Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 437: The Truth About the Apparel Business in 2024

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

There have been a lot of fitness apparel companies closing up shop over the last several months. What is up with that? How has it effected Massenomics and what does it mean going forward for us?? Build Fast Formula Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% on every order! BearFoot Shoes Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% on every order! Juggernaut AI Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10%! The Strength Co Get some Go-To Plates! Swiss Link Use code MASS to save 15%! Texas Power Bars Get the Barbell that changed the game!

Thanks for what you do with your podcasts and all the rest. You're doing a great job. Hope everybody keeps tuning in. You get a lot of good info, a lot of insights, understandings on how to get strong, how to stay strong, how to use your strength. You do a great job, dude. You make things better than they are in real life, I think.

If you don't follow Massanomics, y'all do it. Social media, website, everything. Massanomics! everything massonomics oh thanks kaz and company for welcoming us all to episode 437 of the massonomics podcast the lifting podcast about nothing recorded from your favorite dakota south dakota that's where we're from my name is tanner and my name is tommy tommy there's about only two things i know this week you know what they are what lifting and drinking is all i know lifting and drinking that's all i know those are two great things to know what else do you really need to know really i'd say there's nothing else you actually need to know

there's other things you could know but nothing else you need to know nothing that's like essential to know like lifting and i mean if you know lifting and drinking i i will say that right there you're gonna like get along with the majority of the population that you want right along with if also you're gonna get far in life just like it's if i've met a lot of people through both of those so i can't actually argue with that you met a lot of people through both of those so i can't actually argue with that you are going to get pretty far knowing both of those and in the song he is literally saying it's all he knows though like he does not even know anything else and this guy is a famous country music singer so one of the biggest i've heard i'm not sure he feels like

he also kind of knows like singing country music, but, uh, maybe he's just too modest. Just doesn't put that at the same level. I guess what he really knows is lifting and drinking. Some of the stuff maybe feels okay about it, but it's lifting and drinking as well. He really knows like the back of his hand.

Can't blame him for that. No, I also can't. Speaking of people that know about lifting and drinking head over to the strength.co they've got uh plates that are built to last built for performance they're going the distance they're going for speed they're going for accuracy check them out they're uh black e-coated smooth easy, easy to grip, made in America. Not made in another country.

They're made right here in America out of a foundry that Big Grant found in Wapaka, Wisconsin is where they make them. And they do make the best plates in the game, the best iron plates that are out there. So if you're a home gym owner and you don't have any strength code plates i would not wait any longer they now have their lowest shipping prices ever and that includes even you know the big dog 45 pound plates so check them all out at the strength.co it's okay this episode is also brought to you by barefoot shoes barefoot shoes are our favorite barefoot footwear option to wear in and out of the

gym for many, many years now. Tanner and I have recently made the jump to the low top Ursus suede, black suede with a gum sole. And that thing is lovely. It's an amazing shoe. It's our first low top one we've gone with. And man, we waited way too long to go to the low top option here their shoes are functional look great and really give you that uh barefoot feeling that you're going for uh if you need something that's not shoes they also have boots the bruin boot is available in a black and a brown leather and they're also coming out with a made in america option so if you want to be the uh the american footwear guy they have you covered on those bases too so if you want to get a pair of barefoot shoes for yourself make sure you head on over to barefoot

dot store while you're there use code massonomics and you can save 10 on your next order that's barefoot dot store code massonomics will save you 10% thank you barefoot shoes just so you know Tommy if both of us need to get up and leave the podcast at any moment for anything and I need to kill a little time I got a new thing that I can just kind of like kill some time I don't know how well you hear it on your end but

let's try it absolutely well it's okay because everyone but you will be able to hear it so yeah it's okay but it is uh the james bond pause music oh yeah that goes hard that goes hard if it's like the podcast is paused for a second we'll just throw on the james bond pause well everyone else not the live listeners everyone else will have a real treat there yeah you'll just imagine yeah that's that's this yeah for the live listeners zoom doesn't like uh like music like which is funny even just like that. Yeah, it totally just nothingness.

