Welcome to this watch life. Hi, I'm Lydia Winters and. I'm blue buoy. So yesterday I went out for Fika with a colleague. Yeah, Fika is like a coffee and a cinnamon bun break in Sweden. It's like a snack break. Yeah, like a. Usually in coffee. Coffee. Yeah, coffee for. Adults at least cause kids have kids have FICA and then there's no there's no coffee or tea. OK a pastry of some sort and or coffee I. Do believe pastry is a is a key
part of FICA? So we were at a a local coffee shop that I really like and all of a sudden I saw a woman walk by and she was carrying. Get this a tutor watch bag like a a tutor bag like a tote. A tote. Yeah, I have the same one. Uh huh. I had brought mine. I. Think we have 3. Yeah, I brought mine to the office that day carrying my laptop. Very sophisticated carrying method. And then I was like, wait, did I leave my, did I leave? Is that mine? You know, just because you're
just so confused. Did she steal that from me? I I didn't assume she stole it from me, but I was like. That was not your first thought. Your No, I was just like, so confused about, like, did I like what happened? Yeah. So then I decided I like talking to strangers about watches. Yes, you have a pickup line. Yes, so this is my new pickup line. I like your tutor tote bag. I don't think many people get to use that pickup line. You've never gotten to use it
before. So I went over and I said, oh, you know, I just, I noticed your tutor watch bag and like, that's so cool. I have the exact same one. Like I'm a big watcher. And it turns out that the guy who was sitting there, her boyfriend is Johannes, who I know, and he's a listener of the podcast. And, and I just thought we probably would have just missed each other that day, being at the same coffee shop at the same time, except that I really want to talk to anyone that has any
watches. So I hope so. My goal now is Johannes wants to get his girlfriend into watches. Well, I mean she was carrying a Tudor bag. Exactly. You know she's moving in the right? Not subtle like let's say, OK, if someone likes tote bags, would you you love? To I do I do. We have dozens. I love tote bags in this house, right and. For years 5 dozens, yeah. And you'd you'd kind of find your favorite ones. But you love carrying things in tote bags. It's just, it's just how you
prefer to carry things. I'm a backpack guy. You're a tote bag person, right? Like this is just how it goes. And if I was smarter back then, I would have also given you a tutor and a Cartier and a you. Know exactly all these. Different brags. Subliminal messaging. Exactly. And now I went up in compliment. It's like we planned it out. We didn't, but. You and the Ohanas have now collaborated and making her feel very good about this tutor tote bag.
Well, I did tell him I was like, look, Vu also had a time period where I wasn't into watches. Look at me now. I'm unstoppable. Maybe I should. I should be stopped. Yeah, maybe. OK, so a second thing. I would like to issue a public apology. This is huge. It's for you. It's for me. No, it's serious. It's serious. It's serious. OK, so I have always been a bit like you think too much about could if anything happened when you were wearing a watch, could your watch withstand it?
I, you know, you're like, could I fall? Could you fall into water? Or could you, you know, like suddenly be rolling around in the mud or like, could something? And I have been very much like that makes no sense what you usually say. Is has it ever happened? Has it ever happened? And I would like to say that yesterday, Vu helped save a child from a Well, this is a true story. It sounds fake. It sounds like a fable. It does like help pull. The child out of a well.
But you vu did and it was had some water and mud in there and you were wearing your Auris. My Auris Diver 65. And it was ready for that water reason. It was. Ready for that? I have to apologize. Yes, we had a a fairly traumatic for you and much more for the child and and the and his mother. But a kid fell into a very small luckily only around 2m deep, like kind of a drainage well type thing, right? And and I ran over and helped
her pull him out over. There, yes, and as I sat there, because I'm not a quick, I'm more like a freezer, not a freezer free. I freeze. Yeah, different people react differently. And my reaction is freezing. Mine is run. Towards that meant that my Royal Oak was fine 'cause I freeze and Vu, you know, ran over faster than I've seen you move in a long time. Do not know the last time and. You know what? You didn't even have to think about if your watch was ready for it.
I didn't. And not that you would have. OK, I just want to say not that he was. Like oh I would help save this child, but this watch I'm wearing today, not water. Resistant. Obviously neither of us would have thought of that, but it it did make me rethink my stance especially. Not that I'm going to change how I wear watches, but more that I've been harder and a little bit like teasing you about this need for. Well, what you can no longer say. Is that just nothing will ever?
