The TAG Heuer hate is strong with this one...
Hosting an ailing YouTube channel that just won't pick up views? Here's an easy guide to boosting your ratings and confirm your position as a TAG Heuer hating connoisseur of fine watchmaking...
First, and most importantly, you need a tag line, or a TAG line (if you will), the harsher the better... don't pussy about with things like 'Are TAG Heuer watches worth the money' because that's not going to get you anywhere. No, you need something much stronger and eye catching like 'TAG Heuer: Garbage or Great Watches?', 'TAG Heuer: Cheap Crap or High Horology?', best to frame it as a question to give the illusion that the video might just contain a modicum of fairness or a genuine open-mindedness (yeah, right).
But let's be frank, if you make one of these videos and you actually give TAG Heuer a fair crack of the whip you will fail in your number one objective - to get the TAG Heuer hating watch community behind you and to cement your reputation as 'one of the rightminded majority'.
No, that will never do, at all costs you must HATE TAG Heuer, but... of course this comes with it's own problems, because if it was that simple you wouldn't need to distinguish between TAG Heuer and Heuer. Ah,... now, this is a tricky one because there are two paths to tread here and both have their own issues.
You must either deride everything made after 1985, when Heuer became TAG Heuer... or you must distinguish between watches that are 'branded' Heuer and watches which are branded 'TAG Heuer'.
The first scenario is easier and will find much approval with the vintage watch community who think everything past the mid 70s is unspeakable garbage, and so if you do plan to take this route you should probably not mention a specific date, just say 'original Heuer' because honestly Heuer made some ropey old shit in the early 80s and you don't want to leave any room for misunderstandings to creep in.
The second option should be fraught with difficulty, because at the end of the day whether a watch is branded TAG Heuer or Heuer it is being made by the same people, in the same factory and often with the same movements. But TAG Heuer haters care not for these simple truths, because it's a witch hunt and we all know how that goes: throw her in the river, if she floats she's a witch so burn her at the stake!
And besides, everyone is in on the joke, so sneer away... Christian @ Theo and Harris is the absolute master of this, in the same sentence he can switch from TAG Heuer is utter garbage to 'but the new green dial HEUER Carrera is gorgeous' without missing a beat, watch and learn kiddies, study at the master's feet.
The 'Time Teller' once made a video called 'Why I Never Talk About TAG Heuer' in which he blasted the brand because literally 'EVERYONE' he knew had owned a TAG Heuer at some point and they had all fallen to pieces. But, of course, he couldn't resist the lure of the ratings boost that hating on TAG Heuer brings so time and time again he goes back to talking about the brand he allegedly NEVER talks about.
And then he made a video about why the Monaco is wonderful, the Heuer branded one, obviously, not that God-awful TAG Heuer branded crap...
The truth is what these people generally have in common (Christian at Theo and Harris and the Time Teller both sell vintage watches FYI) is they don't like TAG Heuer because for the most part they have a modern 'aesthetic'. But they don't say that, obviously, because where's the HATE in that? That's not going to bait the trap, is it?
Can anyone show me another watch brand that gets this level of nonsense thrown at it? Nope, despite other watch brands having similar 'issues' none of them inspire this level of fanaticism. Why? Because no one cares enough about the brands 'below' TAG Heuer in the pecking order to care and the ones slightly above are sticking firmly to the vintage aesthetic, or at least that's all you hear about.
(Do Tudor still make watches like the Fast Rider? I imagine they've been quietly discontinued to free up production space for even more variations on the proven Black Bay). Unfortunately until TAG Heuer cow down and rebrand all their lines as re-editions or 'heritage inspired' this will continue unabated.
Do these videos actually 'hurt' TAG Heuer though? Actually I don't think so... partly because the 'watch snob' kind of people who hate TAG Heuer are going to hate them no matter what and the younger, 'edgier' kind of people that TAG Heuer are targeting probably either don't care or view it as 'old fuddies' kicking what they don't understand. As for the rest of us, well hopefully we can all recognise it for the clickbait bullshit that it is and simply laugh at it.
One thing you notice again and again though is that the go to argument against TAG Heuer is that you shouldn't buy an Aquaracer, you should buy a Tudor Black Bay, as if those watches are remotely similar. What makes anyone think that a person who lusts after a watch that looks like this:
Would be persuaded to buy a watch that looks like this:
Apart from the fact that they are nominally dive watches and they both have hands to tell the time, where is the similarity. That's like someone saying I want a Lamborghini Aventador and somebody saying 'no, no, no.. you should get a Muira instead'. So why don't these people offer an alternative with a similarly modern aesthetic? Well, two reasons, a) such as what exactly? and b) because 'vintage inspired' is
always the answer, no matter what the question.
Here endeth today's lesson!