That's odd. But maybe it thinks it's background noise or something. I don't know. That's weird that it doesn't come through. But it'll come across in the recording, Lima Charlie. Yes, it will. I can't wait to hear that. Yeah, we got a big week this episode.

We're actually going to do a title topic this week. We'll get to that later, what the title of this topic is. You've probably seen if you've read the title of episode 437. But we've got some other stuff first. First of all, I've got tracking, tracking. So last week we talked about tracking. So are you still tracking on the tracking, Tommy? Oh, hell yeah.

I don't think I'm going to. You just need a weekly tracking update. If it's still tracking are you still tracking on the tracking time hell yeah yeah i don't think i'm gonna need a week a weekly tracking update if it's still tracking that you're tracking after i talked about it for 45 minutes last week i decided you know what i'm over this and i checked out no i'm still tracking everything not uh so it sounds like all the tracking is still tracking oh tracking is tracking and uh keith said in the discord this is my my question as well we saw some chatter this week about people tracking or getting back to tracking in the discord so i'm curious if yeah if we either inspired or reminded some people to to go back to tracking their macros yeah they're just like all right damn it i guess i'll do it too it's like uh the community aspect right where

you're like i think so Like everyone's doing it. I got to do it, too. And if you decide to, if you just you just hearing this, like, you know what? Those guys are talking about tracking macros. I should macro factor the app. Use code massonomics. Get you extra free week on your trial and gives us a little referral bonus. We get a kickback out of it.

So we appreciate it. It's funny. When I was lifting in the gym on today's tuesday it must maybe it was just yesterday must have just been yesterday lifting with sergeant anderson and he had a good meet he was really happy with his meat he could lift hardly easy classic was that actually his first meet ever that was his first meet ever and he had good first meet big squat and big deadlift prs he deadlifted, which he never, like his biggest single before that was maybe like 520. Yeah, that's awesome.

And he hit like a 20, 30-pound squat PR. He's been using Juggernaut app. And he actually made the comment, you know what? I just want to like slowly gain a little bit more weight. He's like, I'd like to get closer. weight he's like i'd like to get closer like in the next year if i could get a little closer to being in like the higher end range of like the 242 class or whatever that uh weight is he's like over the next 52 weeks i'd really like to get close to that without getting waif i mean what everyone wants like he's like i don't want to get way fatter but if i right right and uh i said well

do you track your macros like i was actually i was like i'm trying not to sell them on this but i was just curious i'm like very relevant uh timely point you're making i'm like do you track it and he's like no i haven't it is the exact same thing as us he'd used my fitness pal before many years ago and has done a little bit of tracking before and i'm like well check this app out we just spent like actually i said listen to this week's episode of the podcast first of all because it'll be you'll get a lot of questions answered but like if it's interesting to you check it out because it sounds like what you're wanting to do this could actually be pretty beneficial so

real life referring people convert just, just in the person. I have not downloaded the app yet, but I have been considering it. Well, you've just been hanging on for dear life though, to be fair. That's true. That actually is true. I,

my, my wife is back though. Officially last night, the flight was, I was telling you the flight was even delayed by like six hours. So I did have to do one more unexpected my ninth night in a row of just me at bedtime supper time bedtime and all of that but i survived and what i said before there's really minimal difference between eight nights and nine nights

but when i thought it's when you see that i was now gonna have help it moves out a little farther that's the worst pain there is. They moved the goalpost on me. The classic moving the goalpost on me scenario. But my wife is back. So it's back to systems normal where we have a little partnership of being able to share and do the duties together rather than just myself, which was tough, very tough.

It was a tough assignment for me over that last week. It's no walk in the park, is it? It was not a walk in the park. Actually, there's that times when I'm like, gosh, if someone could, and actually I really like, I should say, I make it sound terrible. Like I really like spending time with my kids. I've actually got like a, I really like. Oh, it is. Spending time with my kids. It's actually got like a lot of really good time with my kids. And it is a lot of fun.

