Fire Watch Snob Series: Who is the Watch Snob?

This series is inspired by a batchmate of mine from high school who runs the blog FireQuinito.com. He has this hilarious way of writing and ridiculing Quinito Henson, a Filipino sports journalist and analyst. Well most of the time he writes something else about sports, but from time to time he takes a dig at Quinito and other popular (but oftentimes unworthy of it) sports figure in the Philippines (I'm looking at you Graham Lim).

And like Quinito, the Watch Snob, in my honest opinion often puts his foot where his mouth is when writing his articles.

Who is the Watch Snob?

The Watch Snob is a writer for AskMen who writes weekly articles based on questions sent to him by AskMen readers.

Do you really want to get him fired?

Well of course not, the guy is just trying to make a living. The sad things about this though is that most of the time he's just mailing it in by resorting to the controversy made by his purposedly ridiculous generalizations to attract his readers rather than with well thought of and genuine critic/advice. Creating an interestng controversy is easy, especially when you demean watches that are known to have huge and loyal, some call it fanatical, followings. Writing an interesting watch review is difficult. I guess it's not rocket science to figure out why one should he write a detailed review of a watch, when one can get more hits just by saying outrageous things like this:

There is nothing, and I do mean nothing, worse than a young man who wears a Panerai watch. These watches were cool five years ago, and even then they were only cool if you were Italian (and I don’t mean Jersey Shore Italian -- I mean actually a resident of Italy)... If you think wearing a Panerai is cool in the year 2010, you probably also think you invented the boat shoe and the ironic mustache trends...

...If you’re a man of distinction, a man who really has the world by its throat, you need a Lange on your wrist. A Panerai is child’s play -- a cheap toy worn only by clowns. Yes, I said clowns.

Really? Come on.

But the tragic thing is, this guy's reach is vast and it is probably safe to assume that a part of his audience actually end up accepting his opinion. And in my honest opinion, his general advice seems to be always lacking in genuine discussion of merits and based mostly on (his) perceived value of a watch.

I'm more in the buy-what-sings-to-you-most-and-not-what-other-people-tell-you-to-buy school of thought. I like to believe that the wearer fo the watch defines the watch and never the other way around.

It would be a sad day in horology and human history when people think that their watches define them.

Anyway, the Watch Snob though clears himself of justifying his articles buy saying:

All the opinions expressed by the Watch Snob are my own, and are just that -- opinions

So readers, take everything he says with a grain of salt. Read his articles as only a source of basic information and as a way to entertain yourself. Do your research when buying and in the end, only buy watches that you will enjoy wearing regardless of what other people might say or think (except of course replicas and fakes for the simple reason that counterfeiting is illegal).

In the end, the Watch Snob does his job really well, and by his job I mean as a writer that attracts readers and provides hits and clicks to AskMen.Com. Nothing else, period.