What is The Enthusiasts?
A place to talk about watches. Mostly.
Hey everyone! First off, we couldn’t be more excited to have you here with us at The Enthusiasts, our new media platform for all things watches (and some other things too).
If you don’t know us already, we’re Justin Hast and Stephen Pulvirent, two veterans of the watch media world and good friends who constantly find ourselves having the kinds of conversations we wish we could share with others. Luckily, there’s a pretty easy solution to that problem and you’re looking at it right now.
We know the media landscape is crowded, especially when it comes to watches, but our goal with The Enthusiasts is to take a slightly different approach. This is a celebration of shared passion, of international community, of creativity, and, most importantly, of excitement and optimism. This isn’t a place for hard-scrabble industry analysis or for picking things apart – it’s a place to focus on the things that excite us most, to leave cynicism behind, and to have open, honest conversations about the things we’re genuinely passionate about.
So what does that actually look like in practice? Every other week we will publish a podcast episode and on each “off week” we will publish a newsletter, so you’ll get something from us every week (usually on Wednesdays). The podcasts will be a mix of casual conversations between the two of us and occasional interviews and guest spots from collector friends, industry stalwarts, and other interesting acquaintances. The newsletter will include much of the same – essays from Justin and Stephen, Q&As with notable people, cool watches we’ve found across the globe, and features on the things we’re feeling most enthusiastic about each week. There will be other bonus content from time to time, but that’s the foundation.
Most of what we talk and write about will be watches. Modern watches, vintage watches, watches we own, watches we wish we owned, watchmakers who interest us, collectors we admire, themes and ideas we see playing out across the community and industry, and the like. But we’re not watch-loving robots, so you’ll hear about other things too. Design, photography, travel, food, family, collecting more generally, and more will be woven into The Enthusiasts and hopefully give it a slightly different vibe and personality than what you’re used to.
This post, the first podcast episode, and the first newsletter are free to all. Beyond that though, The Enthusiasts is a subscriber-driven platform. Subscriptions are either $10/month or $100/year and we see two major advantages to doing things this way. First, it allows us to make the kind of product we want to make without being totally reliant on advertiser support. Sure, there might be ads in the future and we’re not closed-off to the idea of partnerships, but we will always be 100% transparent with our audience. Second, it means that the people listening, reading, and engaging with The Enthusiasts actually want to be here and are invested in making this the positive, passion-driven community we want it to be. Ultimately, that’s what we’re invested in and we want you to come along for the ride with us.
Alright, we’ll leave it there for now. Let us know in the comments what you want to see and hear about and we’ll do our best to incorporate your feedback into future episodes and posts. And, importantly, we want to start things off with a massive thank you to everyone who decides to support The Enthusiasts and what we’re trying to do here. We literally can’t do it without you and we couldn’t be more excited about building a new little community here online and beyond.
All our best,
Justin & Stephen