But it's just the thing of like, man, like an hour break would just be like. That's exactly right. Yeah. Like, I just need a little bit with when you never get a break at all. That's when I get to like my breaking point. I just need like a little break. Like, oh man, I just need to like take a shower and just take a dump and like, just, I don't know, like eat the food, my phone and just not hear any noise for just like an hour. Like that's all I need. And I can reset and I'm good

to go. That's right. Like if you just, when it's, when you don't get any of that for a lot of that's when it starts to be like, Oh, this is hard. That's exactly the point, though. That's what it is, is not getting any break from it. That's like anything, though. If you get a little break, you can stomach a lot of stuff. Let's see. We do have a... Oh, which one of these do we want to mention here?

We can do a really quick one here. Actually, a really quick one, too. New YouTube video this past week was my home gym tour. So if you haven't seen that, take a look. Updated home gym tour five months into the process. And I will say, I really appreciated the comments. There was a lot of really good comments in there. People had a lot of constructive, positive, and just nice things

to say. Like it was a, it was a fun video to make, to go through the gym and people seem to appreciate it. So check that out if you haven't. And did you have anything else to add to that, Tanner? You seem like you're about to say something. Yeah, no, actually like what you said there, we talked about it too, is like, oh, it's really fun how genuinely positive, like there was a ton of comments, which also is just awesome. It's fun seeing, like, it's like people are actually engaging with it. Like they have things to say about the video. And then it is like a really nice feeling when it's like, ah, and it's also positive. And like the space of the internet, you can go through like a hundred youtube comments

on this thing and be like everything's positive yes you know like it wasn't all like a lot of times they recognize the comments and it's like oh it's people we know supporting members right you guys are positive and that's awesome that's great we kind of expect you to be sort of positive but a lot of these were funny or something yeah or funny or something yeah but a lot of these names were names i don't recognize at all and have never seen before comment on our stuff so we were getting the randoms and when you're getting randoms being positive that's like an achievement in youtube right there yeah so that is a really good video make sure to check it out it's got a good amount of views which is also reassuring and nice to see someone i don't know if you saw this comment someone wants wanted you to give the link for

your uh stereo receiver i did i did put that i gave him the for your stereo receiver. I did put that. I gave them the name of it in there, yeah. I put that in there earlier today, yep. So that was one. And along those same lines, though, we do have some exciting gym tours that are also going to be in the works over the next month or two here. So, again, if you're not subscribed. We've got a number that are in the works,

like kind of a variety if we really think about stuff we're working on. Yes, we have a variety of things. We have something, we'll just say something really big we're working on right now yeah we're working on a big content thing coming up yeah that works out yeah we got some i mean i think it is going to it's just kind of a matter of time and uh figuring it out we're actually work we kind of almost like revisited our plan for the rest of 2024 and like have a bunch of stuff now that's either on the books or like we're working to get on the books that all of a sudden I just feel really optimistic about. Oh, yeah. We have coming that it's gonna be really cool. Yes.

We have an awesome like what four or five months left, five months left of the year basically planned out. So, yeah, it's going to be if you're not not subscribed on youtube make sure you are like there's gonna be some good stuff coming there and along those same lines for the second time in i don't know two three weeks we got another mention on garage gym reviews from coop again and i don't know are we content guys over here do we have a lot of good content ideas because i think uh we gave we gave him another idea here and this was inspired by when he was on our podcast we asked him what the most overrated pieces of home gym equipment are and he gave us a couple and to be fair we also put him on the spot so we didn't have a ton of

time to think about it but he came out with a video that said most overrated home gym pieces and right away when i saw the thumbnail and everything i'm like man we just covered that topic with him like two weeks ago what what is he gonna have to say about this and then like right away in the video one of his first things he says is i was on the mass and i was so he gave us a shout out saying how that idea came to be which was cool to see that. Thank you for the shout out, Coop. Yeah, that's very cool to see. Also, this is maybe like a little bit behind the scenes talk here, but we did just recently have Coop on not too long ago, which was an awesome episode. Go check that out and give that a listen. It was maybe, I don't know,

eight episodes ago or something, 430 or 420 something. Check it out. Coop on the the mass dynamics podcast. Really great, entertaining, fun episode, a lot of good feedback on that one. And I do feel like within, you know,

a section of the home gym community that coop had been getting like a worse and worse image for the last, like hand, uh, two, three, one, two,

three, four years. I don't know how long yeah pick a time and it's like he was kind of like falling out of favor with a lot of people for maybe like some semi-valid reasons some probably not that valid and like this all got brought to light and everything like that but what i not dwelling on that what i'm going to say is like it feels like that tide has shifted significantly and that uh people are like i think he's maybe minorly changed a few things that he does and the way he does a few things that have been like a lot more kind of like inclusive or like literally just like including more of the hardcore community. Right.

