Jen See on “kinky AI surfers” and Surfline’s attempt to regulate adult beginners

Can Surfline convince all these lost souls to find the right spot for their abilities? I don’t hate them for trying!

Surfline killed Surfline Man. I can’t tell you the exact time of death, it was sometime last week while I was out surfing, probably.

But it happened all the same.

A reel posted on Instagram plunged a wooden stake through our hero’s hapless heart. Standing on the beach, I saw the incriminating clip and that’s when I knew.

Part of the new Surfline project aimed at improving lineup etiquette, the clip features a surfer named Dayton who can’t decide where to surf. It’s firing and he can go surf with his friends at the very best spot or he can pick an easier, more accessible break. In an effort to teach us to surf within our abilities, Dayton chooses the B-grade spot.

Surfline Man’s essential characteristic has always been his utter and complete lack of self-awareness.

No matter what happens to him out there, he’s never imagined that he has anything to learn. Surfline Man is an expert surfer. He just needs the perfect board, the ideal fins, and a seasonally appropriate, limited edition HydroFlask.

Throughout his many misadventures, and he’s had a few, Surfline Man has never realized just how much he is constantly and forever fucking up. Even though his problems have mostly been self-inflicted — paddling out at Ocean Beach on a board that was too short, surfing his precious midlength without a leash, to name just two — he has never gotten any smarter.

Last week Dayton realized that he should not follow his friends to the best wave in his area on the very best day. Instead, he should be honest and think about his surfing abilities in a realistic way. Dayton doesn’t run off to buy a new board or a fresh changing robe. He just, like, goes surfing at a spot where he might actually be able to catch a wave.

How self-aware. How enlightened.

The push from Surfline to educate the surfing community about lineup etiquette and instill wiser judgment is admirable. But there is a catch. It requires more surfers like Dayton — self-aware and realistic — than maladroit dreamers like Surfline Man. I’d love to believe in Surfline’s optimistic vision, but I’ve seen Surfline Man out there. I know exactly who he is.

One day last winter I was out surfing the top of Rincon. It was overhead, windy, and beautiful. It wasn’t the kind of surf that is trying to kill you or anything ridiculous like that — just a winter day in California.

I turned to go on one, and when I looked down, I saw a lost soul drifting around below me. Perched on a bright yellow, seven-foot Craigslist special, with his legs spread, he could barely paddle. Obviously, Craigslist wasn’t going to move anytime soon.

Yes, I could have gone, and most of you probably would have. And you know what? It probably would have been totally fine. But I have a deep aversion to getting hit by a loose Craigslist special. That thing’s definitely going to leave a mark..

Craigslist didn’t belong out there. That’s not because of some exclusive, gate-keeping idea that the ocean isn’t for everyone, which is the argument often leveled against lineup rules, localism, and hierarchy. Instead, it’s a reflection of the simple reality that the ocean isn’t for everyone on every single day.

I’ve walked away from spots that looked a little too unruly, and if you’re honest, you have, too. Sometimes the challenge is fun. Other times, it’s a lot of water up my nose. I like surfing a lot more than I like drowning. Despite a lifetime in the ocean, or maybe because of it, I’m actually really fucking scared of drowning.

The reality is, surfers who are in way over their heads show up to just about every known spot now. The internet tells them there’s surf and out they go. They have an uncanny knack for paddling out on wildly inappropriate boards on days they have no idea how to surf. None of this is super great for anyone in the lineup.

A while back, I used to surf with a guy who would yell, “Go to Mondos” whenever someone got in his way. Mondos is a spectacularly perfect beginners’ spot between Ventura and Santa Barbara. I doubt most of the people he was yelling at had any idea what he meant.

Also, it didn’t work. Even then, there were a seemingly endless supply of fools who needed to go to Mondos, but didn’t realize it.

Can Surfline convince all these lost souls to learn some etiquette and find the right spot for their abilities? I definitely don’t hate them for trying! In fact, I would love for more surfers to gain even an iota Dayton’s self-awareness. I would love for them to actually go to Mondos — and not just in the hope that it means more waves for me.

There’s a value to progression and to learning things like surfing step by step. You don’t buy a mountain bike and go drop Rampage lines on the very first day. I hope you don’t, anyway. Like, please don’t do this. I like you and I don’t want you to die.

If you have ever learned a thing from the ground up — surfing, music, riding a bike — you know there is satisfaction in accumulating skill over time. I’m still working on the “write a decent sentence” thing, for example.

Another day, another apocalyptic crowd.

“You just have to be an asshole to get a wave out here,” my friend says. He’s not wrong. You can wait your turn, not burn anyone, and do all the right things — and you’ll have been super nice and a good person. But you’ll also probably go home without having ridden any waves.

Play the asshole or the asshole plays you. I’d like to move through this life without turning into the worst possible version of myself, but surfing doesn’t necessarily reward this way of thinking.

In a past life, I studied nuclear strategy which is a thoroughly depressing thing to study. I do not recommend it. The essential thing about nuclear weapons is that they can destroy the world many times over. This is all very chill and fine.

Suppose two countries sign a treaty agreeing to “no first use” of nuclear weapons. If both countries hold to the treaty, everyone wins and there’s no nuclear war. If one country cheats on the treaty, they blow up their enemy and they win. If both countries cheat, everyone loses and the world is destroyed. Cool story, bro.

What’s called the prisoner’s dilemma — where there is an incentive to cheat, but also where cheating means that everyone loses — also applies to stuff that has nothing to do with blowing up the world. In an anonymous lineup, so overcrowded as to be laughable, there are few incentives to follow the rules. Burn someone, and you’ll get a wave. Breaking the rules pays off. When everyone gets burned, though, no one has a good time.

Repeated interactions are one way to break the incentive to cheat. In a small circle of surfers who see one another day after day, there’s more reason to follow the rules. These people know you and they will punish you in various ways if you cause trouble. They may even start working together to turn a cheater into a pariah.

Without these relationships — call it a community — there’s less incentive to follow the rules. No punishment, no problems, brah.

Of course, following the rules might improve the situation for everyone. And that’s the hopeful perspective Surfline is bringing to their project. They want us all to have a good, safe time in the water. That’s the message at the end of their short video about our new bestie Dayton, who’s kinda cute if AI-generated men is your kink.

The disparate, selfish individuals who populate the lineup, the people how just want to have some fun and get a couple sick selfies on a Saturday — I don’t think rules or learning are really what’s on their minds when they show up at the beach. The effort to save our lineups from ourselves feels like too little, too late. Surfing is well and truly cursed.

We’ve met the enemy; the enemy is us.

And so, Surfline Man isn’t dead yet. The rumors of his death are entirely premature. He is totally still out there.

Right now, Surfline Man is pulling into the parking lot in his Sprinter with his new personalized Stanley cup in hand. HydroFlask, so yesterday! Bounding out of the car, he changes into his wetsuit under his favorite fuzzy changing robe and saunters down to the beach with his brand-new board tucked insouciantly under his arm.

Riding waves! It’s the best thing in the whole world!

And Surfline Man is not about to let even a hint of self-awareness ruin his day.