Has it ever happened? Yeah, because now I can say at least one time a thing happened where I had to emergency get my watch wet. Well. Exactly. I'm I, You know, I always wished it would be you just falling into a lake, as you've discussed many times. But yeah, and that hasn't happened saving. Children is cool. Too, I might fall into a lake. You just don't know or jump in to save someone who. Will jump in to save. Wasn't it a baby deer, Boo? Booy, my everyday hero children.
Thought it would be deer, not a baby deer. So OK, a while back, episode 130 Oh we. Should wait. Hold on, can we just say the child was totally fine? That's why this? Some scrapes and bruises. But like, nothing broken. Everybody's OK except for some trauma, yeah, but otherwise everyone's she. Even had a change of clothes for him in the car. So it seemed like perhaps she wasn't. She was ready. Yes, exactly. I didn't see if she was wearing a watch. No, no, I didn't.
I didn't. Excuse me, ma'am. Yeah. Who just The kid couldn't stop crying, understandably, but. Everybody, everybody's fine. I felt I, I, yes, everybody's fine. Everybody was fine. OK, sorry, go ahead. Yes, I don't want to leave that as an unanswered question. Everybody's fine. Yeah. OK, so while back episode 138, we answered a question from one of our listeners about how like they should think about watch media and brands, right? And that got us thinking.
It was around like when you're seeing people post about brands and you know they're either in the industry as a journalist, as a YouTube content creator, like how much? Can you all that kind of? Stuff. Can you trust what they're saying or were they paid or how do you know? My stance was trust no one. That is should be everyone's stance and you probably never even watched X-Files. No, no, sorry. But anyway, OK, trust no one. Trust no one.
Absolutely true, right? It so, but what it did get us, it got you. And I had a conversation about that because we have a history about thinking about these types of things. And it got us thinking like, well, OK, if we can talk about like what we want to see, then what can we do, right? Like, what can we now we have this podcast, we have our Instagram accounts. Like, what could we do that could be relevant for people when they listen to our podcast, watch our three YouTube videos
that exists? Coming back in September 2023. Yes, or like our Instagram post like and and how they should think about us and different brands. Especially because, like we've said, our goal is to be positive and excited and happy. And so then we feel even more so that we want to be very clear. Clear, yes, and transparent. So we've added a page to our website. Our website is this watchlife.com, a little bit
behind on on episodes on there. Wait, it's very sweet that you said we vu did it all, wrote it all, read it to me aloud as I edited it when I was in Florida. Well, you. You didn't seem to want to read it, so you gave me. I read it to you and you gave me. I just. Appreciate that you did the royal we we added. A section. We added a section. I signed off. It is. So if you go to thiswatchlife.com, it's right at the top. You can click the word transparency and.
Very clear. Yeah, It seemed like a single word that kind of sums up what we're trying to do. Might change it in the future because it's not an attractive word. But for now, it says transparency. And I want to say upfront, like this is really important. This is what we consider like, this is a start. Yeah, this is not a finished product. This isn't what we think is like
the absolute best way. The only way none of that what we wanted to do was like we thought about what would we like to see from other channels or other brands, like when they're talking about something like what, what would we want from them? And then thought like, OK, well then why don't we offer that to our listeners or followers of our Instagram or whoever it is, right? And so this is start, this is where we're starting and and we are going to ask for feedback on that.
Like we'd love to hear what people think about that. So we on the page, you can go check it out. It's kind of text heavy, but. But I mean, that is how you disclose things. That's how. You disclose things. It would be weird if it was like one word. For each brand. You're like. No. So we listed our relationships to all the watch industry brands that we feel like we have any kind of relationship with,
right. So like, back in that episode, we had talked about like, what we wanted to see was like, how do those relationships exist between brands and influencers or creators or whoever? And so that's exactly the approach we took here. Yeah. Could I borrow this? Could. Did I ask to borrow? Did you ask me if I want to, you know, like, do I? Don't think there's people.
Are you paying me? It's all of these different things where it's just, and we should say also, none of those things are bad for anyone who is a creator, journalist, influencer. However, no, no, it's more of just being able to tell what it is exactly, you know? These relationships, they exist. Relationships are going to exist. And then you. Understand the lens that we are looking through.
As we talk about right, so like consider this a baseline of what we right now think we should do and what we'd like to see others do maybe in the future. And it's part of it is based a little bit on. So years and years and years ago, over a decade ago, my brother and I, our business was, I wasn't as good at naming businesses back then. We called ourselves the Bowie Brothers. That was our business, OK. And because we were brothers, but we still are. We still be.
There it turns out. Turns out that doesn't expire. You know what? The name works and the name works forever. We are the Bowie brothers. But so many years ago, before I had ever heard the term influencer, right? I don't think it had ever been used in the way that it's used today, right?
