The Rhetoric of Surf: A Lexical and Archetypal Migration of Los Angeles Counterculture into Popular Culture

In this essay I will argue that the Hollywood generated surf movies as well as surfing texts have inculcated language and images particular to the surfing culture of the 1950s, through the 1970s, into the zeitgeist of popular culture, reaching its peak in the 1980s. The semantic shift of language to suit the purpose of the culture industry, as well as the burgeoning surf industry, is generated in its purest form by the surfers that areactive in the culture of surfing: both industries benefit from the commodification of selling surf culture and the beach-as-a-lifestyle to the uninitiated masses