Who Pays for Watch Media? – Influencers, Access, and Life After Hodinkee – Episode 96

0:00 But now it's almost like you assume even the people who are at an august institution like a, like a Hodinkee, it's like you just assume that they're gonna graduate on to do their own thing. This is Open Work, a look inside the watch industry, a podcast from Collective Horology. I'm Gabe Riley, co-founder of Collective. I'm Asher Rapkin, co-founder of Collective. And I'm Blake Bettner.

0:23 Blake is here! But before we say anything else, I'll do it this time. You know what? For old time's sake, Collective is an independent watch retailer based in Ventura, California. We carry a wide range of independent brands including Resonance, Singer Reimagined, Armin Strom, Ming, and more. To learn more about us and check out the watches we carry, visit collectivhorology.com.

0:48 As usual, no coincidence in the brands mentioned. Resonance, Singer Reimagined, Armin Strom, and Ming— Czapek as well— are all going to be at WatchTime New York. We're gonna be at WatchTime Watch Time New York. We're going to be at the Ming booth, so we will be there with the team from Ming. They're of course flying in themselves from all corners of the world. They are the Avengers of watchmaking. And our team will be there. Asher will be there.

1:15 I'll be there. Jeff will be there. Ellie will be there. So almost all of us will be there. Blake will be there in New York. Blake— well, that goes outside. He lives there. Blake lives in the basement of Gotham Hall, for anyone who's— he survives Phantom of Gotham Hall. He sleeps on his skateboard and lives off of Cheetos down there, you know. But, uh, so he'll be there, but that goes— that goes without saying. At Collective, we offer a comprehensive benefits package inclusive of Cheetos. Yeah, exactly. That's about it. Asher, what do we need to know about Watch Time New York? You always like to wax poetic about autumn in New York. Yeah, I mean, who knows? It'll be hot, it might be cold. Yeah, anything could

1:56 happen, really. Yeah, I mean, you guys know the deal. You've probably been there, heard us talk about it before. You need tickets for Watch Time. It's totally worth it. I completely understand here, like, $30 to go see watches that people want me to buy? That's absurd. No, it's not. It's an awesome event. Blake, the New York watch people, you know these folks, you see them at all the boutique events and things like that. The New York watch people, are they excited for Wind-Up and Watch Time, or do they view it as like carpetbagging where all the watch enthusiasts from out of town show up and, you know, make a mockery of New York? Yeah, no, I think there's a general appreciation around the events that are happening that week. Obviously, there's a lot of get-togethers and,

2:36 you drinks to be had and new watches to see and all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, I think this is a community generally that appreciates other enthusiasts coming in from all over the country, the world, you know, not to mention a lot of the watchmakers and the people behind the brands that you generally get to, you know, you build a relationship with these people, you build friendships with these people. So, you know, when you have events where you're able to connect with these people and, you know, see what's going on with their lives, what new watches they've gotten, all that kind of stuff, it's generally you know, a lot to look forward to with this kind of stuff.

3:05 And it's a lot of watches that you generally don't get to see anywhere else. You can't just walk into your random, like, you know, generally retailer anywhere else in, in the world pretty much and see some of these watches. So I think, you know, obviously the people, as you mentioned, getting to meet them and talk to some of the people that are designing these things and building these things is great. And then getting to go hands-on with them, it's really rare, like, unique experience that I think is fantastic. For one weekend in fall, the New York watch scene drops all beef they have with the bridge and tunnel crowd, welcomes them in just to see the watches. But no, you're right. A lot of these things you just can't see

3:41 anywhere else. Do we— wait, hang on. Are we bridge and tunnel now? I guess so. We're like, we're like the flyover crowd. We gotta get here from the, you know, whatever calls the flyover states where the cars still have 917 phone numbers. Is that, is that counting nothing? Yeah. Yeah. 917 phone numbers. And then, you know, the thing I look forward to, not, not maybe most, but one of the things I look forward to is not just the watches, it's the Korean food. Because of course, Gotham Hall near Herald Square. Okay. Is it Koreatown or Little Korea? I got a pitch.

4:10 So one of my favorite places to go— Do you tell them after? No, I already made the reservation. We're good. One of my favorite places in New York to take people who don't often go any, you know, haven't been to New York or, or you haven't been in a long time is Gaonuri, which is a Korean restaurant in Koreatown, but it's up on like the 40th 40th floor of this. We'll be taking you there. Like, we'll be there. It has some of the most— I mean, the food's great, don't get me wrong, food's fantastic, but the, the view is just 360 view of Manhattan from, you know, 40th, 40-something story building. It's absolutely awesome.

4:47 And for me, you know, getting to come home to New York, it's like an injected right into my veins moment of just like, this is all right there. Yeah, this feels very, very nice and very much like I'm back home. Then you go downstairs, you're in the middle of Herald Square with all the goofiness and, and quackery that happens around there at night. It just reeks of weed around there. I mean, we live in California, man, so, you know. No, but yeah, but that's really saying something.

5:11 Touché. So anyway, all that to say, whether it's Gow Norrie, whether it's my other favorite haunt, uh, Kenka downtown on St. Mark's Place, or, you know, any of the places that we end up at during watch time, I, I genuinely am psyched for. Asher has now disclosed his location for the vast majority of the weekend. Come say hello. All right, enough about New York. We're looking forward to it. It'll be fun.

5:33 Hey, something else happened in New York yesterday. What? This is a trigger warning. If you don't like hearing about tariffs, you can go ahead and just skip ahead. The agenda here, but sure, we'll go to what happened in New York. All right. So I'm gonna give the quick, the quick update on this one. Our lawsuit, which we filed with our co-plaintiffs Burlap and Barrel, was combined with a handful of other lawsuits of other small businesses and states' attorneys general that also sued in an attempt to repeal the Section 301 tariffs that we are all currently paying on pretty much most every good that's imported into the United States right now from about 60 different countries, which represents over 98% of all of our trading partners. So basically everything.

6:14 Yeah. These were the latest round of tariffs that came on in July as the last round of tariffs, which were temporary in nature because of the statute used to implement them, rolled off. So exactly. Tariffs are not just back, but they never really went away. Correct. And yesterday we had our literal day in court. We had our hearing at the Court of International Trade, which is also in New York City. And the case was heard by a 3-judge panel, which we hope will return their decision before the end of the year. It's obviously a long road there, but, you know, there's not a whole lot to report out of this other than to say it was interesting to listen to because, you know, I don't really generally listen to federal court proceedings. I'm way

6:55 more interested in watching watch reviews than that, but I listened to this one for obvious reasons. And, you know, so much of this was about the actual and this probably sounds obvious to any lawyer listening to this, the law as opposed to the vibes. And, you know, I am extremely proud of our attorneys who I think made a very strong case for why Section 301 has been misapplied. And I believe, and again, I'm biased here, that the government did, you know, made their best attempt at defense, but we're optimistic and hopeful that we'll be able to see some positive change here for small business and collectors.

7:33 So We'll put a pin in that one and come back to it in a few weeks, hopefully when we get a decision, whether it's in our favor or not, and give the evaluation of how that will impact the watch market. Because obviously, you know, our personal business interests aside, this impacts all of us as collectors, as Americans, and as global citizens. So more to come on that. But for those who are wondering, the case has been heard, the judges are deliberating, and more to come on that.

