Musings on horology and the watch industry

“The internet is for poor people” and other watch industry insights

Hodinkee's founder, Ben Clymer, made a guest appearance on an insightful podcast. The discussion revealed a lot about the watch industry, casting some light on the watch community's longstanding sentiments and conspiracy theories.

Was Gerald Genta a glitch in the matrix?

There might be no historical figure more important to the shape of modern watches than Gerald Genta. Yet it's quite difficult to imagine a contractor for watch brands gaining such widespread recognition for work, especially in today's watch industry. Will there ever been another Genta figure again?

On gimmicks in the watch industry

"Gimmicks" tend to evoke negative connotations, but I believe there is a wide spectrum of good and bad quality marketing gimmicks in the watch world.

The real marketing is us, the watch community

The greatest irony of the watch community today, one that very few have internalized, is that we are the marketing for brands. With Instagram, the best marketing asset in the history of the industry is free, and it's us.

How photography makes us better watch collectors

Since the advent of Instagram, watch photography, in all of its various forms, has become the glue of our community and culture. As we see more and more "collector-photographers", I want to address the following question: what does photography do for collectors?

Satire and the watch industry establishment

Let's examine how humor works from an insider's position without the veil of anonymity.

On differentiating between good and bad watches

Whether it's a professional athlete, expert sommelier, acclaimed actor, or master watchmaker, my assumption is that the trained eye always recognizes and evaluates details better than the untrained eye. This idea really begs the question in the watch world: how does one acquire a keen eye for horology? What does that learning process look like?

Examining the subtle Orientalism in the watch world

The dichotomy – Swiss luxury watches vs. cheap Asian watches – has dominated the mentality of everything from journalism and the watch community, to the average consumer and the industry at large. Let's talk about it.

On watch collecting: an alternative to “buy what you love”

"Buy what you love" is one of the watch community's most common prescriptions against being swept away by never-ending social media hype. I want to propose an alternative to "buy what you love." Something more concrete and tangible, something easier to work with.

The role of memes in the watch community

Jokes and memes play a quite an integral role in our watch community culture. But what does they do beyond make us all laugh?