Welcome to Vert
A new vision for the newsletter, plus an obligatory Satisfy take (sorry)
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want this newsletter to be. I’ve sought advice from friends, writers, and creative people I trust. I’ve done some heart-mining. I’ve done some journaling, some moodboarding, and a lot of daydreaming.
My mind always returns to long days in the mountains, to trail races I want to do, peaks to summit, and long routes to explore. Personal style, where it comes from. The community I want to build.
This is Vert.
It’s a reference to my love for the ascent, on foot, on a bike, or otherwise. But it is also about self-realization and ascending a higher plane. It’s a place to explore growth; as an athlete, as a person, as a friend, and as a writer. I’m still figuring it out. Let’s figure it out together.
Here’s what I do know:
I’ll be talking about running, cycling, hiking, camping, type 2 fun, style, gear, stories that interest me, trip reports, and whatever else feels exciting and worthwhile to share in the outdoor world and its orbit. Really, I want to bring more adventure into my life and, hopefully, into your life, too. Maybe we’ll do a book club! Maybe we’ll do a group run or a camping trip! Who knows. Either way, it’s going to be fun, and I hope you stick around. I’m glad you’re here.
Let’s get into it.
On Krakauer
Last week, a couple of buddies and I took the train uptown to the 92nd St Y to see Jon Krakauer speak about Into Thin Air, his personal account of the disaster on Mt. Everest in May 1996. He was interviewed by David Grann, another favorite author of mine (you should read The Wager), so it was a no-brainer to make my way up to see him speak.
It was interesting to hear Krakauer’s thoughts about the whole ordeal thirty years on. He seemed genuinely introspective and self-aware about the whole thing, admitting that his presence as a journalist undoubtedly had a negative effect on the guides and other climbers. He mentioned his PTSD often, and I believe him—I can’t imagine the horror of seeing a grown man screaming in fear and pain, or what it would be like to return to base camp only to find that eight of the people you departed with didn’t make it back down.
Detractors of the book are many, and a large portion of the criticism seems well-reasoned and fair. However, to me, the book feels like an honest portrayal of an event that’s nearly impossible to put into words. Krakauer showed what I believed was genuine contrition on stage, though I will admit it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not, especially when the person has become rich off a story like this. Both things can be true.
Either way, Into Thin Air is one of my favorite books and a hallmark of the non-fiction category. It’s equal parts inspiring and terrifying, and quite enough to convince me that summiting Everest needs no place on my bucket list.
Un-Satisfy-d
First, I have to say that I’m a big fan of Satisfy. I have been for a long time. I wear their clothes very often and I have written about them for RUN, Outside Mag and GQ over the years. As a guy who has always deeply cared about style and sport and loud music and tattoos, Satisfy scratched an itch. (I will not be litigating whether or not Satisfy is embodying its punk rock ambitions; there are many other people doing that.) I don’t think running brands need to be everything to everyone, and the price doesn’t bother me even a little bit.
The Circle Pit may have looked silly to us on social media, but there’s really no denying that it looked like a good time, and I think that more than a little bit of the grumpiness around the event does have to do with FOMO. The folks who were there looked like they were having a fun and weren’t worried about coming across as corny or cringy, which honestly, rules. Who fucking cares what people think? We all could probably be a bit more willing to just be silly. HOWEVER…
I was recently talking to my friend Amelia (who has an excellent Substack, btw) about my general wariness and weariness with these big-brand marketing moments centered on influencers sharing content from a “fun” location or event.
I’m not going to suggest that brands should axe their budgets and just hope people buy their stuff, but as we are all seeing, there’s a right way and a wrong way to secure people’s eyeballs (and wallets). Flying a bunch of influencers and media out to an event is one thing. This happens all the time. The key is…just be low-key about it. When said influencers and media share highly curated photo dumps and gush about how much fun they’re having to the general public, it doesn’t feel like the win brands want it to be. Sure, they’re capitalizing on the aforementioned FOMO. It gets people talking. Most of these influencers have an eye for a photo and are able to make products look really good. But it’s exclusive. It’s showing potential (or long-time) customers that they’re still on the outside. Not part of the club.
The message it’s really sending is a very Globo-Gym-We’re-Better-Than-You-And-We-Know-It vibe. It’s telling everyone who isn’t there that they’re not cool enough to be there, but they should buy the new shit in hopes that they will be cool enough for the next one. But we all know that blowing a bag on a pair of $300 shorts and a couple of $200 tees will not get you the next invite. This type of exclusivity is not a net positive. Unless brands don’t actually care about inclusion…(they don’t).
EVEN if we dismiss my opinion as whiny and count me among the folks who wished they were invited, another damning issue is the way people who were at ~The Circle Pit~ spoke about it. One Satisfy pro, whom I will not name, but you can probably guess, posted photos from the event with the caption, “Maybe you’re just mad because you were never invited.” Maybe a little too on-the-nose there.
So people didn’t like your event. If you’re cool enough to be in the cool kids club, be cool enough not to shit on everyone on the internet because they didn’t think it was as sick and vibey as you thought. Condescension isn’t a winning attitude. Neither is insecurity. Sure, it was an athlete who said that (among other now-deleted things you can find on Reddit that further illustrate my point) and not the CEO or CD or head of comms, but still, the brand is small enough to perhaps…idk…discourage that kind of stuff?
Any incoming writing from the media they had at the event is now invalidated in my eyes. Any just-wabi-sabi-enough photo dumps with “I survived the Circle Pit” as the caption are now just damage control. It didn’t have to be this way, but the adverse reaction from the general public (and many meme accounts), coupled with subsequent clapbacks from the so-called cool kids, has made it so.
Trying to be cool is exhausting. So let’s just not.
Anyway, that went longer than I thought, so maybe I’ll leave it there today. Next time, I’ll update you on some gear I’m into, some trips I’m planning, and more Vertical goodness.
Welcome to a higher plane.
Oh, and a song for the week (I couldn’t forget!)
more nuanced opinions like this!! can't wait to see what other topics stir ya
I wonder if an event like this, or many others that are by private invite only, are actually saying that 'we aren't cool enough to be there' or that's the way we interpret it through our insecurity? And if that's the case, how does a brand create an event that tries to be sensitive to everyone's inner judge and childhood trauma of being left out, etc. I would venture to say part of the whole appeal of a brand like Satisfy is the 'you're not cool enough' to wear/to know/to get it, which is what makes us spend $300s to not just be 'in' but also not be like those who don't get it. So when our own purchasing behavior says, "I am cool enough," yet we're not invited, the same insecurity that inspires the purchase also inspires the other end of the same wound, "I'm not cool enough" to be invited. My feeling is that we have to ask ourselves, 'What do I actually feel is cool?' Otherwise, we will always be trapped by how we interpret someone or a brand is speaking to us, even though they don't even know who we are!