misteraven

I can certainly respect this point of view and don’t doubt that there are toxic elements as well as toxic consequences to men, women and whatever fits between the two. But I also believe in biology and the human condition. I don’t think we’re going to pretend our way out of the DNA and evolutionary predisposition towards males being inherently competitive and aggressive, nor females being inherently nurturing. Of course, there are exceptions and outliers and no doubt as an intelligent and self aware species we can always strive for better, but personally, my belief is that most of this is hypocritical and just a facad for a deeper agenda. I think ultimately what we’re doing here is encouraging a general segment of the population to suppress a natural tendency, ironically largely driven by another segment of the population that celebrates not suppressing outlier tendencies. In the end it’s going to result in more harm than good. For the record, and you guys have heard me say this repeatedly... I’m a staunch advocate of individual freedom and personal liberty, which also comes with personal responsibility and accountability. Meaning that once you reach a point of maturity, go ahead and live your life however you see fit, so long as it doesn’t encroach on the freedom and independence of others. I believe we’re granted the right to pursue happiness but not actually guaranteed that happiness, which seems to be the area that confuses some people. Anyhow, yeah... I do believe boys will be boys. That’s not the same as saying, it’s okay to be a bully or to conduct yourself in a way that threatens another person, male or female. But certainly don’t subscribe to this #metoo stuff nor all this hyper sensitivity or movement to suppress natural tendencies that are literally driven by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and literally imprinted in our DNA. In any case, that’s just my own opinion, but the actual topic is whether we’re cool with Gillette or other consumer products based corporations to be leading or steering these types of conversations.

Going to shed a little light, that opens the irony in this, while also fitting in the non-politically correct "offensive" corner. This isn't a gamble and the reason why is think of who actually gets up and shaves (in terms of a majority)... Clean cut dudes, likely older and probably in a stable economic situation. Taking that train of thought further, probably married, likely with kids. Continuing this train of thought... Who do you suppose is doing the shopping and picking up dudes razors... LOL! I will bet the house the execs at Gillette and the agency that conceptualized this, were looking at data points on not necessarily just who's using the razors, but also who's actually buying them. And all that said, who wants to hazard a guess that the numbers point to women being the largest actual buyers of those razors, whether its the silver and black Mens version or the pink and white Womens version.

Current topic... #Me Too!!! And continuing the conversation on political correctness For those not familiar with these weigh in topics, definitely search "Weigh In" for some other good ones, like the Social Media discussion and the political correctness vs Teen Violence discussion. I think the last one was Weigh In: Politics vs Pop Culture where we discussed Supreme NYC jumping in on politics. There was also related topics like Nike and Kaepernick = Freedom of speech? and especially Has political correctness amplified teenage violence?, so I encourage you guys to jump in on those as well if you have a point of view on the subject. Guess this one sort of continue the subject. I'm admittedly late to the game since I've all but abandoned personal use of Social Media and generally have strayed away from political conversations to focus on my own situation and devoting my time and energy towards the things I believe I can actually affect, but after so many references to Gillette, mostly in the form of memes, I decided to Google the subject and see what was causing the stir. Once again we see a large brand attempt to step into the cultural conversation. As stated in other threads and comments, at best I find it massively disingenuous each time a big company / celebrity / [insert high profile pronoun here], attempts to do this and at worst, find it arrogant as fuck that they'd use a captive audience and / or massive communication platform and high profile position to try and preach a particular very personal point of view or belief. It's been done often enough at this point that you don't need to be a savvy marketing insider to clearly see the formula of "go to market with a product or message that anchors a position in an emotionally fueled, decisive cultural conversation and wait for the mainstream and social media circles to go viral with it" (after all, all press is good press made exponentially better when you aren't paying big budgets to churn it out and sustain it). But hey, the formula still works, so fuck it... am I right? In fact, I'd argue that in the hyper polarized era we find ourselves living in, it's actually an effective strategy that seems to be evolving to become even more effective, rather than quickly being copy-catted and payed out. I've sort of kicked off this Weigh In series with the goal of simply encouraging intelligent discussion and debate, to learn other points of view and hopefully, compel others to open up and engage by both digging deeper into the subjects and participating in the conversation, but admittedly, I'm having a tough time not taking a clear position with many of these subjects. I don't think any good will come from the sustained efforts to polarize subjects and people and so much of this seems to really be about doing so. I don't believe that these companies are that altruistic as to not have an agenda that is ultimately driven by more profit when these campaigns as we've seen how occasionally public apologies get issued when things backfire or ignore the fact that most of the time, it just leads to increased brand equity from being the loudest voice in the echo chamber or more profit, cause there's a lot of market share in bandwagons that are about 50% of the population and lots of profit if you can take the reigns of that bandwagon if even for a little while. But hey, #metoo! No longer just a war strategy and now even beyond a political strategy, we now see Divide and Rule become the demand creation strategy du jour! Now I open the floor to discussion. Here's the video:

Yeah, have a few pairs myself. Surprised he isn't bigger than he is. Definitely on my short list.