8:03 Yeah, I think your point is a really interesting one. You know, when we think about law and justice and, you know, certainly when we think about this, and I think a lot of the other plaintiffs in our case are small businesses and consumers who are suffering under— Other than the state's attorneys general, they're all small businesses. Yeah, when they think about this stuff and when we think about it, you know, it's like outrage. Like, this is unfair and this is capricious. We've talked about it, or this is just a pretext for, you know, bringing back tariffs because they were illegal the first time.

8:34 And what's really interesting— well, that part had some bearing on this. Yeah. But listening to, listening to the, the, the case, I ducked in for a little bit of it. It's interesting, the questions that the court wants to, to know about, it's all very technical. It's like, you know, what exactly is the nature of law? And the question was really one, at least it seemed to be circling around executive power and how much power or how much latitude does the administration, whoever is in, in, in that position, how much latitude does an administration have to sort of interpret and apply a law? Yeah.

9:06 As well as how much— and for anyone who's ever submitted a research report, I think you'll appreciate this— how much research constitutes fully researched? Well, that's what I mean. Like, do they have to dot all of their i's and do their t's, or do they have latitude to say, like, we believe this is happening and therefore can apply these tariffs? Or do they have to jump through all of the hoops that are listed in the legislation as far as documenting and reporting things before applying these tariffs?

9:32 And these are very technical questions, and in some cases also kind of constitutional questions. So it's interesting, you know, to be a plaintiff in a case where we feel strongly that this is wrong and we want justice. But really what it comes down to in the courtroom are these very esoteric questions about technicalities, policy, the application of a law, and ultimately kind of constitutionality, which is, which is fascinating. Not what you expect when you get into this stuff.

9:58 Indeed. And of course, because I couldn't help myself, it is a bummer when you listen to these cases because they only stream the audio. So there's no risk check for judge. Yeah, no wrist check. No wrist check for the judges. Interesting. Yeah, watches didn't come up at all, so kind of dry listening. All right, uh, the other thing I want to talk to before we get to our main topic today— Blake is here, of course, and we're going to talk about the evolution of watch media, which is a topic we've talked about before but not for a while. I want to talk a little bit about Galay. Now, on your wrist, Asher, you have— and you have acquired— how'd that get there? A Galay watch.

10:33 Tell us about what you've acquired, why you did it, and what your impressions are. Sure. So I bought a Flying Officer, the base model, so not the chronograph, with the orange dial and the green city disc— city disc— the green city track, as it were. I bought this from Rob Kaplan over at Topper Jewelers, who's one of the few authorized dealers that's selling Galley watches. So shout out to our friends at Topper. I bought it because I couldn't stop looking at it and I was too curious about it. And I think You know, sometimes with things like this, you know, you can go to a store and you can check it out, but the bottom line is unless you actually own the thing, it's hard to really form an opinion about it. And given how much we've discussed Galley and

11:15 how curious I am about them, I took a look at what, you know, the 2 factors I think a lot of people, you know, apply to watchmaking, which is like, well, what's my favorite from the line? Well, that's easy, it's the Yacht-Timer. Followed then by, okay, well, how much am I willing to spend on this line? I'm like, well, I gotta spend that much on this line, but I'm willing to throw down a couple of grand to see what it's all about. So I bought the most attractive of their base models.

11:38 Most attractive to you, in my opinion. And I bought it explicitly on the Breitling-style bracelet because that's also another thing I wanted to go hands-on with. What do you call this style of bracelet? Do you call it the drunk bracelet? The drunken bracelet. Because it kind of looks like it's swollen. Also, having sized it, having never sized a Breitling before, we could also call it a puzzle bracelet. It's really— oh, interesting. It's really quite an interesting— geometry catches up with you. Yeah, it's also a really interesting construction.

12:04 It basically, one part of it has the, the basically the, the— I don't know how to describe it— the screw channels on which the center link is already mounted on it. So it's 3 parts. It's an end cap, 2 screws, a center link, and then the other end cap, which has 2 full screw, basically like bracket essentially that the screw head screws into.

12:26 So to take 2 links out, you have to basically take 3 3 links off in order to disassemble it. If that sounds confusing— yeah, it definitely took me a few minutes to figure out. Anyone who sized a Breitling bracelet probably gets this, and anyone who hasn't is like, whoa, this is sized the way like a Breitling Breitling bracelet. Yes. So I remember the only same bracelet, or is the construction— it's identical to the way that my Aerospace Evo bracelet operated.

12:52 So Aerospace Evo, obviously titanium, fully brushed, clasp the same. I don't remember. I don't think so. Anyway, bottom line on this one, and I have to say, at the price point that they're offering this, I think it's actually a pretty refreshing watch. So the watch that I'm wearing, MSRP is $3,100. I think it's $2,900 on a strap. So it's like an extra $200 for the stainless steel bracelet, kind of a no-brainer.

13:15 Also, I've always liked the, the drunken look of the— I just think it's a distinct— Did you coin that, Blake? No, that's a Oh, the broader community has. Okay. All right. That's, that's what it's called then. Anyway, bottom line, I always thought it was a distinctive look. Yeah, I like it in this dimension. I actually think it looks, you know, so many Breitlings are so big that, or at least traditionally are so big that I think dimensionally this actually works really nice. It has a very slight taper to it. Yeah, honestly, I think it's good looking. There's a nice micro adjust in it. It sort of implies maybe the maker of this bracelet, like the supplier of this bracelet.

13:45 Yeah, I'm guessing it's Dexel, which is the supplier that Formex is associated with or owned by. Yeah, but a lot of people use Dexel bracelets because they're damn good. They're damn good. It has— if it's not made by them, I'd be surprised because it has that micro-adjustment system that they have and the kind of the clasp architecture.

14:04 It's a fantastic bracelet. It's a really nice bracelet, especially at the price point. The watch itself is very thin. You know, it's running off a Sellita movement. I find the sort of, you know, retro outdoorsy vibe of the colorway on this very appealing. There's lots of other colorways and the sort of like Tiffany blue, you know, sort of more monochrome. Look, just say wanderlust to you. Is that what— was it the wanderlust that got you, Asher? Yeah, exactly.

14:28 It was the giant elephant in all their photos. Look, I think watches like this are interesting because oftentimes as collectors, you know, we may set our mind on a grail but then perseverate over more affordable watches. And what affordable means to you obviously varies, right? You know, I have spent a lot of time going back and forth on a $200 G-Shock and then made a decision on something more expensive a lot faster. I don't know what necessarily the consumer impulse is behind that, but what I can say about this is I, I think it delivers on what it fundamentally is, which is a perfectly serviceable, really nice watch that honestly, I think gives Oris the biggest run for its money versus— like, I think if you look at this and

15:11 you're like, how does this compare to Omega or something like that? Well, it loses very easily. But the competitors have Longines, Oris. I think it's exactly— I think it's Longines, Oris, and Hamilton. And I think if you look at it that way, I think there's a lot of opportunity. Now, that said, Longines, Oris, Hamilton, very well-established brands, very like long track record. You know, lots of people view those brands with a lot of pride. They're collectors of those brands. They're big advocates of those brands. If we're talking about brands like Oris, they're deeply ensconced in the community. They take a lot of risks too. Absolutely. For production in terms of materials and things like that. So my point being like, I don't

15:48 know, it's not like I'm coming out here and saying like, these are Oris killers. Like, no, No, not remotely, but they're going to be cross-shopped. I think they're going to be cross-shopped. And I think if you pick up a, you know, an equivalent watch from those other brands, based on my couple of days of experience with this, I think it holds up. So the real question to me is this: is this watch groundbreaking?