It just, it's more of, I think more of a feel good attitude across the board for everyone. Right. And I feel like it's been noticed and that people kind of are enjoying it more at least, you know, but the broader audience probably always did, but like more in the drilled down sub segment that it feels like more positive i think it's

probably from being on the massonomics podcast that's i mean that's what we're trying to say here is that yes we mended the relationship and fixed everything it is all our credit no one else's yeah just us just essentially only us uh you you did your home gym tour and i was thinking so was there any new equipment like have you gotten anything new recently then you haven't like i was i'm like in the last month or two you're saying right um i actually don't think i really have i've i basically got everything over the course of about two months right and since then um yeah i actually i couldn't even tell you the last thing i got i actually i can't i think the last thing i got was the the weight pegs the band pegs for

the front of the rack to hold my uh to hold my change plates and that was probably two months ago so you carp got you sent your uh genesis jet deadlift jack in the mail from that you had picked up at home, Gym Con. Yeah, yeah. But even there, it's like, oh, that felt like that was a few. I mean, that kind of was a few months ago. Keith said I got those new dumbbell handles, the plastic ones. I've actually had those for over two months now too, maybe even three months.

So, yeah, I basically bought everything in the first two months that I got my gym set up. And, yeah, I talked about my wishlist items I do I would really I would really like a pair of those rep pep and dumbbells I think those would be what is the is like is there an official number on the price tag of what those are uh it's so it depends on what what how heavy you want them to go so if you get like the the lightest weight one, it's like 80 pounds, I think is the lightest option. That's a thousand bucks. And the heaviest set goes up to like 120 each. And I think that's 1300. I've never touched a dumbbell a hundred pounds or heavier in

my life. So I'd be fine with the 80 pound ones. And if you ever change your mind, you can buy the extra plates that drop in. So you're not out anything. Um anything um so that's that would be a wishlist item there um and then we also talked about possibly adding some heat of some kind i do have like in the meantime i do have i don't even know what you call those the heaters you hook just a propane heater you know right which at the very least my garage is insulated and everything so if i let that run for just a little bit it would warm up my garage especially when it's not like really cold yeah yeah when it's not just the worst of the worst um right so yeah but yeah otherwise nothing else really new and i don't have i honestly don't have much for you i was just about to pull the trigger probably two weeks ago on the uh rep um open trap bar it's oh yeah

it looks really nice it's like the kabuki one except right the whole thing is shipped for like 390 or 380 right that's a good price but then i was looking at bridge block you don't even do conventional deadlifts in the bridge block like at all you do some pause deadlifts which is fine okay and then i'm like oh then i'm getting to hypertrophy and that's also i don't know i just had a hard time all of a sudden justifying it and then i'm like that is big and takes up a lot of room too so i don't know it's it's still a maybe item keith mentioned it there everyone wants you to get a pull down cable okay that is another one number one so that's the number one comment that i that is number one that is the number one comment um so digging

around there i don't like just the jankiness of just straight up pulleys and right you know so start uh surplus strength makes an awesome looking thing i feel like that's kind of the standard the ups yes that what that one is also and i do not doubt the quality of this product it's very expensive and i'm gonna say how much does that cost uh that just the just the device itself was like 400 and then you need a loading pin and you need uh i feel like there was like two other things you need and it's like and then you add in shipping it's like probably over 500 by the time i'm like god 500 for like an exercise that's almost i didn't spend that much of my rack even that's almost the most expensive piece in my entire gym and it's to do like pull downs and tricep extensions and then i just have a

