Requesting permission to play devil's advocate, however qualified, but my main gripe with Wolf's piece was the misleading title, which he may not have much control over in the first place. Was it clickbait-y nonsense? Yes. Did it misrepresent the article that followed? Inarguably. Would it have been better conceived (or presented) as a question of how important precise-to-the-second timekeeping is for the average enthusiast—ditto the maintaining of fiddlier complications like mechanical perpetual calendars? Methinks yes.
The title sets things off on the wrong foot, and it seems that most persons interviewed were asked questions (or gave answers) that kept well shy of the presented brief. And therein lies the problem.
Well, one might be able to use that excuse, were it not for the fact that he states in the very first paragraph -
"... none of the many watches in my collection display the correct hour and minute."
and -
"I set out on a mission driven by the purest of intentions: vindication and the ability to say “I told you so.”
and signs the article off with another quote from Owens -
"If all I cared about was timekeeping, I’d get a digital watch!"
The complete and deliberate misrepresentation of what Etienne Malec actually said is the icing on the cake.
One thing I can guarantee you is that the lazy reader will read the article and assume that the mission the writer set out on - a mission to prove the veracity of the title of the piece - was accomplished.
As an aside, it is an oft-used excuse by crap journalists that they are not responsible for the titles someone else gives their pieces, but that just goes to prove they are writing for crap rags. If you don't have sign-off approval on the title of a piece that you wrote, then perhaps go work somewhere else.
As for your "Would it have been better conceived..." observation, well yes. Of course it would. But I rather suspect such an article would be beyond the caliber of the writer to research and pen, and beyond the capability of his editor to comprehend.
Having written about watches for almost 30 years, for several U.K. newspapers and a variety of magazines, I have to say that I have never had the option or the opportunity to see the headline or sub head attached to any piece I have written.
Nevertheless, the article in question is a utter and complete waste of space.
Keep up the good work, Gerald, the watch world needs more curmudgeons, I thought that I was the only one
Thanks for the professional insight James - very interesting to hear. Obviously your writing is on a somewhat different level to what we see here, but I was wondering whether you ever been in the situation where you did not agree with the headline or sub that someone else chose to title your piece with?
Actually never one I completely disagreed with. They invariably fall into two groups, they either make me go “Oh that’s so trite” or “That is f**king brilliant, I wish I had thought of that”.
On the other hand, I write long form pieces on the history of watch models or brands and produce half a dozen articles a year. I am not expected to produce a similar number each week.
I feel like there must be a corollary to Betteridge's Law of Headlines—"For any title that ends in a question mark, the answer is 'no'"—specific to the "Why so and so does such and such" formulation used here. Something about the verifiability of informal surveys and the veracity of anecdata. 🤔
But that's just me quibbling at the edges. Your estimation of the trashiness of the article is accurate; I merely wish that its content was better presaged by its title. (Which I still lay at the feet of SEO and clickbait tendencies. A real cherry on the turd sundae, that.)
Very well written Gerald and thoroughly enjoyable. For those of us young and fairly new to watches the social media space appears to be flooded with charlatans trying to hype and make a quick buck.
I speak for myself but i’m afraid many of us don’t know what good looks like when it comes to watches. We too often follow the instagram algorithm. And so posts from yourself and a select few others help cut through the noise quite considerably and provide an invaluable education. 👏
It really is quite worrying to consider what those who are new to watches and horology are getting exposed to these days in their pursuit of knowledge on the subject.
I would encourage you to share with everyone here other writers/creators (because of course the same thing applies to photos, videos, podcasts and the like) that have helped you in "cutting through the noise".
