A friend of mine sent me a post on there and I started to look through the subreddit because I vaguely remember seeing it years ago, but never checking it out. I really just dont get it though.
Half of the posts are:
"im a rich STEM student and here is my edc: Glock, 10 knives, flashlight, unused multitool, navy seal operator wallet, and a nanotech fuckite steel carbon bulletproof backed phone case. also a tacticool watch that costs my entire semester tuition"
and the other half are:
"here is what I edc at my boring office job: my pistol with 30 different attachments on it (including 10 different lasers and quick reload magazines), knife, bigger knife, smaller knife, tactical notepad with speed release stainless steel pen, flashlight with a hidden knife in the bottom of it, and an unopened tin of Copenhagens that expired 2 years ago"
I genuinely dont understand, at most these people will only ever use their overpriced flashlight. Are they trying to brand themselves or make themselves more masculine or something? What am I not getting?
is it a blue collar vs white collar thing? I genuinely cant imagine dropping hundreds on tools that you will never use
They have a "tryhard" tag that only gets put on a relative few posts, which is strange to me since everyone who posts there is a tryhard
Carrying 10 pounds of shit in my pockets at all times, get into a predicament with my neighbor because his grass is 1/4 of an inch too long, go to pull my glock out of my holster and five out of the fifteen attachments I have on it get caught on my belt causing my to accidentally shoot my left testicle off. I stumble as I realize what’s happened, the combination of my severe beer gut and the junk in my pocket causing me to trip. I attempt to catch myself but it’s too late I land on my right side, the four color coordinated knives I keep in my tan cargo shorts right pocket stab directly into my femoral artery. I roll over as my vision fades to black the last image I see is my McMansion, my lawn mower, and my white monster energy can. I die with a smile on my face for I have died in the land of the free.
Something i read a while back was talking about how this phenomena is a reaction to alienation amongst the upper middle/petty boogwa. Basically their dumb cubicle life separates them from any ability to actually perform the things that they think of as masculine, so they lean hard into the performative aspects. Man caves, edc, big trucks ect are all a symptom of this.
Form your whole personality around being rick sanchez/tony stark or some hardened operator instead of just learning how to be nice to people
:big-cool:
another user linked this post which is what I think youre talking about
yeah i mean it's their most fetishized commodities: these are the things that I bought that I keep on my body all day. it's some kind of expression of masculinity, the possibility of being able to defend themselves in dumbass movie fantasy daydreams or like... idk what the multitools are supposed to be for, showing off how they're smart or economical or have "good taste"
i mean, it was useful to carry a pen around in school but I just liked those 0.7 mm pilot precise gels. when my last gift wallet wore out i bought a nice leather one. your phone has a flashlight and a clock on it, these are literally the american psycho people with their business cards
I really dont get the multi tool thing either. people on that sub will go and drop money on the most expensive leatherman there is to take into the office for their accounting job. they would've gotten the same use out of the $60 leatherman as they did out of their $300 leatherman, but they still chose the more expensive one
these are literally the american psycho people with their business cards
it truly is. these are just fucking tools, but to these people its a possession or something that they have to idolize
I have a $60 leatherman that I use frequently. I’m in construction and I do outdoorsy stuff. Ive never broken it, the only time I got a new one was when I lost my old one. I can’t imagine spending $300 on a multi tool. I didn’t even know leatherman made a $300 multi tool
same, I bought mine for $50-$60 like 6 years ago, have used it nearly daily for work since, and the most maintenance I’ve ever had to do with it is clean it.
I’m pretty sure the high end ones are made for these types of people. It has all the same features as the cheap one, just with more niche tools
market differentiation for better saturation at all price points with various profit margins, this shit pisses me off so much
it's done all over the place, like with utility items and other non-utility stuff too
it's evolved into this crazy inverse where buying the expensive version (even when it is exceedingly obvious or even out-right stated that there is not any functional difference) is seen as a cool flex thing
I've got a weird spidey-sense for this shit at this point, and when it starts tingling I just start looking for the cheaper option without all the marketing hype surrounding it
if you ever want to get more pissed off look at the audiophile market. My friends usually ask for my advise on their purchases and im always having to tell them to link them with the cheaper option. Theres a price point sweet spot where you know its gonna be shit quality if its sold for say 100$, but if its sold for 300/400/500$, then its gonna be the same quality as the 200$ option
oh ya, there's so many areas like that, especially areas with some technical aspects that are mostly done as hobbies, but I think the self-built PC market is where I developed my sense of it most effectively
when you look at the price points for a hardware segment, and then you see the low-to-mid range have like maybe ~$100 difference for like 50% improvements in performance, but the high end is like maybe 15% improvement for like 2x the price, that shit is so nuts
Yea spending tons of money on fancy tools in general is pretty dumb, because if you actually use them for anything they're bound to either break or get really worn and look like shit after a while. When I was younger I thought it would be a good idea to drop $120 on a nice Buck pocket knife, and then when I started working in construction I ended up using a cheap pocket knife for work and leaving the Buck at home cause I didn't want it to get ruined after I spent so much money on it.