part part of me has a hard time justifying that and then i go on bells of steel i have a bells of steel rack you can get a whole like hydra so i have the hydra you can get a whole lap pull down like extension off the back of your rack that's all this stuff and that thing's like 500 bucks and ships for free so price comparison yeah one's made in america and looks really sweet and it's super high quality but it's just that's a hard that's a hard sell for me and so like right now i agree though it would be nice to have that. Cause I've just been doing pull-ups and burning myself out on those because you can only do so many, but what I did this week and it feels like I'm just doing lap pull-downs all

of a sudden is I did the pull-ups. I got the lightest band I got, did the pull-ups on there and just having that like 20 pounds of assistance. All of a sudden it's like, yes, I can do solid clean sets of 10 for like five sets like juggernaut wants and i'm like whoa it's like i'm on the lap pull down machine here like this feels great and so now now looking at it again like no i don't even need that anymore right it's actually

pretty relatively easy to scale those two because you can stand on it or put your knee in it so yeah and it's gonna be less pressure than standing on it or you can just use a different band and then have those two options you know so you can keep doing it doing things like that to change the resistance too um yeah definitely people want you to get that that was the most common suggestion yes is i i don't know like you're the same way cables what do you do do you do anything cables besides pull-downs or tricep extensions? I do pull-downs, and I do tricep extensions. Occasionally, I'll do a curl on there, but I wouldn't need, I wouldn't, 100%, I'll just do it for the sake of, literally for the sake of doing something different.

Actually, it's not my preferred. But when it comes to pull-downs, I do like the cable, and on tricep breast sounds, I do like the cable. And on tricep press-downs, I do like the cable. But like Keith says, low rows and seated rows, does anyone even do those in the gym? That machine isn't really set up to do that very well, is it? No. You can do low rows on, we have that.

You can do low rows with the cable crossover because we have that low row seat that you can set out there. But like nobody gets that out and does that. Or you can do low rows off of the Rhino if you wanted to. I don't remember ever seeing anyone do those movements, which is funny because then I go to a commercial gym and I feel like those are some of the most common movements you see in there. But yeah, I'm just not a huge cable guy, I guess,

so I don't feel like I'm missing out on a ton there low rows uh actually i'm not this isn't even a comment about them being a good or bad exercise but i know they are an exercise that carries favor in a commercial gym because you can put a whole bunch of weight on it and you can lean back on it all right exactly all right yeah i see this the littlest guy is doing way more weight than me and i'm looking like well yeah because you're pushing out with your legs and leaning back that is 100 of reason why people like that lift right right uh i got a couple pieces of equipment the one that came today was i got the oak club basketball hoop oh it didn't show up okay yeah so i've got to put that up in the gym and And then I also got a couple of pair of vintage York collars.

Oh, I did see those. So what was, is this something you've been looking at or what was the story behind those? I wanted the, the spin lock ones are the ones that kind of look like they really look old. Like they have the knobs that come out on the end of it. I wanted a pair of those actually just to put, you know, how I have my York deep dish mounted on the wall. I wanted to just put those like on the peg that sticks out past the plate. I just wanted to.

So I put one of those on each of there and actually the other style, which is the speed lock, which is just kind of like the big bolt that goes through and tightens onto the bar. Those also were just kind of cool. And the guy was selling both, so I'm like, I'll buy those also. So is this like a vintage weight group or something? You found these? Yeah, it was a vintage weight group thing.

That's what I was thinking about getting for a while, and he had those, and I got them both, and I did want those, you know, the spin lock ones yeah so are those like what do they know roughly what year those are from even oh god I can't even remember I'm certainly not an expert on them somebody you know pre-1980 uh probably not on the speed lock ones which are the less cool looking ones those are probably like from the 80s or could even be from they're probably between like late 70s and early 90s and then uh yeah he said the spin spin lock which are the cooler looking ones he says 60s to 80s which that would make sense for me too okay and he said 90s

on speed so that's about tracks and uh they're cool though they look they look cool and i'd been thinking about getting them, and it was just one of those things. Eventually, they popped up the right one. I'm like, yeah, I'll just, since you got both, now I'm knocking off the list. They got me. Yeah.

