A meandering summation
Everyone is going to start posting “Year in Review” type content. Some will be “Most Worn Watch”, some will be SOTC. I am going to have family in and will be thinking less about watches and talking about watches, so I may as well get my contribution in on the Solstice. I may also meander towards my interpretation of the meaning of WatchCrunch.
No surprise, my most worn watch is a 1950’s Croton whose plated case has been beaten to hell. It was my #1wc watch. It is a mere 32mm but wears large because it is all dial. It is not too small for my perfectly sized wrist. I have worn it twenty-one times this year. Yes, I kept count. This watch has no special meaning to me. It is not a legacy piece. It just keeps good time.
This year I have worn 67 different watches. I no longer own 13 of them. I own two that I have never worn. My top five this year are my Mido Ocean Star and Multifort, my Nivada Super Antarctic, and my Phoibos Voyager in addition to the Croton. I often wear multiple watches a day. The Nivada and Phoibos get more wearing than WRUW would indicate. I am tired of keeping stats. That ends today.
On December 26, 2021, I was sitting in a comfortable chair, probably wearing sweats, watching one of @benswatchclub ‘s videos when he mentioned WC. I used to lurk and occasionally comment on WatchUSeek, but never became immersed in it. I created a profile here and dipped a toe into watch social media.
WC was a different place back then. There were many, many fewer people. There was no WRUW, or polls, or any of the bells and whistles that we take for granted today. @Max was here, obviously. @Mr.Dee.Bater , @VegasDancer and @tempus were here. I don’t know how they knew. @YourIntruder beat me by a week. I saw @foghorn and @biglove join in the next few days. I recognized them from other forums. That was validating. There are others that I am forgetting.
I think that the normal progression is to post the “look at my new watch” posts. Then some people post longer “what does this mean” posts and some will deliver “this is the history of this brand” type posts. I mainly fall into the latter camp. The next step of evolution is to gradually post and interact less and fade into the background. (It is time to send out the search party for @DeeperBlue.)
Some people can’t take the WC “niceness” policy. I have been “put in time-out” a few times and it rankled me. I have had posts and comments hidden. This used to bother me more. I am more selective about my comments. I troll less. I have learned to let people be wrong. Most of the people that I have argued with have quit. A few block me. I miss their stupid posts and comments. Really, I do. I have a generally dim view of humanity, perhaps due to my occupation, and I appreciate when rubes self-identify.
But, I am coming around to @Mr.Dee.Bater ‘s way of thinking. We have been arguing about this policy since the beginning. WC is a better place to be when we treat each other with a modicum of respect. I remember when all of the Reddit refugees arrived with their thumbless grasp of manners. It was a rough couple of weeks.
The content on this site has become diluted with its size and popularity and especially with the introduction of the app. It is hard and inconvenient to type with thumbs. This was written on a computer. Of course, it was. That dilution is natural. That is not a criticism. Everyone gets one time to say that a certain brand is underrated or that this or that is going to be the next Omega. (Keep saying it and @Porthole‘s head will explode.)
One last thought about content, I am a fan of long form posts. I want to learn something here in addition to seeing pretty watches. If you take the time to research it and write it I will read it and engage with it. I may not agree, but by all means stretch out and write something. That is still where WUS has WC beat. The collective knowledge in old comments and posts there is where our research often begins. WC should be that place. I really like it when someone who is new finds something that I wrote about West End or some other brand a year ago and gets something out of it.
Speaking of all of the above, I still try to write long form posts, but I am fading away. I put them over at theescapementroom.com . That is because I don’t want to get in trouble here and I don’t really feel like arguing in the comments. I argue for a living. It gets old. I may write something about crime and watches over the holidays. Crime is something that I know a little about.
I was despairing about the quality of content here a few weeks ago and then a new crop of good posts dropped. It is cyclical. Be good, be careful. Crunch on.
Restitutor Orbis. Aristocrat of beauty. Autocrat of time. (Trying to perfect trolling over at theescapementroom.com)
Bravo!!
Excellent post 👏👏
Well spoken, and I for one would LOVE to get into some taking points/dialogue about crime.... 😂.
I too know a little about it....from a certain point of view so to speak...🤏🏻😅
Love it.
Fakken-A, spot on, just the sort of post I’ve been looking for, another hot brewed cup-o-truth from the Aurelian. I was just thinking about the early days of WC and how much it’s changed.
I feel myself fading into the background a bit.
For me, online community pales in comparison in real community and some here evolved from online friends to actual friends. So I felt some of those old social desires sated. And after 50 something odd #watchesinthewild and kid number 3, it began to get a little hard to write something new about yet another Rolex or Breitling spotted.
Yet, there's much to like and want to engage with here. I don't mind the "see my new watch" posts...though I rarely engage with them. I find that I like herding the cats that are forum commenters into feats of ever crazier charitable giving.
And even the watch spotting...I suspect I've just gotten a bad run as of late. It is, as you say, cyclical.
So a slower velocity for now...but not forever.
I feel this will be an algorithmically challenged post.
Shame - but they get what they want in the end.
It is getting harder and harder to create content for this platform, the short attention spans and lack of care for fact is challenging. The algorithm is still broken, and the churn is relentless. Factor in that this is turning into Instagram, us old guard are no longer welcome it seems. There were some key moments, we won’t go over old ground, but there is a reason many of us have given up.
