ramdom thought thread revival

[Trench Witch]

Do not make a [redacted] thread. give the forum a chance to revive

[bels]

I've created and locked the [redacted] thread.

[rjbman]

i need some goddamn rep to neg u both

brb gonna make a pro [redacted] thread (not about their [redacted])

[alby]

i miss square avatars damn

[AARON]

i miss square avatars damn

a shame even phpbb has joined the circle monoculture

[silvaeri]

i want to make a tags thread because i know for a fact multiple people here used to make forum tags in the days of old internet.

[Trench Witch]

Rep this comment so I can get a hundo and neg all these dips with their signatures

[miles]

Can someone who has WSJ access let me know what I was quoted as saying in the story article? Their paywall is very sophisticated.

[titkitten]

the first few paragraphs omitted because you can still see them through the paywall

The share-it-all strategy worked. Jake Regele, 22, a computer science student living in New York, was just a teenager when he came across Story's posts on Care Tags. To him, the behind-the-scenes anecdotes made the brand "feel like it was kind of a little club, but a club that all you have to do to get in was just like their clothes." Mr. Regele has continued to message with Mr. Al-Rubeyi, and said that the approachability of the founders makes him feel like part of the label and not just a random consumer. Mr. Regele prides himself on owning nearly every item from the brand's first official collection in 2015.

Now stocked by big-name retailers like Mr Porter and Matches Fashion, Story has a much larger audience. Along the way, the couple has tweaked their approach to customer feedback. A couple years ago, Mr. Al-Rubeyi said, if they'd post a photo of an in-production jacket and the reaction was tepid, they might scrap the design. Now that Story's fans mostly trust the couple and the Al-Rubeyis pose more general questions rather than asking for specific product-by-product feedback. "A customer wants the brand to do the artistry" he said. "They just want to have some small input."

The brand's use of Instagram as a non-stop focus group keeps customers engaged, and to Mr. Regele's point makes them feel like part of the brand. Last month, Mr. Al-Rubeyi asked the label's followers to help name the color of some ceramics the couple was about to launch. The fantastical name one follower generated for the hue of these mugs, bowls and cups was "The Bottom End of a Spring Onion". A few months before that, he asked what products shoppers would like to see from Story. Overwhelming, the masses wanted socks, so now the couple is considering making those.

Transparency also lets brands combat misinformation. Fashion fans frequently congregate on forums and Facebook groups to chatter about their favorite brands. Inevitably, that chatter isn't always accurate. "You don't necessarily get exhaustive information [on Reddit or forums]. You just get given the information that is parroted within just that social circle," said Mr. Al-Rubeyi. By sharing on its website everything from videos of garments being block-printed to the right way to hand-wash its clothes, Story has been able to correct the record. Mr. Al-Rubeyi also corresponds with many fashion students who have never bought anything from Story, but just like learning about various production techniques.

There is a limit to how much Story will share. The Al-Rubeyis won't give out their manufacturers' phone numbers, and, while they'll disclose the make-up of their natural dyes, they won't share exactly how to make them—much the same way Heinz has made public the ingredients in its ketchup, but not the actual recipe. As Story's grown, the couple has also learned to be hush-hush when necessary: A recent Reebok collaboration was kept under the lid until its agreed upon launch date.

Sharing this much can also be exhausting and certain customers can be irksome. "There's definitely, like, a personality type who just wants to debate and not buy, and we get them in droves," said Mr. Al-Rubeyi, who occasionally turns his Instagram messages off to take a breather from the onslaught.

Still, it's worth it when customers who actually buy jackets or pants value the minutiae the brand shares with them. "If someone says to you, 'I like those jeans' you can be, like, 'oh, yeah, they were dyed with this fruit.' You feel like it's something more interesting," said Miles Dugan, 28, who works for a tea company in New York City and has followed Story for several years. Being able to read and learn about all the labor, time and thought that goes into a Story item has made him appreciate the company more than "a random brand" that sells clothes without revealing all the behind-the-scenes intel.

Yet, Mr. Dugan is likely in the minority. As Mr. Al-Rubeyi put it, the number of people who buy a Story piece "because of how we make something" is quite low compared to the number who buy it "because they just like to look at it." Nonetheless, he and his wife plan to keep sharing because they themselves find bark-dying and pH levels interesting. "We're really geeky," said Ms. Al-Rubey. "We genuinely think that it's so cool to show people" what we're making.

[rjbman]

also if we're banning threads i nominate the s*preme thread

[ramdomthought]

post your timezone in the thumbs of this comment

[ramdomthought]

it is no fun to ban threads

[maj]

comic proposal

panel 1: look at those losers over there

panel 2: i know its so sad

panel 3: i would rather be [redacted] than larping

panel 4: people in the park dressed in suits with comically sized telephones screaming into them

[maj]

tshirt proposal:

s o c i e t
y

[chilljin]

Bring back IRC

[maj]

just get on the discord, it's like irc, you can make problematic posts there if they're funny enough, which is 90% of the irc experience

https://discord.gg/txhc4kcq

[maj]

Best part of being a woman is still peeing standing up