San Clemente was just the beginning for them. For their first swing through Manhattan Beach, Chad and JT advocated for the city’s water-treatment center to be renamed “The Britney Spears Toxic Water Center.” (The city of Manhattan Beach does not have a water-treatment center. JT, naturally, sang Britney Spears’ “Toxic.”) They stopped by West Hollywood to battle a proposed ban on Bird scooters. (“I get tremendous joy as I travel from poké shop to smoothie shop on these wonderful chariots,” Chad told the council members, sounding earnest as they laughed.) They critiqued the Los Angeles city budget—the “budge”—in front of the LA City Council, where they urged the government to consider adopting things like “an anti-carbohydrate campaign similar to the D.A.R.E. program,” “more Coachellas,” “streets where you can drag race legally and more safely,” “wave pools for inlanders,” “lightsaber research and development,” “hoverboards that actually hover,” and “free oysters on Valentine’s Day.” They traveled to Laguna Beach, where they asked the council to literally adopt Kevin, the “shmole” or annoying friend in their squad, because they realized that they had no choice but to “boke” him from—kick him out of—their crew. JT brought his mother up to vouch for the veracity of his claims.The simplest way to understand Chad and JT is that they act as slightly exaggerated versions of their actual selves, empathetic and self-aware SoCal surfer bros who preach improvement and tackle mundane and heady topics through language usually reserved for encouraging keg stands. At their core: They love being “stoked.” They enjoy it so much that it is at the center of their half-serious, half-farcical political agenda.
Chad and JT’s performative selves are better people than they are. Their whole “shtick,” or whatever you decide to call it, is that they are relentlessly optimistic, constantly working to make human beings more fun, thoughtful, and laid-back. Their act is as much comedy and a display of free speech as it is self-betterment in action.