And the last thing, I won't talk about it much yet, but I posted a picture for those in our Discord community that you can see. It came on a pallet today. Do I know what this is here? here yeah you do know what it is you just can't just by looking at that this was in this was on the big pallet you're saying yeah this was all on the big pallet today so i had to and actually the a lot of times when the palletized equipment comes they put it on a lift gate truck and so then they just lower the pallet

down into my driveway and then use a pallet jack to, well, they called me this morning and they said, yeah, the truck's on the way. And I'm like, okay, great. What time? Because then they always call you about 30 minutes before they're coming. And they're like, also no lift gate on this truck. It wasn't ordered. So I'm like, okay. So like you have to have a forklift to get it out so i had to

arrange getting a forklift to get this out of the truck because what do you do well i've well actually you can see my luckily my neighbor across the road here he has a bobcat and i called him and i'm like uh he doesn't necessarily keep it at his house there but i'm like hey any chance uh you're gonna be he's retired i'm like any chance you're going to be, he's retired. I'm like, any chance you'd be around this afternoon at an undefined time with your bobcat to be able to unload this pallet for me? Because I do not have any other way to do it. My other option was I was going to have him drive to the gym and I was going to call the lumber yard right next to the gym and be like, hey, I really need someone just to come over here on your forklift and unload this pallet and then drive away and i will pay you 20 bucks to do

it or whatever it takes like if you come over here just for 30 seconds of work but i was able to get my neighbor to i can't believe that they'll send something like out like that just assuming there's a forklift there i mean how many gyms have a forklift at them? You know, it's. Well, they don't care whether it's gym equipment, you know, like this is just. Oh, yeah, yeah, right. But I'm just saying, though, like how many businesses to them? It's just a pallet. Yes. But like how many businesses that receive pallets have a forklift?

There's a ton that do not. That's that's a bold assumption. I think so. But I assume there it's that's a cost more to make to guarantee that there's a lift gate. Oh, I don't doubt that at all. It's like you'd think that this would burn them at a certain point. Like, what do you do if you're just like, no, I don't have it? Do they just got to hang on to it and try again?

My other option is if I couldn't figure anything else, I'd be like, well, you can pull up there. I'll open up the pallet and I'll lift the boxes all one by one. It still takes a while. Well, actually, it took It still takes a while. Well, actually it took a lot of a while. This thing was palletized and packed up so good. Really?

It took me just to get, so I, this was in a pallet in my driveway and I wanted to get it all in the back of my pickup and like ready to move into the gym. And it took me at least 30 minutes just getting it, like, taken all of the – there was so much packing material on this. You know, this came from overseas. It took a long journey on a boat.

It's many months in the making. I won't give away the details of what it is yet because it should be exciting. And if this goes well, there will be another one coming to kind of a mirror or a pair, a matching set. And there will be videos about this mysterious piece we're talking about. But I assume this assembly project is going to be somewhat in detail just by how long it took me to even get. I haven't even opened any of the boxes. It was just for me to get the boxes. I probably had to snip

60 bands off of this thing and like just a 50 gallon trash can just stuffed full of saran wrap that was like all over like every time you'd get through a layer there'd be everything else was like zipped together and stuff so very well packaged so i'll give them that yeah i'm excited i'm excited for what's what's hiding in this thing yeah so there's a little bit of equipment action coming there we do also this episode is coming out on monday the uh what is it the 19th ish of august so on on this upcoming Thursday, which will be the 22nd of August, we do have a drop coming on Thursday.

So we've got a couple brand spanking new items in there, a couple restocked items, some new twists on old favorites, and some pretty interesting stuff. So make sure you're prepared for that August 22nd Massanomics drop that's coming. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

You talked about the Coop video. All right, what do we have for time? Let me do, how about some supporting our supporting members? Do we got time for that? Yep, let's do it. Okay, so this is a relatively new segment of the podcast where we give back to those supporting members that support

the Massanomics podcast. And this week I want to talk about Big Colton and Big Ben. They competed together in a Crew Falls Strongman competition. I assume they both did excellent. Then Big Steve from Canada who competed here at the Lift Hard Live Easy Classic, as we know.