I cant imagine my watch not being set to the right time and being able to more or less maintain that throughout the day. I have a few watches and when I change from one to another, Ill go to the atomic clock and set the time to the second. For this reason I prefer watches with a hacking mechanism and if an automatic, a manual wind function, too
Does it count if I just set my watch to 10:10 and don’t wind it so that I can take nice IG photos throughout the day
Turning utter bs into enjoyable read is an impressive achievement. Can’t wait to see Gerald on Toc toc 😂
Enjoyed the dissection, cheers G 🥂
Requesting permission to play devil's advocate, however qualified, but my main gripe with Wolf's piece was the misleading title, which he may not have much control over in the first place. Was it clickbait-y nonsense? Yes. Did it misrepresent the article that followed? Inarguably. Would it have been better conceived (or presented) as a question of how important precise-to-the-second timekeeping is for the average enthusiast—ditto the maintaining of fiddlier complications like mechanical perpetual calendars? Methinks yes.
The title sets things off on the wrong foot, and it seems that most persons interviewed were asked questions (or gave answers) that kept well shy of the presented brief. And therein lies the problem.
Well, one might be able to use that excuse, were it not for the fact that he states in the very first paragraph -
"... none of the many watches in my collection display the correct hour and minute."
and -
"I set out on a mission driven by the purest of intentions: vindication and the ability to say “I told you so.”
and signs the article off with another quote from Owens -
"If all I cared about was timekeeping, I’d get a digital watch!"
The complete and deliberate misrepresentation of what Etienne Malec actually said is the icing on the cake.
One thing I can guarantee you is that the lazy reader will read the article and assume that the mission the writer set out on - a mission to prove the veracity of the title of the piece - was accomplished.
As an aside, it is an oft-used excuse by crap journalists that they are not responsible for the titles someone else gives their pieces, but that just goes to prove they are writing for crap rags. If you don't have sign-off approval on the title of a piece that you wrote, then perhaps go work somewhere else.
As for your "Would it have been better conceived..." observation, well yes. Of course it would. But I rather suspect such an article would be beyond the caliber of the writer to research and pen, and beyond the capability of his editor to comprehend.
Having written about watches for almost 30 years, for several U.K. newspapers and a variety of magazines, I have to say that I have never had the option or the opportunity to see the headline or sub head attached to any piece I have written.
Nevertheless, the article in question is a utter and complete waste of space.
Keep up the good work, Gerald, the watch world needs more curmudgeons, I thought that I was the only one
Thanks for the professional insight James - very interesting to hear. Obviously your writing is on a somewhat different level to what we see here, but I was wondering whether you ever been in the situation where you did not agree with the headline or sub that someone else chose to title your piece with?
Actually never one I completely disagreed with. They invariably fall into two groups, they either make me go “Oh that’s so trite” or “That is f**king brilliant, I wish I had thought of that”.
On the other hand, I write long form pieces on the history of watch models or brands and produce half a dozen articles a year. I am not expected to produce a similar number each week.
Thank goodness
I feel like there must be a corollary to Betteridge's Law of Headlines—"For any title that ends in a question mark, the answer is 'no'"—specific to the "Why so and so does such and such" formulation used here. Something about the verifiability of informal surveys and the veracity of anecdata. 🤔
But that's just me quibbling at the edges. Your estimation of the trashiness of the article is accurate; I merely wish that its content was better presaged by its title. (Which I still lay at the feet of SEO and clickbait tendencies. A real cherry on the turd sundae, that.)
Very well written Gerald and thoroughly enjoyable. For those of us young and fairly new to watches the social media space appears to be flooded with charlatans trying to hype and make a quick buck.
I speak for myself but i’m afraid many of us don’t know what good looks like when it comes to watches. We too often follow the instagram algorithm. And so posts from yourself and a select few others help cut through the noise quite considerably and provide an invaluable education. 👏
Thank you for the kind words Imran.
It really is quite worrying to consider what those who are new to watches and horology are getting exposed to these days in their pursuit of knowledge on the subject.
I would encourage you to share with everyone here other writers/creators (because of course the same thing applies to photos, videos, podcasts and the like) that have helped you in "cutting through the noise".
I cant imagine my watch not being set to the right time and being able to more or less maintain that throughout the day. I have a few watches and when I change from one to another, Ill go to the atomic clock and set the time to the second. For this reason I prefer watches with a hacking mechanism and if an automatic, a manual wind function, too
Cheers from another old curmudgeon who appreciates proper timekeeping and good writing!