16:08 No, not remotely. But is this watch potentially showing that Breitling might have a little bit more room to grow in the Sub? $5,000 market, and I'm excluding the heritage stuff that runs on the B09 because I think that's a crossover customer with Breitling, especially at that price point. But when we're talking about the Sellita-based watches, the real question for me is how they're going to start to exercise their creative— their creative rights on this brand, because right now they're leaning very heavily on the heritage.

16:40 That's fine. Good way to start. That's what they, in my opinion, what they should do. But Galay does not carry as a brand anywhere near the cachet of those other 3. Or the awareness of those other 3. So they have a long road ahead of them in terms of both brand building and creativity. But as a first watch out the gate, from a pure quality standpoint, if you ask me, do I think that this is worth what I paid for it? Yes. But it's not the same quality level as a Breitling. I would say it's an— it's a notch below.

17:14 When I had a Breitling in hand the other day, We took one in on a trade-in. Yeah, but it's half the price. A third of the price. Yeah, but this is my point. Yeah, we took one in the other day, and I was really impressed with just how substantial everything about the watch was, from the watch itself, bezel action, pusher action, the winding, the, you know, in-house movement and all. Like, the Breitlings are very substantial and impressive watches in hand. This is not at that level. And I have seen some— and I bring this up because I have seen some discussion online about these watches saying, well, these are just as well made as a Breitling. I don't think they— I haven't handled the Heritage, so maybe they are. Maybe those are. Yeah. But I

17:54 would say that this stuff, in my mind, when I had it in hand, you shared it with me and Blake the other day and we spent some time with it. It feels like it's at the same quality level, I think, as like a Longines would be, which is no knock on it, but it's not this. It's in a different quality fit and finish. Yeah. What I do— realm than a Breitling. I will say this though, and I find this to be kind of interesting as well. So when you look at the— and this I just find interesting from like a marketing standpoint. When you look at the house of brands, Okay, you've got the Universal Genève at the high end, which borrows nothing from Breitling. Yeah, zero.

18:28 Yeah, it exists as its own sort of halo product line. Galet borrows heavily from Breitling, not just in, you know, the obvious ways like the bracelet, you know, the caseback literally says, I believe, manufactured by— no way, really? Yeah, it's— yeah, it says manufactured by Breitling on the caseback of this watch. It's not in your face. Like, you know, it's not, you know, it's not like on the dial, which they could have, but they chose not to, thankfully. And the box it comes in is a Breitling box. It's just in a different colorway. Oh, interesting. The paperwork is Breitling paperwork in a different colorway. The warranty card is Breitling warranty card in a different colorway. And I just, I wonder,

19:11 and this might just be my marketing brain going, if this isn't them trying to kind of really have Breitling and Galet very closely associated in a way that they want to try and graduate up in the same way that Rolex and Tudor— it seems even more heavy-handed than the Rolex. It is more heavy-handed than Rolex. Well, I mean, not really. I mean, Tudor did have the crown, did have Rolex branding on it. I mean, here's a modern Tudor. Sure, sure, sure. But modern Tudor, like a modern Tudor box and a modern Rolex box are pretty much damn near the same. Warranty cards are damn near the same. Yeah. You know, so you see it there and I don't know that that matters per se, but, but it's clear that they want the connection between

19:52 Breitling and Galley to be very obvious in a way that they're not doing that with Universal Genève. Well, it begs the question, one of the things you brought up is like, oh, well, where are they going to go with the product? How is the product portfolio going to develop and expand and all that stuff over time? And I think it raises the question of, well, which direction do things ultimately go and shake out in. Do they continue to explore the Galet-ness of Galet, or does Galet the modern brand become more of a vessel for a baby Breitling? Look, I think at this point there's so— right now it's a little bit of both. Yeah. And honestly, I think that the awareness of this brand is limited to like people at the very, very deep end

20:33 of watch collecting to begin with. So honestly, they could go either way right now, and I think it'd be fine as long as they make a clear and defined choice, which is really what I'm looking for them to do. They did it. In my opinion, they had a very strong— like, this is a good product in the product class it's in. I feel good about it. I like it on my wrist. I think it's awesome. For those who are hearing this, no, we're not going to become Galley retailers. That's not what we're doing here. This is purely like just curiosity.

21:02 And yeah, I mean, right on. I will also add that I'm confident now having this watch on my wrist that your point from a couple of weeks ago that if this wasn't a Breitling brand within— with built-in distribution, I don't know that anyone would be paying attention to it. Not because I don't think it's any good, but because let's be real, is this materially better than, say, an Aaron that I would see at Wind-Up? No, no. And if it's going to compete with brands we talked about, which, by the way, is a brand I'd say with the same level of like, you know, heritage there for sure. And there are plenty of brands at a similar level of quality that don't have the distribution. If if this brand of Galet is going to compete

21:46 with Longines and Oris and whomever else in that, in that segment, which is very tough, they have to have the distribution. Because if they don't, they're dead out of the water. It is such a competitive space. There's so many great watches at $3,000 and below that are great quality, that have all the heritage that Galet has or more. So they have to have that distribution. So if they weren't a part of Breitling, yeah, no, we wouldn't be talking about it, wouldn't be on your wrist. Yeah, but it is, so we are— yeah, you can't dissociate. Yeah, hat tip. Blake, you, you see a lot of watches. You finally got— I know you saw some of them in, in Geneva, but you spent some time hands-on here. What do you think? Yeah, I gotta

22:25 say I was pretty impressed with this. The overall fit and finish was, was there, and I agree with you. You said, you know, the cachet, the awareness is not really there, so I think that's why it's smart of them to kind of lean into, yeah, this is made by Breitling for, you know, on the caseback, so they can kind of borrow as much of that cachet as they can. You think that'll stick around over time? I mean, I think so. Like, it's especially if they're, if they're coming out of the gate establishing it as, you know, this is why you should care about this, because it is kind of very much in this mold and that becomes a part of its identity right now that is adding a lot of value to the name. Right. Because it's,

22:58 as you said, it's a lot of people that are kind of really deep into the space that care at all about Galley or think about it in that way. What do you think would happen if it was— if they started saying Longines manufactured by Swatch? Yeah, different kind of effect there. I think the net result— I do. I mean, I do think that there is if that was just some random watch with some random name and I came across it at a show, I'd be like, oh, interesting, neat. And, you know, maybe move along or something like that. But, but I think this is a brand that would be easy to be cynical about because it just feels like, well, this was a business opportunity that presented itself, so it was born into the world, you know. And as

23:31 like a watch enthusiast, it's easy to look at that and be like, yeah, but where's the— where's the soul? You know, I don't think I was alone in seeing their initial— that's a lot of money for a Sellita movement. Like, come on, you know, like, what is this? But I was, I was, I was less enthusiastic about the watch that I saw released when they released.

