"The goal is to look like you just threw together your outfit last minute, plucking discarded clothes from your bedroom floor or from the back of your jeep..."

Now, anyone here with a young-ish daughter or niece has come to realize the word “aesthetic” has an entirely new meaning in this modern age. In old times, it simply referred to the particular principles connecting an artists work back to itself or that defined a whole artistic movement. Now, it means style and is quantified by a descriptor. Girls can be VSCO, cottagecore, fairycore, dark academia, baddie, pastel goth or the newest and hottest, surfer nephew.

What is the surfer nephew aesthetic?

Per Fashion:

Think about what one of the girls from 2002’s surfing movie Blue Crush might wear today for a casual dinner with a hunky out-of-towner — perhaps a white tee layered over a slip dress with Tkees sandals and a raffia bag? Quintessential surfer chick Ivy Sullivan from 90210 is another good reference. The goal is to look like you just threw together your outfit last minute, plucking discarded clothes from your bedroom floor or from the back of your jeep, and they just happen to look phenomenal together. It could be your situationship’s oversized button down! Your brother’s old graphic tee! The only criteria is it has to look casual, coastal and oh so chic.

The phrase was coined by stylist Allison Bornstein and is related to the desert aunt aesthetic though the desert aunt is into dogs and cats, surfer nephew just dogs. The desert aunt also says “wonderful” while surfer nephew says “awesome.”

Observing the obsession with different aesthetics is, I must say, fascinating. Girls will get in knock down drag out fights if their aesthetic is either mislabeled or misidentified.

A wild sort of localism we surfer uncles/fathers can only dream of.

“It feels a little bit like we’re running down the beach to get to the surf while trying to put our boardshorts on at the same time.”

Now, the last thing any surfer wanted or needed was the exhumation of Surfer Magazine’s rotting corpse. Once proud and true, Surfer had fallen into various odd hands before David Pecker stuck it in the heart with a gilded knife and buried it in a shallow unmarked grave.

A short handful of years later, the Arena Group, a “tech powered media company,” marched into the wood with shovels, found it and shocked it back to life. Being “tech powered,” the easy go was to plug artificial intelligence into Surfer’s brain hole et voila.

Emily Morgan.

Except investors weren’t happy with non-humans writing, editing etc. and so the powers that remained tapped one Jake Howard. A dominant figure in surf editorship, having held positions at the World Surf League, Red Bull, etc., Howard wasting no time, in changing directions entirely from Surfer’s old cloistered and mean, often racist generally misogynistic reputation to… well, to a bold progressive future.

Howard was, officially, finally introduced via a Shop-Eat-Surf interview moments ago and let us read his words without spin.

“It feels a little bit like we’re running down the beach to get to the surf while trying to put our boardshorts on at the same time.”

“Surfers today are seeing the sport differently. They’re coming at it from different perspectives. There are more women and people of color in the water than ever before. And, for many surfers, surfing is just part of their outdoor interests.”

“We want to invite them all into the big tent. We all started surfing because it’s so fun. The world is seeing challenging times and surfing can be a beacon of hope. Let’s build on that.”

“Evergreen stories that will be meaningful and hold their value — that’s our guideline.”

Clearly a brutal slam on BeachGrit at the end.

But bright skies ahead