Relevant...

Guess its starting to feel like 12oz again.

Thanks everyone... Been thinking about a forum specific shirt for a long while. The second tee ever produced fro 12oz, way back in the days, was a forum based tee. Anyhow, thought it would be a cool way to sort of bring this all back around and make it about a very specific, directional audience. Kind like what it was like back in the days when you could spot someone wearing a tee and knew you could walk up and start a conversation since it was something so obscure it would immediately be a kinship with that person. Also, thinking its another small step towards spreading the word about the forum. Was thinking maybe a special release that also gives access to a new VIP type section? Just unsure if there's enough people interested or momentum in general for something like this. Thoughts?

Not familiar with it. Havent heard from them, but I'll keep an eye out.

Thanks bro... Just doing my thing as best I can. Most the time, you guys just get to see the wins, but trust me when I say there's plenty of fails in between.

Actually heading to ISS in Long Beach for a day this weekend to check out some additional equipment, as well as look at options for blanks and specialty inks. These shots really don't do it justice. Those are quick camera phone shots late at night with bad lighting. So far the press has exceeded my expectations in regards to quality, which has me further wondering why there aren't better printers out there.

By the way, the graphic you see being printed was a test design we did to dial in the final calibrations of the press and to also begin testing how tight we can register with this system. It's over sized graphic (I think 16 x 22") with tight registration of two colors with no trapping at all four corners. The final image was testing how well we could sustain registration with an on press color rotation going from a dark color (black) to a vivid color (blue). Basically what would be considered a bit of a nightmare job to start testing shit out.