23:48 Yeah, you know, I have been slowly kind of coming around, and then handling this, I was, I was more impressed than I was expecting to be with it. Yeah, the case profile, I'm really impressed with. That thing is, is thin and quite ergonomic. Yeah, so well executed. All right, let's talk about watch media. Speaking of going hands-on with watches and reviewing watches, a lot has changed in the arena of watch media.

24:14 We talked about this, we had one of our first guests was Stephen Polge We talked a lot about it. Number 2. So number 2. But Blake, you have seen it all when it comes to watch media. You were, of course, very early at Hodinkee, one of the first writers working at Hodinkee. You've spent time— obviously you're the managing editor at Worn and Wound. You built your own platform, The Deep Track. So you've sort of tracked almost every era and every domain of watch media and watch content as a solo creator, as a freelancer. As a full-time employee. You've also worked— you obviously work now for a retailer that's part of this watch media ecosystem as well.

24:56 You worked for a secondary marketplace, StockX. They were, they were into watches for, for a time, although it looks like they've maybe moved out of that, out of that category, aren't involved in such a fulsome way. So you've really seen— you're one of the few people in the industry who have really seen it all. And I guess from, from your, your perspective, like where watch media is today, and let's take the example of the, of the Deep Track, you know, it's a platform you created yourself out of nothing.

25:31 Is, is that a good thing for you as a creator? And is that a good thing for the audience? So I think ultimately what I wanted to build was something that, that was good for the audience and really done for their benefit because I think, you know, when you look at the landscape of watch media out there right now, how they're making the businesses work, you know, I think kind of ranges from, you know, a lot of them have opened up shops and things of that nature or, you know, a lot of very overt kind of advertising and partnerships. And that's something that always has kind of rubbed me the wrong way. And I've, you know, I felt like if I was going to build something myself, I wanted it to be completely independent of anything like that. So there's no ads on,

26:11 on my podcast or website or anything like that. It was— it's really done kind of for the enthusiast space. And, you know, I thought if I was making something that had value to these people, then, you know, I'd be able to find support through, you know, things like Patreon, or if I have a shop and I put a hat in there, that's, you know, stuff like that, that would give the general enthusiast space opportunities to support me without having to compromise any of the content being created. So, you know, I think that was just kind of like the platform that I wanted to establish in my way and keeping it really independent so that I could kind of talk about the things that I wanted to talk about without being influenced by, you know, these partners or

26:48 that partner, or this is the kind of, you know, brand that I have to keep my relationship up here with so I can get access to that kind of stuff. That wasn't really a motivating factor for me at the end of the day. Yeah, I remember listening to— I think it was on a Deep Track Pod episode a couple of weeks ago where you were talking about like why you don't do negative reviews, for example. And we've, we've had this conversation with a couple of people, but I keep coming back to it, which is interesting, right? Because from our standpoint, like we did this in reverse, right? We are a retailer.

27:16 We've decided to make content. Not the other way around. So our business doesn't rely on content. In fact, we— I don't know how to phrase this in a way that doesn't sound derogatory, but like it's a loss leader for us. It's something that we do because we want to do it, not because it makes us money. You know, all those YouTube residuals, right? No, but it's all— I mean, let's be honest, it's also a marketing channel. Sure, of course. But my point is like the business could exist without it. Yes, it could. You know, even though we want it to exist with it, which is interesting because sometimes when I look, for example, at the comments, when we do something like there, there can be a lot of vitriol and negativity there on certain topics.

27:55 And I often wonder from a media standpoint, is that in response to or due to lack of? And what I mean there is sometimes people, like, I get the feeling people like, why is there never a negative review about something? Like, is that And it's a rhetorical question, I suppose. Is that there because somebody really feels that something deserved a takedown? Or is that there because they feel like their point of view about it isn't being recognized? Like negativity in watch media or negativity in media in general, I think is kind of an inter— actually, let me rephrase it. I don't know about negativity. Forceful evaluation.

28:37 Like, think about it like this. Nobody— like, there are bad film reviews, right? There's bad book reviews. There's bad product reviews. All of these things exist and they exist for different reasons. Like when you're critiquing, if it's a good reviewer, if it's A.O. Scott or something, you know, and they have a negative review of a film, usually that's based off of some artistic idea or principle or something that the reviewer believed the film was trying to accomplish or not and failed at it. Or an opportunity that was missed, right? But in watches, we tend to see a lot of that from the community.

29:14 Sometimes it's a very informed perspective, sometimes it's not. But we don't see that from writers. Putting aside the business side, because we talked about access with Stephen years ago, why not? Like, why couldn't a reviewer, for example, look at your point about like creating something for people? Why couldn't a reviewer look at a watch and talk about the missed opportunity of it? It without, you know, as opposed to just letting— not covering it at all?

29:42 Yeah. You know, to be honest, I think that's a hard thing to do. And I don't think a lot of reviewers know how to approach a review in that way. And that feels like it's still being productive. And I think a lot about my place. What is my role? What is my responsibility, you know, in these things, especially in light of the Christopher Ward drama that kind of came up the other week? And— oh, that's interesting. Yeah. And I always kind of think of it as like, well, how can I be, you know, productive, like talk about things in a realistic way, that is helpful for a brand like that instead of like, I'm not out here to like drag any watch or brand because none of us need any of these watches. And unlike a movie or a book, there's not like an explicit story that's

30:20 being told for me to judge in the same kind of a way. This is like pretty subjective things like the color of the dial of that Galet, right? That's not going to be for everybody. And I don't want to— I hate this phrase, the yuck somebody's yum or whatever. Like, I realize that a lot of people are into this for very different reasons than I am. And I don't want to like drag them down because they appreciate things that, that I don't. So I want to like really navigate this in a productive manner and talk about it in terms of, you know, here's my historical context that I can bring to this, here's what I think works, here's what I think doesn't. If you go and read any of my reviews, and I've written loads of

30:56 them, there's always plenty of negative things in there. It's just not being approached from a, man, these guys really missed the mark with this watch, read the full review. Hey, it's Gabe. Now, if for some reason you find yourself wondering what you can do to support Openwork and the good folks at Collective Horology. You can of course pick up an independent watch or maybe some merch at collectivehorology.com, but really the number one thing you can do to support us if you're enjoying the podcast is give us a rate and review on your podcast player of choice. That just goes a long way to helping the right audience find this show. And while you're at it, you can check out and subscribe to our YouTube channel where we've got hundreds of videos on independent watches

31:40 and of course on the business of watches. Thanks so much, of course, for listening and for your support. We hugely appreciate it. We never take it for granted. Let's get back to the show. You said something to me a couple of weeks ago, which— a couple days ago, I don't know, time's a flatline circle— which I thought was kind of interesting.

31:59 I think we're talking about like in-house movements, and you mentioned early on at Hodinkee when you were writing for them that you would put something out there, you'd have some thoughts, and then you'd read the comments or see somebody's reaction and be like, whoa, no, no, no, that's not what I meant. And I thought that was kind of related to this idea of critique as opposed to being critical, how it must feel as somebody, as a journalist who's putting an idea out into the world and have somebody completely take it differently than you had originally intended and how you manage something like that. Yeah, it's tough. And I think there's a lot of things, or at least through the years, there's a lot of maybe

32:37 not mistakes, but things that I would maybe phrase differently or say a little bit differently. Yeah. You know, I could go back. Same. And honestly, like, it's helpful when people leave comments or send me notes about, you know, hey, I read your review and I, I think you missed this, or here's why I think they did it that way. That's very helpful for me.