But before that was like a common industry term and but, but at this point, companies had already started, started realizing like it was a good idea to get their gear into the hands of the people who are making various types of online content. You know, my brother and I made various types of online content. So like, OK, we've mentioned this before. We're not a review podcast. We don't see our role as like finding the good, the bad and the ugly and the watches we talk about.
We're not looking to uncover like hidden flaws or watches to avoid. We're almost the opposite, like what we are like. Love you, love you. But, but, but it's not that we talk about how we love every watch. It's. That we only talk about the watches we love. Yeah. Like that's kind of the point is like what we're here to do is talk. About things we like now. Yeah. Is love. Sweet love. But so we want that to be transparent, right?
And so like, if I think about cameras and, and what my brother and I used to do, right, like I've owned so many different, different cameras, but back then, like some camera companies would send my brother and I gear and again, there were no rules. There were not even guidelines back then. No one knew what was going on. But the. Wild, Wild West. But what we told the these different companies that would send us stuff is like, look, here's the way we like to do things, right #1 we'll never
agree. Like you send me something and we have an obligation to do anything, right? Like that's, that's just not how we would never want it to be obligated to write A blog post, make a video, none of that kind unless. You were actually working for them. That's different. Send us gear then. There's no obligation, right? And also, if we don't like it, we're just going to send it back to you and we're not going to talk about it.
And that's kind of, I feel like partly how we think of things today is that we're only really interested in talking about things that we like. Yes, right. And what we're never interested in is talking is just saying we like things that we don't really like. I'm honestly, I'm Vu has said this many times. I'm not that good of an actor. I just, you know, my nose will just scrunch. Yeah, yeah, even if. You can't. You can't. See it? You might. You'll hear. You'll hear.
It Lydia ever sounds super nasally. No, no, now we're going to make now we're no, but but, but the other part I want to talk about is like we like biases exist, right? Like we have, we all have constantly we're biased against or towards things. And to use cameras again, as an example, like I've owned so many cameras. I've owned Canons, Nikons, Leica's Contacts, Mamia, I, I've owned cameras that the companies don't even exist anymore, right? Because I've, I've been.
Fertile. Well, OK, OK, that's the. Cart and the horse you don't have to took you to the camera. But anyway, my first ever like what I considered serious cameras right in like 1995 ish. It was a Canon right? A little Canon SLR film right? Started in film and I mostly used Canon for like a decade. Yeah. And, and transitioned into digital with Canon, right? So when DSLR came out, it was Canon. So I will always have a soft spot for Canon.
But even back when my brother and I were being sponsored by different companies and being given cameras, like we were given Nikon cameras and Panasonic cameras and all kinds of different gear, Canon never gave us anything, right? And so, but still, because I used Canon for the whole beginning of my photographic journey, like I will always have a soft spot for Canon and but I have no relationship even no. Transparency page relationship. No relationship at all with Sony
right? Like I've never owned a Sony. It's like one of the very few camera systems I never got into. So if someone today handed me a brand new Canon and a brand new Sony, I will like the Canon more instantly. I'm more. Used to it, I'm I'm I have more affinity for the name, the brand, right? That's a bias that exists. But that can be so that also is a lot of times like family held, you know, like, is there a brand? It's why I love Rolex.
My dad loved Rolex. It took me a long time to be able to buy a car that wasn't a Honda because my dad was like, no, Hondas are the best. And it took me a very, very, very long time to kind of break free of that. He used to like it was down to the point where 'cause he was like the only laundry detergent you should ever. Buy Oh yeah, you were very much when we got when we moved to Sweden, who was like, where's the there's no. Tide how could I wash clothes? Clothes.
My clothes will not be cleaned. They can't be cleaned. It's impossible. I was like, whoa. Right. So, OK, So what we're trying to say is like, there's all these influences. Well, advertising brand, yeah. You know that. Stuff right they. Influence us all differently, but also we have our own personal preferences. So it's not just about biases, it's about preferences. It's also circumstances. We need different things in
watches. Not all of us are running around pulling kids out of wells every day, right? So you need different watches. Right, exactly. I'm not all of. These different things, including the relationships you have directly with brands add up to how you're going to experience a product. And So what we're trying to do here is just be as transparent as we can without it being because I do think that sometimes there can't, there is information overload.
So it's like trying to find that balance of, you know, what makes sense, Like what's a common sense approach to this? Yeah. So V1 is out there now. Yeah. And we're excited to see if you think it's the common sense approach or? Yeah, please. Tell us. Let us know. Oh. Yeah, there's a contact page, you can just tell us that. Bye everyone, bye.