift’s “hidden vault songs.”

What do you think it will be?

More importantly, how would Sam George cover Taylor Swift?

Exciting to ponder.