32:54 And, you know, I don't view myself as some like special person above anybody else in the enthusiast space that's reviewing these things. Like, I am one of those same people. So I try to take that. You know, like seriously, is my responsibility for how I talk about these things. And can I do this in a constructive manner, in a thoughtful manner? And that's always the kind of like, again, it's all this historical context that I try to bring into, into my reviews. And, and it's always coming with something personal. Here's what I enjoy about watches over here.

33:23 So with that in mind, here's what I think about XYZ watches. So here's a— here's another question that I've been sort of wondering as I look at this. A couple of years ago when you and I, Gabe, were talking about predictions, and we talked about the decentralization of watch media a couple years ago. Yeah.

33:40 And it looks like that's largely, generally speaking, come to pass. Yep. And I see that in a couple of ways. Obviously, you know, influencers continue to grow in their pervasiveness around the internet, speaking to different, you know, subcultures and microcosms of the industry. A lot of the talent that was well known or is well known has dispersed, right? Danny Milton is over at Teddy. Thank you, Teddy. You're here. Blake is here. You're here. Stephen Pulverant has gone off and created Rhyme and Reason, is curating the Craft and Tailored magazine. People have moved on to brands. Cole Pennington's at Tudor. John Bews is at Grand Seiko. Ilya Rivkin from Worn& Wound— Blake's— the guy Blake replaced, he went over to Grand Seiko,

34:25 I believe. Like, the— whether it's born inbred content creators, like, you know, they came up— like a guy like Ben's Watches, you know, people like that who started, or, or people who came up through more traditional media. It's all now dispersed. So bearing that, and it used to be like, it used to be like, man, the thing to do if you aspired to be a watch journalist would be to land a gig, you know, writing full-time at Watch Time.

34:52 And then it was like, uh, or any other, you know, there's probably like some magazine— cut your teeth at Time Zone, you get recruited by Wristwatch Aficionado, find it in the airport next to Cigar Aficionado. Or like, you know, then it was like, oh, maybe someday I'll make it and I'll be at Hodinkee. You know, like Tony Traina, he wrote a newsletter and then like graduated up to Hodinkee in a sense. But now it's almost like you assume even the people who are at an august institution like a Hodinkee, it's like you just assume that they're going to graduate on to do their own thing. So this is my question for you, which is, so that's happened, the decentralization, right? You called it, Asher. It was because you called it. Yeah, I'm right. No,

35:33 anyway, it, it's a thing that happened. You created something new. You created the Deep Track. But I wonder now, imagine you didn't, and imagine that you didn't work here. If you were to start a new watch media insert, like whatever venture of some sort. Yeah. Today in, on October 1st, 2026, What do you think you would do? I mean, you know, again, like to me, I want to create things that I feel like are in my wheelhouse instead of catering to, well, here's what I think is going, like the influencer stuff. I see what gets a lot of eyeballs there.

36:12 And I personally don't find it all that compelling. What does get a lot of eyeballs there? Access. And, but it's not even just that. It's, it's, it's, you have to have the access to something that's different. But if you're at an event that's like really fancy, you, you, you go about your, your thumbnail creation, you're all the little kind of bits and pieces. So let's, let's dig into that. Access, flexing, and hot takes. Okay, so let's dig into this for a moment because I think this is a part of the industry that we actually haven't discussed a lot about. But I do think is important for us to understand a couple of things.

36:45 One, what would motivate a person to do that in the first place? Two, what would motivate a brand or their comms team to want to pay those people to do that work? And three, perhaps the most interesting, what do we think that's accomplishing? So let's break that down. So first, interestingly, and you and I know some of these people personally who before they were influencers, you know, like I can speak and I don't want to name check people or whatever, but like I can think of at least one person I know who was out in the LA watch scene as an actual genuine enthusiast who then became an influencer. So I understand that, like, to be clear, I think a lot of people come to this. Exactly. A lot of people

37:27 come through because if we were always like, I know what I'm gonna do— no, I don't think that's true. I think plenty of people do. I think most of them sort of stumbled into it. They're genuinely interested in watches and they started producing some content and short-form content. They're good at it. Yeah, exactly. They're compelling personalities. There you go. And they bring something to it that whether they have a unique style— like, I can, I can think of some people, for example, that have have a very distinct and unique style, not just unique opinion. And that I think is kind of, you know, like a really interesting way in. Like styles and taste. Yeah. I think there's also people who have unique style and like they're compelling presenters. Like people

38:05 like an Andrew Morgan or Ben's Watches. Like they know, of course, a lot about watches, but they're compelling people who have this magnetic personality that sucks you into a reel. Well, the interesting thing about Andrew Morgan, and I think this is actually a little bit of an exception to the rule, is that For him, his absolutely fantastic voice notwithstanding, which of course was how we all got to know him in the first— just the hand, the talking hand, was that he does not actually fall prey to any meme that he did not himself create. And what I mean by that is, think about it, the talking hand was him, right? In the same way that, like, you know, like, I've always wanted Tim Mosso to make taking it off and donning it, or taking it off

38:47 and donning it bedside. To be his, like a sweatshirt. Yeah. You know, because like, it's such like an iconic thing that he talks about. I see what you're saying. Like they've created culture themselves, but they don't fall prey to the traditional memes. Like there's, they're not doing any like ASMR nonsense, you know, in the way that we're seeing that we do see some people do it where they fall into a larger trope of influence as opposed to, you know, having their own point of view. So anyway, my point is I see how some people can find their way into it. Let's talk to me a little bit about what you think the brand sees when they see that. And then, Gabe, I would love to know your point of view about what you think they— that that will do for—

39:25 from a consumer perspective, because everyone here clearly thinks this does something and it's become way more pervasive than it ever was before. So I'm curious your points of view on that. Yeah, I think, you know, taking a step back, a lot of brands have become wise to the fact that when they do these similar kind of events in their boutiques and, you know, do champagne, maybe a little forum or something like that, which, which we've done even together before for sure.

39:53 Yeah, so many memories. Speaking of tropes. Yeah, it's— but it's a lot of the same, the same kind of people that come to that. And I think brands are thinking, look, we do these things because we want to get new people into our ecosystem. So if they see avenues out there, the Benz Watches of the world or whatever, as getting an audience that is very different from the, the lot that shows up— and when you say that, do you mean like a broader audience within the watch community, or do you just mean like a broader audience? I mean a broader audience because interesting because— and I think this is worth acknowledging too— a lot of these influencers that are coming into it, they're not talking about watches the same way that, that you or

40:26 I might, or an Adrian Barker, or like a, like a watch nerd might. Yeah, they're talking about it in, in other ways that, that, that a new generation, but a different audience, is finding attractive about this. Its cultural significance, its, its fashion impact. Maybe they don't care so much about the movements or anything like that. There are other reasons that they find this interesting and compelling.

40:46 Maybe it's the rarity, the expensive, right? All that kind of stuff I think has its own audience, and there are people that latch on onto that stuff. So that creates a very different complexion of an audience from your stereotypical watch nerd that goes to all the events. You see, back when I worked in digital media, I don't know if you remember this, Gabe, but there was this moment where someone at Facebook had the brilliant idea of creating a creator marketplace.