This will be another one of my long rants slash life story type posts, so if you don't already have a coffee, a hot tea or a beer in your hand, take a minute to go grab one so you can kick back and sit through it all. Maybe a quick bathroom break will do you justice as well. If you're still unable to sit still long enough to read all this, maybe you should go read my rant about social media and then come back when you've relearned a little long(er) format reading. Otherwise, enjoy another chapter in my 12oz diary... -------- Figured I had a quick minute to breath and thought it was past due that I hop in and pass along some of what I've been up to and some of what I have planned in 2019. Obviously, I haven't been posting as often as I was a few months back, at least not on the public forum. I tend to cycle through various areas of focus and being as short staffed with all this as I am, get forced into switching between various 12oz related responsibilities on top of the usual commitments to real life responsibilities like home and and family, as well as what I have to do for a living to support all of it. In a nutshell, 2018 was a pretty brutal year for me. Ton of freakin work, a ton of freakin stress and on more than one occasion, wasn't sure I'd be able to hold it all together. Fortunately, it all finally came together at about 12pm EST on December 27th. A huge fuckin power move for 12oz and I'll explain what and why as well as a few photos below... Backstory: A few of you guys can probably piece a lot of this together from various other threads and comments I've posted... I got fed up with the direction my life was going in after running an agency in downtown NYC for a decade and a half. There was a lot of great times and great people, I learned a ton along the way and would like to think I created, or led teams that created, some really great work. There's a few of you that know me in real life, @Mercer @psm026 @TayyuNit @Grassy Knowles to name a few that saw some of the behind the scenes or more likely, were a part of it in different ways. I think we had a pretty good run, but at some point someone had pointed out what I was missing with 12oz and helped plant a seed that eventually made me realize how miserable I was becoming (or perhaps had already become?) with the life I'd built up. So I threw in the towel and walked away from my loft in Soho and my life in downtown NYC all just about everything I had spent the previous 15 years building. Through some other twists and turns, wound up moving to the mountains, a dream I had been trying to ignore for far too long, so I could return my focus to 12ozProphet. Over the course of about a year, I managed to relaunch this forum, put out a couple t-shirts and patches and begin to assemble a bunch of ideas and half assed notes I'd been sitting on into a semi-coherent vision and basic game plan for how I might be able to brush off the cobwebs and tarnish and perhaps make 12oz relevant again. This basically brings me up to maybe a year to a year and a half ago when the reality of it all started to set in. Obviously the world is a different place, in most aspects anyways, than it was 10 or even 5 years ago when 12ozProphet was still among a handful of places people would squander countless hours. I knew this going into it and had countless discussions with a long list of friends and colleagues about it. There's even been plenty of comments here on the forum and more than a fair share of DM's from some of you in this regard. Being honest, and I've mentioned this repeatedly, that as dead things have felt at the worst of times, I'm still blown away by the fact that anyone persisted through what I refer to as the "dark ages of 12ozProphet". Honestly, hats off to each and everyone of you guys that with all that has transpired and all the things competing for attention, that you're on here right now reading this and carrying on what we started over 20 years ago. Anyhow, I'm happy to get a discussion on why I'm not really concerned by it, but put simply... 12ozProphet started as a brand, doing cool stuff for a very select sub group of people. It was an exploration of niche culture, put together, packaged and presented in a way that was compelling to a broader audience with a sincere effort to raise the bar with its execution to the point that perhaps it could help set a standard. The forum and the community it sprouted was a by product of this and I believe the key to reestablish that community rests in the success of bring it back full circle to the creative explorations and executions that made it relevant in the first place. No doubt a lot has changed, but I believe that in the most general of terms, we've all been duped and distracted for long enough that half of us barely remember what we're missing and the other half is too young to have ever experienced it. Fast fashion, easy accessibility and hype that rarely delivers on expectation... Never mind the exorbitant price points in relation to the quality of execution and concept, which mainly serves to throttle sales back for the perception of scarcity. Guess I'm getting off topic... So we'll explore that a bit later in this thread or another. The reaction / response to the few products released the last year and a half has been pretty incredible and I believe more than proves out a lot of my theories about brands in general, the culture and industry servicing it and where 12ozProphet fits into all that. Being honest, there's definitely been some stumbles, if not outright fails along the way as well. I've put a lot of effort into identifying and analyzing, not to mention honesty and reflection, to think about ways I might mitigate some key issues and bottle necks. Now for the crux of this thread... Quality and consistency are what I feel have been the largest issues plaguing what I've been trying to do with 12oz. Quality, probably being more about my OCD in regards to execution and consistency... Well that's been a problem in terms of schedule since the second issue of the zine. If the goal is to see through my vision for 12oz, the challenge is the steady release of compelling new product. Being able to micro manage the supply chain from start to finish would give me the control I need to see the ideas through, not to mention a huge strategic advantage when so much of my ideas and efforts are tied to the execution. So about January of 2018 I started to reach out to colleagues about who they were printing with. I was tired of bad communication, sky high costs, inconsistent quality and often, an incorrect translation of my idea and graphic into a final t-shirt. Most everyone I reached out to said they couldn't stand their printer and griped about most of the same issues I was experiencing. This was particularly disheartening coming from a very good, long time friend that has a brand that was two years past breaking 7 figures. So I started to look past vendors and instead research the equipment needed to execute what these guys were all fumbling with. About 6 months later I had a pretty fair idea of the landscape and though it was a huge undertaking, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility considering the glimpses of potential I witnessed with 12oz, some insights and potential opportunities with friends and prior colleagues and clients from my agency days and some honest projections on where both could go if I had the tools needed to do the job properly. About six months later, at about 12pm EST on December 27th to be precise, we officially came on line. A boutique printing facility focused on exceptional quality, experimental screen printing running state of the art, computer-driven auto-press with literally the tightest tolerances in the industry imported from Europe. I spared no expense with the equipment and materials, but admittedly, I had to cut costs somewhere in order to pull it off... The entire provisioning process from plumbing, to electrical, pneumatics and all else were mostly done with the help of a friend and countless hours of YouTube tutorials, Google and calling a few random people that had some experience. So yeah, pretty much another gratuitous, if not self indulgent post from yours truly, but I wanted to add some context to the announcement and give you guys a little insight about why sometimes I sort of drop off and don't post steadily. Pulling this together really was a massive undertaking and I'm extra proud of the achievement. More than anything else, I'm beyond excited about the potential this represents both to 12ozProphet and me personally. Moving out of NYC was a huge decision and a massive life change. Choosing to go back to focus on 12ozProphet was a hell of a commitment, but as far as bringing things full circle and reconnecting with creative ideas and explorations that helped launch 12ozProphet in the first place, I feel opening this facility is a pretty profound turning point for myself and the brand. Lots of really fuckin cool stuff coming, at long last.

Video, I'm referencing... https://youtu.be/aNQYRM19iT8

Watching that French riot YouTube video a few pages back... Curious what the green vests are all about? Seems interesting to purposefully identify yourself like that, but also begs the question of who's coordinating it all. In fact that it's even that organized says a lot. No doubt it'll catch on and people will go find their own vests, but that had to start somehow and in that video, they're all identical so its not just people seeing it, thinking its cool and then ordering one off Amazon.