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Thom Wong's avatar

BBSP never misses, so when there is a miss it's ocean's wide. Backpacks forever.

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SpikeLeonard's avatar

Can’t believe the time has come but I actually disagree with you on something! To be clear, I’m not asking for a “permission slip” to wear a backpack like some of those in the other comments; I simply dispute the Little Timmy Quotient…or at least its universal application.

Backpacks are standard gear for mountaineers, outdoorsmen, special forces guys, and adventurers of all stripes—and now you are telling me we are free to borrow their sauce when it comes to cargo pants, hiking boots, or a three layer gore shell…but a special exemption exists for portage? I don’t buy it! I think, as with any of the aforementioned items, that would come down to the wearer and his ability to rock it, and that its functional utility would ultimately add to its coolness.

A good technical pack (I do agree that fashion backpacks are an abomination), worn properly (not sagging and sloppy like in the pictures) by the right person (not like the cleverly chosen dorks in the pictures) is as likely to make you look like a soldier or an alpinist as it is a hapless child. Wearing velcro Keds while drinking from a little red sippy cup might make you look like you’re in grade school; that doesn’t mean that all sneakers, even some silvery OG Wave Rider 10s, make you look like you’re in grade school—that would just be a sampling bias.

As for evidence; here’s a picture of style lord Chris Gentile from Pilgrim Surf + Supply looking (IMHO) like a full badass in a backpack (https://ibb.co/n0Y5F2j)

I’m going to go even farther out on this limb here and suggest that maybe *you* don’t actually look like Little Timmy in your dope Visvim pack, and once freed from your preconceptions about this noble workhorse of a sack, may come to embrace it once more…or more appropriately, let it embrace you.

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