Okay I'm a student and I still use a multitool regularly. Usually it's opening packaging, tightening a screw, or getting something unstuck. I will be real, I don't know how people get by without a knife.
was going through old posts recently and found this banger of a thread about this exact shit
I think thats exactly it, thanks. these people feel emasculated because they dont live up to the idealized American Man's man as they labor with nothing to show for it, so they consume the identity they want through products they will never use.
Jotting down on my tactical notepad the locations of the vending machines by floor.
- Least amount of use
- Lowest poop smell
- Bidets (yes/no)
- Interesting wall art / graffiti
- Paper towels vs poop air turbines
- Mirrors smashed yet (yes/no)
- Frequency of all toilets being completely destroyed and clogged with heroin shits
who here on chapo.chat thinks they have the most fun EDC item? the only fun thing i carry is a black sharpie that i use to beautify public spaces
I carry my phone every day and use it to browse slop on the bus. Fuck else do I need to lug around
Knife/multitool and a couple specialty pens that I use regularly and one non mechanical pencil. The normal pencil is really nice for writing on anything that isn't paper and you can refine the tip how you need with the knife. Also a full graphing calculator cause you ain't going to catch me lackin my Ti-84. I just really hate phone calculators.
Phone, wallet, keys, and if there's a chance I'm gonna be breaking into any abandoned buildings or anything like that also my multi tool
It’s all just a fashion statement. The thing that gets me about Reddit knife guys, other than their generally reactionary nature, is that the knives that they’re willing to spend hundreds of dollars on look like shit. Just totally normal knives with plastic scales. If I’m spending more than $30 on a knife that thing better have art engraved into it or else be decorated with precious metals. Instead these guys are buying minimalist tacticool bullshit that, aside from the branding, is indistinguishable from a knife I could go buy for $15 from a bait shop.
And then what are they doing with their expensive knives? Do they dabble in a hobby that might require a knife, like whittling or outdoor survival? Do they work a trade that requires a knife? No. They’re all office workers who might occasionally use a knife to open a box if there’s not a pair of scissors nearby.
I have things in my car that would qualify, but I have yet to experience a real need to carry pliers with me.
Once, a random person asked me if I had pliers, as they needed to bend something on their key lanyard, but they looked and sounded like a theater kid, and my pliers were all the way in my car, so I just said "no," and I don't feel bad for doing so.
Thought it was EDF and was wondering why everyone's talking guns in a ducted fan subreddit
Anyone who buys a flashlight for self defence that isn't just a Maglite is a LARPER. you can break a motherfucker's skull with that, that's all you need
I dunno why you carrying a flashlight for self defense period better just have a knife
yeah but thats actually useful and has a purpose, and it sounds like you actually use it. I was moreso talking about the tacticool operator bulletproof kevlar steel capped composite military grade death assassin carbon graded Wallet-kinda shit you see on there a lot.
I got nothing against the concept of edc, I have stuff I carry with me everyday but thats probably more just because of my work. I just found it weird that these people will drop a bunch of money and a) never use these tools and b) purposefully pick the tools that are more expensive but not more useful
motherfuckers really spending 500$+ on a fake watch??? you could go to Santee alley and get one for like 100$ of probably the same quality
it 100% is. in my smoke-weed-everyday mid 20s, I became very-anti consumerist and decided to start limiting the items on my person as much as I could. I started thinking that keeping all that shit on me or adding new shit was reducing my agency, weighing me down with stuff to keep track of/worry about losing.
no more watch, remove extraneous keys, empty wallet of everything but what I legit might need (no more business cards, receipts, notes, old IDs/member cards, etc.
at one point I was working at a rural school with no cell coverage, a mess hall that I lived at, and I was down to just carrying a comfy shoulder bag with a big water bottle and key ring that had a tiny knife on it and a bottle opener. it was awesome.
prior to that shift in priorities, I was probably totally moving in the direction of being some EDC guy, but I'm sure it was driven by some creeping tacticool dude marketing shit.