41:08 You remember this? Yeah, sure. And do you remember why it kind of stepped on a rake? No. It was because it was unmeasurable. On the one hand, like the biddable marketplace for people to get the jobs, you could build that, right? Which is like, hey, I'm a, I don't know, I'm a camera accessory maker and I'm trying to make, you know, I'm trying to reach like a broader audience. I'm going to bid this out to people who say that they can do this. And you can see how a marketplace like that works. Good idea. Well, on the buy side, right?

41:41 The challenge was And we get hit up with cold emails all the time with people saying like, hey, I want to create content for you. And if you respond, you're like, okay, well, how effective is that content? Their response is like when you, when you get a response from like a bad PR agency, it was like, oh, we'll get you lots of impressions.

41:58 And you're like, well, what is impressions? Don't, don't feed my family or build my business. Conversion does, like sales do. So how do you do on the sales front? And then they're like Homer into the bush. Yeah, but I think you're thinking about it like a marketing person thinks about this stuff. And when I see content creators engaged by brands, it's usually through PR and that, that makes more— it's usually the PR person at the brand who's reaching out to them and enrolling them in all that stuff. So like, think for instance now about how content creators get invited to say something like Watches and Wonders. Yeah. It's done through the same PR people who are making decisions about which journalists

42:42 and media outlets and things like that are recruited. So you're arguing that it's more top of funnel awareness and way less about actually selling something. I think you, from your perspective, everyone votes from where they sit, right? And so you typically, you have a background in marketing, right? And so you think about it as like a media channel in a sense. And it's like, how is this measurable?

43:03 How is this targetable and addressable and all that kind of stuff? Sure. And the way I've seen the watch industry metabolize influencers, and this is the same reason why that creator marketplace failed at Facebook as like an advertising vehicle, is it's being done mostly in the— through, through PR. And so think about how we started this conversation. We talked about how the media landscape of watch media, the landscape of watch media has evolved where it shifted from very traditional media to digital media, and now it's very decentralized. When— if I'm a PR person at a brand or working for a brand, it used to be that like, you know, 10 years ago or less, if I wanted to successfully launch a product, I really only

43:51 had to think about getting coverage in Hodinkee. That was the— I was just thinking, I was just thinking this where, you know, the, the— like an introducing article in That's all it took, 2017, 2018, is now sold watches. Sure. But my, but my point is, I think now it sounds like what you're suggesting is the modern-day quote-unquote introducing is a much more diverse play across 12 influencers plus traditional media.

44:20 Exactly. Yeah. If I'm understanding what you're saying, Blake, is that theoretically from the brand standpoint, that's gonna cast a wider net for them, they think, than than if they stayed purely in endemic media, which on that point, I think is probably true. I think what they're saying is like, you know, the Hodinkee introducing thing was like an ATM machine.

44:39 You put the card in, the money comes out, the sales come out. Now they are like, that doesn't work anymore. That's broken. Yeah. So what do I have to do? I have to get the coverage in Hodinkee and everywhere else in endemic media. Then I also need to be thinking about other content creators, whether we call them influencers or not. And then I also need to be thinking about like celebrity endorsements and things like this. We were just talking about— did you know that Ryan Reynolds was at Geneva Watch Days? So look, one of the things we were just talking about— you guys know that? Yes, I knew that. One of the things Blake and I were talking about yesterday was this Wind Vintage True North, the latest Windtona watch, the pastel color

45:19 watch. We have other people— Dreamsicle. The Dreamsicle Windtona. But people call it like a ride at Six Flags. In any event, like, designed by his daughters, that watch is everywhere, you know. And Eric is a very shrewd and savvy business person, and my hat tip to that guy. Like, sure, he's, he's figured out— but he's got the coverage in Hodinkee and everywhere else. But, and, but then he's sending the watches to content creators in the watch space to go hands-on with, and he's doing like celebrity and other influencer endorsements outside of the watch category as well, whether it's DJs or athletes, musicians, things like that. And I think that is just a broader microcosm of what we've talked about stepping way back. Forget about just

46:02 watch media. We've talked about how much harder it is to just launch and sell a watch in 2026 than it was just a few years ago. Oh, for sure. You have to pull out all the stops. And to me, yes, it's true that watch media is decentralized and you need to, you know, spread your bets, but you need to, you need to spread your across all media and all possible channels just to sell a watch is a much heavier lift today than it was in the past. And so I think it's viewed mostly as like a communications channel versus a marketing channel.

46:35 Yeah, I also think it depends on what you're trying to sell. I think in some senses the introduction article on Hodinkee isn't entirely broken, like it's still getting a good exposure to the— to that kind of like core audience. But if you want to be selling to a different kind of audience and really kind of spread like like your attribution window, right?

46:52 And I think they work that into that maybe backwards. Like they'll, they'll, they'll maybe try a bunch of different things. What worked? Oh, could we sold these watches? We know that the typical user journey, right? It's going to take this long. And here are the kinds of typical touchpoints that we would expect along that.

47:06 And then they'll look, you know, well, this is, this is how this event or that creator altered that, right? Like it gave us a broader fingerprint for our attribution window, which for, you know, some kinds of watches, is very long, right? And for some it's, it's, it's kind of falls more into that impulse territory. But I think now that they have options to kind of spread their budget into, well, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to reach into this kind of like fashion crowd and the culture crowd. And that's just as important as hitting like the Hodinkee crowd.

47:34 But I think if they're less, if they're trying to like make an impact on the enthusiast space, but they're not very confident in what they're selling, they're going to be going into these more newer parts of the space. You know what I was thinking as you said that? Thinking back to one of the more arguably interesting watch releases of the last few months, which was the Jeff Koons. Oh, those are cool. Yeah. And I have, I have a feeling you're into those.

47:55 Personally, I am, but I don't want to get into like the watch. Sure. Sure. Like, because that's like a whole barrel of fish. See you in the comments. But my, but my, my point though is interesting that, that, that did not utilize like that PR strategy did not utilize influencers in a dramatic way. And I find that kind of fascinating. What was the PR strategy for that in a nutshell? They had an event in New York. They did.

48:20 I was invited to it. I think a lot of us do classic media, and I'm not a guy that like covers a ton of Hublot, but— and I also wasn't at the event, but I would imagine the kinds of people, influencer types that were, that were there, they got— Jeff Koons was there. They got to talk to them. You know, I saw a little bit of that, but like what I found really interesting about that was like the watch kind of spoke for itself.

48:39 One thing about Hublot, like whether you like them or not, their watches are so loud with what they're trying to say creatively that they really do speak for themselves. And you can— and they're very polarizing. Totally. And I find no, like, getting into the details and, like, checking the lug-to-lug and all that. It's just like, you either like this or you don't.

48:57 Yeah, exactly. If you're buying that watch because you care about the movement, like, dude, you need to buy a different watch, right? You know? And, and I think to a certain degree, like, I feel like a brand like that is actually so strong in its ability to make a presentation because it doesn't have to convince you because you can't buy a watch like that because you've been convinced. So when you're saying they didn't engage influencers, do you mean influencers were there? What I'm saying is like, I did not see the wave of influencer content, you know, watch influencer, watch influencer. Yeah. And I think Blake's making a good point, which is like, there's like this spectrum of these influencers or

49:34 content creators, whatever you want to call them. Yeah. There's like deep watch enthusiast content creators and/or influencers. And like, like, to some extent you're in that bucket. I wouldn't say— we maybe won't tarnish you with influencer, but you're a content creator in the watch space and you're very much coming at it from that enthusiast standpoint.