I feel myself fading into the background a bit.
For me, online community pales in comparison in real community and some here evolved from online friends to actual friends. So I felt some of those old social desires sated. And after 50 something odd #watchesinthewild and kid number 3, it began to get a little hard to write something new about yet another Rolex or Breitling spotted.
Yet, there's much to like and want to engage with here. I don't mind the "see my new watch" posts...though I rarely engage with them. I find that I like herding the cats that are forum commenters into feats of ever crazier charitable giving.
And even the watch spotting...I suspect I've just gotten a bad run as of late. It is, as you say, cyclical.
So a slower velocity for now...but not forever.
I didn't comment on your last #watchesinthewild post. All I had seen was a Rolex Explorer and I just couldn't make that into a comment worth reading. I used to comment on a regular basis. I tried to ID watches (fun fact: for some of us everything looks like a Breitling from a six foot distance).
I wish that I lived in a part of the country where a meet-up could actually happen. I may organize one next year.
I feel this will be an algorithmically challenged post.
Shame - but they get what they want in the end.
It is getting harder and harder to create content for this platform, the short attention spans and lack of care for fact is challenging. The algorithm is still broken, and the churn is relentless. Factor in that this is turning into Instagram, us old guard are no longer welcome it seems. There were some key moments, we won’t go over old ground, but there is a reason many of us have given up.
The "algorithm" is a 20 year old intern, with all of the knowledge and wisdom of a 20 year old intern.
Thanks for this. “I remember when all of the Reddit refugees arrived with their thumbless grasp of manners. It was a rough couple of weeks” made me laugh out loud - to the surprise of my fellow couch occupant and two cats.
I have not been around WC for long, so cannot join in reminiscing or judge whether it all used to be so much better…I do know the general ‘friendly-but-sharp’ tone of WC is something I really enjoy. The mild scorn poured upon silly posts, repeat questions and AI generated content (or by professional watch sites and companies, it’s hard to distinguish them sometimes) is really refreshing :-)
So yes, a modicum of friendliness is definitely something to hold on to - but pls do not let it devolve into mindless admiration and praise for every plastic and/or blingy object that gets posted. Stay crunchy seems to be a rather apt exhortation :)
PS: anyone indeed have a clue about @DeeperBlue’s whereabouts? Miss her posts!
TL;DR
I read that most people will not read a business email that is longer than eight sentences. This type of writing is very hard to read on phone while in the bathroom at work.
Love your posts. Will be a very sad if they disappear. Always a joy to read them.
The forum have changed. If it’s for the good or bad I can’t really tell. It’s different for sure. It’s sad to see members that you felt connected to leave the platform or turn silent. But there is new members joining that I really can relate to, are funny or just have interesting things to share.
I have never seen WC as one community, rather different islands where you interact. Sometimes united by a post or a topic. I miss the function where sub feeds of your favourite subjects where shown at the right side, like #Vintage.
I’m no Hemmingway when it comes to my posts. I’m mostly in ”here is my watch” cathegory. Having said that I try to explain my reasons for the fascination or love for the watch or maybe the process to buy it. Not only throw up a picture. Appreciated by some, neglected by others.
After 2 years on the forum the early enthusiasm may have faded but it is still a very nice place to be.
Please crunch on @Aurelian !
Absolutely nailed it!
When I find myself frustrated with some of the shallowness that abounds in watch groups, and missing real content like the old forum days, I dive off into the posts of those I follow. And there is still plenty here.
Best wishes to all the OGs here.
I could almost have written the same post. I joined because of a @benswatchclub video too, and had been on many watch forums before which I thought I'd left behind in 2007. Yeah, I really took a big time out from watch forums.
Now things have come full circle, I'm only a couple of days away from my first year on here, and although I was pretty much done when I joined, my final watch arrived today (coincidentally from @benswatchclub), and I'm ready to bow out too. I want to write more reviews, but I just can't find the motivation to do it now, and there's no "long form" post that I can think of that hasn't already been written or turned into a video many times before.
But what a wild ride it's been. Running the gauntlet of territorial forum gatekeepers, arguing against the snobs and ill-informed, promoting cheap watches which are just as good as the big brand names which the "rubes" chase after because of influencers, all the forum games, accruing virtual badges just for uploading memes, posting a WRUW every day, even getting a warning at one point, plus all the censorship which will never sit well with me... yeah, it's been emotional.
Totally agree with @YourIntruder . I've noticed how the tone of WC has changed over the time I've been involved, but I still feel that it's one of the best places available online for those of us who appreciate watches, and I sincerely hope that it doesn't end up losing long time members. I still gravitate towards the posts that educate me or make me challenge my existing views, however there seem to be less and less of those as the platform grows (or maybe they just got lost in the mix).
The watch hobby is extremely diverse, and we all seem to have different reasons for liking watches and being involved in the hobby. Based on that, it's extremely difficult for a general watch forum like WC to provide an enduring appeal for everyone involved, especially given that it is primarily based on one single "feed". Some type of mechanism to allow the main feed to be filtered more easily based on broad topic categories might be helpful, as Per alluded to in his reply. Improvements to the search capability could go a long way in allowing new members to search for previously discussed topics rather than bringing them up again as new.
Best year end summary so far. Thank you for all you do here Greg.
That's a really nice croton!. Great post too. At the end of the day they are all just watches I guess. Keep up the good fight!