I’ve never liked communities based around buying certain products. So much gatekeeping and drama… and for what, to spend money? It’s a marketer’s wet dream.
I don’t see any value in celebrating the fact that someone went out and spent money to get something, or stood in line to get something.
The community is based around the objects… For enthusiasts, watches are neat. It’s an interesting thing because they are functional jewelry, and you can’t actually own that many cause they are expensive, and you can use even fewer at a time cause you only have two wrists (and even watch people will make fun of you if you wear two watches at once).
So the real community is talking about new things, what’s coming up, what you like and dislike, surprising history, a lot of stuff. In my group, we absolutely celebrate when someone gets a new watch, but not cause they’ve passed some kind of gate, but because they now have something they can enjoy and build memories with.
The truth is, marketers will take advantage of any hobby
Also, watches are frequently a guy hobby. It’s better than it used to be but men don’t have as many jewelry choices or ways to accessorize their style especially when dressed up or for work.
My experience has been the complete opposite over on the watch subreddit. I never saw any gatekeeping and if you posted a picture of your new $10 watch there absolutely were plenty of comments on how awesome it is and how happy everyone is for you to get something you like. Also a lot of talk about the history and inner workings of watches not just circlejerking over brand names. Overall a pretty positive and encouraging group in my experience.
Consumerism at it’s finest. We get so worked up for things that should never get much emotions out of us. Watches, cars, console wars, fashion brands, mobile OS 🤮🤮🤮 We should make the effort not to care so much about brands, and just buy less. No one needs a watch
Not buying a watch is not going to solve consumerism. As someone who owns a (non luxury) watch I think that they’re really useful, and that more people should give them a chance
My comment was mostly about brand loyalty and the madness that ensues. As for the usefulness of watches, i realized they were redundant when i broke mine over 10 years ago and never bought another one again. We can all tell time from a phone, a computer, a train, car, microwave etc… Spend a week without one and see. Fine if you prefer to have one, but it isn’t a necessity or even a tool anymore, more of a fashion accessory.
the fashion has nothing to do with that awful pedophilic book
I’m aware you’re not the original author, but I can’t really let someone bashing Nabokov stand unchallenged, so I’ve reproduced one of the top comments from the original post:
I appreciate the post, but need to defend Nabokov — Lolita is not a pedophilic book — it’s an ANTI-pedophilic book.
Nabokov is trying to show how deluded and unreliable the narrator Humbert Humbert is, even as he uses beautiful language to describe his monstrous crimes of murder, kidnapping and rape.
Humbert is trying to lure the reader into sympathizing with him. Nabokov won’t let him.
And it's not just anti-paedophilic, it's one of the best books of the last century in my opinion - his writing is superb, the way Humbert is a creep who tries to dress everything up in flowery language to disguise what he is when he is just the same as Quilty, it's all really good.
He was quoting a Reddit thread. The thread was from 2022, but I would bet it was copied from something written in 2017 or whenever the Al Franken thing happened.
Yeah, if I remember correctly, this was written around the time franken was expelled from congress. In hindsight it was definitely a bit silly, because he didn’t actually do anything, but given the context it just looked bad at the time
The context was he didn’t actually do anything. His own party denied him the chance to defend the allegations and demanded he resign without investigation. It was as bad a look then as it is now.
You might think they are brainwashed, but it’s definitely not “mega corps”. These companies custom design each item, using uniquely sourced materials. Their not like Gucci or something, they arent pumping out millions of items and then artificially keeping supply low by destroying items, the revenue of these companies are in millions, not billions.
This isn’t the case of regular brand/throwaway culture. The materials are all high quality and if taken care of well, the items can be resold at the same value in the future.
What I don’t understand about Angelic Pretty specifically is many women that don’t have the right body size for their clothes will still buy them and then go through an inordinate amount of effort tailoring it so it will actually fit, usually themselves. These projects can be incredibly complicated depending on the dress design, to the point where I start wondering why some of these women with great sewing skills don’t just make the dress themselves from scratch.
I’m not into Lolita fashion myself, but this seems a similar to a discussion I saw about Dungeons & Dragons. Why spend all that time homebrewing a bunch of new systems and rules for situations when there’s another TTRPG system that already has systems and rules for those situations? Because some peoples’ enjoyment comes from tinkering with an existing product, adding onto it. They also get a starting point instead of having to build a whole new TTRPG, design and sew an entire new dress, for themselves. For some, it’s easier to see a pretty dress and change it to fit yourself than it is to think of a design for a pretty dress you’ll love as much. It’s easier to start a Dungeons & Dragons campaign and add on rules to tack onto it than to come up with a whole new campaign or rule set yourself, or to come up with the same campaign idea with the other TTRPG’s world as a basis.
Oh man have you found your community, assuming this settles into a continuation of the original subreddit. Obscure interests lavishly produce "inject this directly into my veins" drama.
Chase is an ass, but John Landis’s Safety record really did need to be mocked. The man should be in prison for what he did.
The TLDR is that Landis broke a shitload of laws that were set up to specifically stop the tragedy that unfolded. Landis was a dictator style director, his word on set was law, nothing happened without his say so. Then at the trial, he basically said that he had zero control and blamed the pilot of the helicopter. Somehow he got off.
The simple facts,
A, Landis hired the preteen children for his movie without the required permits.
B, Children have strict working hours when they are allowed on set. Landis didn't want to shoot a daytime scene, so he ignored that law.
C, Pyrotechnics have some laws about use around children, Landis ignored them, and even hid the children from the fire warden.
D, It was technically not illegal to fly a helicopter through pyrotechnics the way Landis ordered, but it was for fixed wing craft.
I remember reading the original post! I knew nothing of him beyond my family’s annual holiday watch of Christmas vacation, so this was an eye-opening read. Thanks for reposting it.
So this was super interesting and I went to check out the watches… why why why why why is every watch a variation of the color of the associated planet and goddamn Venus is pink?! Because clearly they needed a lady watch and us ladies always want pink? Grrrrr pointlessly gendered. Sorry I got carried away, anyway nice writeup.
I wouldn’t say that I’m a watch collector. But a watch enthusiast? Definitely. I love watches of all types even though I have my own personal taste.
So what was it about the whole Omega x Swatch debacle that upset me? The fact they were basically gatekeeping a plastic watch that was a homage to the moon watch.
I stand by the fact that the price of a watch doesn’t really matter in terms of true value. Which is why budget timepieces have a high place on the list of many watch enthusiasts (see Timex or Casio).
This watch should have joined that list. It should have been a catalyst to introduce more people into the hobby of collecting or simply admiring these wrist worn works of art (occasionally lol). Instead, it’s another case of fomo and splintering of a community of people who already find ridiculous reasons to gatekeep each other (the write up points to this fact very clearly).
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