49:52 The other end of the spectrum are people who are just sort of enthusiasts or content creators writ large culturally. You know, they have an audience, they might talk about all sorts of things, but they're more sort of a broad cultural influence, or they may have— they may sit more in the music world or in the art world or fashion or things like that. But, and then there are these, these people who straddle the middle. Okay, I think a good example of that would be someone like a Georgia Benjamin, right, who is clearly a watch person, right? She, she was who I was thinking of as having like a distinct style earlier. And we love Georgia, she's, she's great, but she clearly knows watches and clearly loves watches and is in deep as a

50:32 watch collector. Well, Georgia is interesting because she approaches it with a very clear point of view about what she's into, you know what I mean? Like, she— like, I can— like, she loves vintage Piaget, vintage Cartier. Like, that aesthetic fits, like, her overall fashion sense, and therefore she has a right to speak about it in my mind because she's coming from a place of, like, real personal opinion. Her audience, I think, therefore is broader than people who are— for sure— like, you know, who follow a Blake or an Adrian Barker, who are like, I want watch content straight to the vein. She is more interdisciplinary in that she talks about fashion and design and lifestyle.

51:08 Do you think that if it was 10 years ago, do you think that she would have been like a Malaika Crawford kind of character and a contributor to Hodinkee? Well, she would have been doing it for Hypebeast or something like that. Yeah, yeah, that's what Malaika was, you know. And that gives them, I think, a very interesting perspective that I don't have. And that's why I value people like that.

51:26 And, you know, even if it's not like what I find compelling about watches, I find her compelling, you know, and people like her. So, and for me, it's like, it's important, I think, for people like Adrian and I who nerd out about FXDs and stuff like that to understand the reflection of that side of things and how that is growing the space for, you know, basically for all of us. I mean, you're right in terms of like me approaching this from, from what'd you say, like from where I'm voting, from where I sit. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm— you're right. Like I'm trying to categorize people in a way, you know, where it's like, well, you have like the Adrian Barkers of the world, you know, who fit into like this box that

52:01 I'm shoving them into, you know, or the, you know, the Georgia Benjamins of the world or, you know, or or the Benz watches or like whatever. Way more amorphous. Exactly. And I think that's kind of like what I'm trying to, to wrap my head around, both as a marketer and an enthusiast and a business owner of just what all of this means. Because like every other function or in the job, in the industry that we're in now, it's in flux.

52:28 Yeah. And I think it's easy sometimes to sit back and be very dismissive and cynical about this kind of stuff. You know, but at the same time, if we're cynical about this, then what we really are also doing is stifling creativity and opportunity because we're saying, well, don't take that risk. That's a dumb risk.

52:49 But take these risks as I think these are more measurable and I'm making fun of myself here. You know, they're, they're more measurable and more like guaranteed when in reality, like to your points, a watch buyer is a very broad category. We tend to focus on very particular subcultures and niches. And the watch enthusiasts aren't even the ones that the industry really runs on. The industry writ large, yeah, more casual buyers. And, you know, I even would go so far as to say, like, when we look at some of the people who like to stir the pot, right? So you mentioned earlier, for example, the, you know, like the whole debate around, you know, Christopher Ward.

53:26 And I don't want to like open up that can of worms, but suffice it to say there are different roles I think that some of these folks can play in a way that does feel more diversified than media was 15 years ago. Think about, for example, so obviously I follow a lot of political media, right? I won't get into the specifics of that, but in political media, whatever your particular affiliation is, there are different people that play different roles. There are provocateurs, there are hard reporters, there are are policy wonks. Totally. There are folks that sit all the way in between. And we're the policy wonks of watches.

54:04 Is that a technical term? Yeah. Anyway, so maybe, maybe because it is a far more established and like well-trodden road— I mean, political commentary has existed for centuries. Watch media is very new, relatively speaking. Political commentary and media and, and all that is all up in the air. As well.

54:26 Sure. But my point is like the acceptance of diversified perspectives and different, you know, different coming from different shops, I feel like is much more de rigueur for, for politics, for example, than it is, say, for watches, which is more niche, smaller community, blah, blah, blah. But we're kind of seeing that come out where we have a little bit of the jokesters, we have a little bit, you know, and we saw this starting to come to life with watch humor, remember? And like a watch cringe. Yeah. Cringe. Oh my God. Or like, or like just mockatours indeed. Or like all of that various different stuff.

54:57 You know, coming to life. And I wonder if we, if we, if we do like look at this just as a new landscape, I can admit that I don't know how it will continue to grow or evolve, but I am confident that we have moved away from like the gatekept nature in many ways of media. You know, if you have an influencer not just being sent watches to handle and to talk about, or content creator, whatever you want call them, a person who makes stuff.

55:31 That's already eliminating a massive form of gatekeeping. And if they're one, and if they're brought into the events, that's another layer of gatekeeping. And there's a certain, there's a certain like honesty there too, because I don't think anybody looks at a content creator that was invited to an event and thinks that they got themselves there. You know what I mean? Well, this is a question I have for Blake, which is like, there's been a lot of cynicism about watch media, you know, and watch— let's say watch journalism. Like, we talk— obviously there's a whole notion of access, like the journalists, quote unquote, don't want to piss off the brands because they lose access. There's also a lot

56:08 of cynicism around the view that, like, oh, must be nice to be a watch journalist because you get flown around the world business class by brands and put up in the finest hotels and fed caviar while they show you watches. And I don't know the extent to which that is true or ever was true or whatever. But I think there's a similar cynicism about watch content creators, which is, oh, they're all in the pockets of the brand. The brands are loading them up with gift bags and free watches and trips and things like that. And I don't know if it's true or not true, or to your point, I don't know if people realize that or even care, but I guess, are the rules of engagement between, let's say, a watch content creator or influencer with

56:52 a brand different than they are between a watch brand and someone who's a more conventional watch journalist. Yeah, I think that's, that's an interesting point. Like, you know, I'm not Victoria Gemelsky or like, right, that's not my, like, you know, I'm going to— I'm going to— for the Victoria's New York Times and Robb Report reporter and JCK editor.

57:10 And, you know, she can like go and interview a CEO and really kind of like hold them to the wall on, on something that they promised last year or something like that. Right. Like, I'm I'm covering like, I know my sandbox and I know my area of expertise and I kind of try to stay in that. So I wouldn't consider myself like a journalist in the sense that I'm like chasing down like a story. You're a more— you're maybe somewhere between where like you're a more established or— and I don't mean this in a bad way, but a more sort of like conventional watch writer or editor versus someone who's coming in purely growing up in the social media world. Yes. And I get access to, to a lot of these kinds of trips. I've been on a lot of these kinds of

57:50 things, and I've seen what goes on there. And, you know, I've never been with a publication or personally, like, taken a watch for— that's generally against the rules at places that, that I have been and worked in. And personally, were you offered? I've been offered watches, and it's generally something I'm like, look, that's not how this works. I'm not— was that offered to you as a quid pro quo or just sort of as a friendly thing?

58:11 It's implied, yeah. And sometimes it's a, well, you know, okay, well, what kind of coverage is gonna come with this? Some people have Some people have blurrier ethical lines around that kind of stuff, which I can't speak to, but like in terms of my experience, it's not something that's been like tolerated and a part of it. Granted, you understand that like a lot of us are being flown around first class, you know, all being treated to the nines and all that.

58:36 And that kind of comes with this like, okay, well, so what are we gonna— like, am I gonna go and shit on the watch after that? Like, probably not, right? Like, that's the brand's thinking. I am generally not going to be a part of these things unless I've previously found something interesting about what they're doing or what that brand is that I feel like I can speak to in a way that's like adding value to, to the enthusiast space as a result. So I'm not doing it because I'm motivated by the, by the trip or whatever. It's just a part of the access.

59:04 Yeah. So that's the cat and mouse game that I think they understand that they're playing with, you know, with, with these media people. Yeah. I mean, this boils down to also the fact that, I mean, we talked about this earlier with watch time. There's hundreds hundreds of watch brands that are gonna exhibit at WatchTime.

59:19 There's thousands of brands in the world. Obviously, we talk about a small number of them here, but there are countless amounts of watch brands you and I have never heard of, and then brands on top of that. Yeah, so fighting— so fighting for attention is a legitimate thing for any brand, no matter what you think of them. And I understand— I mean, I suspect what you were talking about when you talk about some of these press junkets, these are larger brands because the budgets required for that are meaningful and significant. But with smaller brands, I can understand how hiring content creators, you know, is— it feels like a really great idea financially as part of your media or your public relations strategy. It's scalable,

1:00:00 it's much more rationally priced, and it probably reaches these larger audiences, which I think broadens the aperture a little bit on— opens the aperture a little bit rather on what, what I think people expect from and want watch media to be. On the one hand, there's this, this angle of like, well, I want like actual critique, which is what we talked about in the beginning, right? But then there's the other side of it, which is just information, right? Like, I just want to know this stuff exists. I want to see that it was announced. I want I want to just be aware of it because this is a topic I care about and I love and I, I just want to miss out on something. Yeah. And by sheer, just like the effort involved in publishing for a Worn and Wound or a Hodinkee

1:00:47 or a Fratello or whatever, there's only so much you can cover. I, you know, you know this having written it. I know this having pitched them. Like there's only so much. So the, the creation of these new outlets through, in, through content creators, influencers, you know, does allow for much more pervasive watch content, which then creates yet another interesting problem, which is how the hell to consume all of that. It's all so fragmented.

1:01:12 Exactly. So we exist, you know, and that's where you sort of get to like this thing that also existed a few years ago of like creator-based networks that we sort of see on YouTube and trying to like corral that based on on creator reach or content areas or things of that nature. And again, I don't have a solution for this per se, but it does demonstrate that both the opportunity and the opportunity cost that comes in when media becomes so fragmented. Because it's not just about trust, it's not just about quality of content, it's just about the sheer— it's like trying to take a drink of water out of a fire hose.

1:01:55 It's so, so much. And I think that, you know, to your point earlier about like the Hodinkee introduced, the power of an introducing on Hodinkee, that was because Hodinkee was the dominant media at that time. Sort of the paper of record. Exactly. And by sheer attention and market share could swing something. You know, it's not an issue of the quality of the content per se. Hodinkee still writes great, they still great stuff coming out of Hodinkee. It's just— They had the ability to command attention, focus attention. Right. It's just the market is so much just more heavily diluted.

1:02:28 Yeah, I, I— we've talked a lot about the role that the media, the content creators, and the PR people and all that stuff play in all of this, but I, I don't want to dismiss the role that the, you know, the consumer, or the consumer of media, or watch enthusiasts, you know, consumers of this content, play in it too. You've pointed this out— the power of the WhatsApp group— many times, which is, well, something a little bit different. You've pointed out so many times that, you know, people want watch media to be accountable and have high standards of integrity. Like what you're saying, you know, you work for a large— if it's The New York Times, there's very clear ethical guidelines. If you work for a Hodinkee or a Warren& Wadden, they're going to have

1:03:10 guidelines too. If you're just an influencer or content creator, the guidelines are whatever you feel like, which may be totally above board or might not. Who knows? But they want standards. They want quality. They want critical reporting, honest reporting. You know, if someone doesn't like something, they don't want them to be afraid to say it.

1:03:29 One of the problems is you have to be willing to pay for that, and people aren't. So part of the reason, you know, Blake works here, or people have moved on from watch media to watch brands, or they work at other retailers, or the editorial— what was once an editorial company becomes a retailer or part of a retailer like Hodinkee— it's because people aren't willing to pay for the thing they're asking for. You know, and there's some exceptions. I mean, but then they'll still bitch about, you know, all the ads that I see, or, you know, the, the retail side of it. Yeah, like, or they don't want to pay the Patreon, but they complain that the podcast has ads or things like, like that. So, you know, we have— we've got some—

1:04:11 and I mean this as we as watch enthusiasts have some responsibility here ourselves. If we don't want to pay for watch media then it kind of becomes the Wild West and the content has to find a benefactor, someone who's going to bankroll it. Yeah. Like my mom would say, you got to create the world you want to live in, right? Amen. That's right. Well, look, we're not going to solve this today, but it's an ongoing— it's an ongoing conversation.

1:04:39 And, you know, I would, for one, love to hear from listeners on this one about about not necessarily, I mean, share whatever opinion you want, but I'd really like to understand what content creators you guys find compelling and why. I'm really interested in that because I'm trying to form my own perspective about it and I really value our listeners' points of view on this. So I would love to know who you follow, why you follow them, and what you like about them. So feel free to put that in the comments or shoot us an email. And make sure you follow Blake at The Deep Track. You can of course find his work at collectivehorology.com and our YouTube channel, all that. But check out The Deep Track, seriously. I,

1:05:22 I, I listen, which for full transparency, we are not associated with. We are not. Oh yeah, by the way, The Deep Track is completely independent of Collective, and that's something we, we want, and I'm sure you do too. Yeah, it's— look, it's my little corner that I talk about like weird dive watches and sport watches from like the mid-'90s.

1:05:40 That's the good stuff. It's— yeah, it's— I don't— and to be like totally honest, I don't consume other watch media. I know a lot of these guys. I try to amplify— like, I remember when Ben's Watches came on the scene, I invited him on my podcast because I want to give a younger generation that thinks about things maybe differently than I want to give them a platform and help them. And of course, now he's, he's big and huge, but like, I never— I'm not chasing anything in that territory. Like, I like my little— like, this is how I— this is what I like about watches. And this is what I like to talk about, and I'm very comfortable in that. All right, well, check it out at thedeeptrack.com.

1:06:15 And of course, thank you so much for listening. Open Work is a production of Collective. Now you can find us online at collectivhorology.com, where you're going to find so many independent watches, including from many of the brands who will be at New York Watch Week and Watch Time New York. You'll also find a ton of Blake's work.

1:06:34 He's creating more every day, and we are thrilled about that. Of course, get in touch, let us know who you follow, which creators you love, and to do that you can email us at podcast@collectivehorology.com. That's a lot of money for a Sellita movement. Like, come on, you know, like, what is this?