His daughter competed in her first powerlifting meet at the age of 13 years old up there in Canada. And Mitch Hooper was a spotter for her, it looked like. So that's pretty sweet. And then the last thing I was going to mention, Big Nate's friend Tom just recently started listening to the podcast and he wanted to give us a shout-out and tell him he needs to become a supporting member. So, Big Tom, we would love to have you. Actually, it feels a little like we have a void.

There's something missing, and I think it's Tom. We've been saving a spot just for you. We've got it warm for it the water's warm Tom come on in come on in Tom I've heard all of our support friend Tom for all these years I just want him to be part of the crew

now yes so that is big Tom and our supporting our supporting members segment where we give back to those that support us. What I would also say is that we have mostly finalized what the next crew gift is. I would say not everything, not every little tiny piece is set in stone yet, but it is very real. We anticipate this to be coming around the end of september and it will be go out in the mail to every supporting member at that time so if your

address has changed you believe since uh since the last time we've mailed something out to the supporting member list so you know the last thing was what the hall of fame card yes so if you've been a supporting member since the hall of you know, the last thing was what? The Hall of Fame card. Yes. So if you've been a supporting member since the Hall of Fame card and you think your address, your shipping address has changed since then, make sure to let us know what that address change is. Even if you've ordered other items from our site

with our new address, this address database is somewhat separate. So what we need to know is if your shipping address since the last supporting member mailing has changed. If it has, send us a Discord DM, an Instagram DM, or an email or whatever you need to do to let us know about your new address. If you're unsure, you can just let us know

and I'll just verify that we do have the correct one. And if you're not a supporting member yet, the line in the sand has been uh sort of set now so uh the clock is ticking you do not have that much time left you're going to want to be able to get in on this one uh before that before it's too late because this will be a bragging rights thing kind of there will be some bragging rights behind, kind of. There will be some bragging rights behind this one as well. It's going to be something you're going to want to hang on to for a while. Yeah, so don't sleep on this. Get signed up now.

Massanomics.com slash join. There's multiple supporting member options for pretty much any budget that exists, as long as it's not $0. As long as your budget is a budget, yeah, there's an option for you yeah also make sure to check out juggernaut ai it's the training that uh timey and i have both been using we're bridge blocking right now and since 2009 juggernaut has been uh the trusted training resource helping tens of thousands of athletes reach their goals around

the world from beginners to world champ champions juggernaut AI can help all of them. Even Massanomics gym members, Massanomics supporting members, Massanomics crew members. All kinds of people Juggernaut works for. It's training that's catered to you. The longer you use it, the better it works for you. I think it just keeps getting better and better and adapts more to your training style as you go. So I think the best thing you can do if you haven't started using it yet is to start using it now. You can sign up for that at juggernautad.app and that's where you can use discount code

MASSANOMICS to save you 10% for the lifetime of the membership. Just make sure when you sign up to sign up through the web browser, not through the app, because you cannot use the discount code through that. And one important thing to note, we'll probably talk about this more if we talk about our training at the end, but they just released a major update to the app. Have you seen that on your phone, Tanner? Yes. And there's some goodies in there. some there's some goodies in there so maybe we'll talk about that more later at the end of this episode or next week because yeah um it is cool to see when you're spending money on something that they are continuing to put effort in it they're not just letting the app just sit right

be stagnant and die so yeah maybe at the end of this episode we'll we'll talk a little bit more about those all those changes uh that that's a good point and this episode is also brought to you by swiss link swiss link has been importing military issue goods to the united states and into the hands of those yearning for quality goods at uncompromised prices for several decades now they know a thing or two about a thing or two right now if you head on over to swisslink.com you can find the best selection of classic wool blankets, camouflage outfits. In the military, they probably don't call them outfits. They probably call them uniforms, don't they, Tanner?

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Thank you, Swiss Link. All right. Oh, here we go. And that's right. You know what that means. You just heard the sound of disturbed that means it's time for our title topic of the week whenever we hear disturbed you know that that means we're jumping into the title everyone perked right up whatever they were doing because they knew the title topic was about to be announced is is that disturbed it must be time for the title topic i'm gonna just

take a quick uh segue on the title topic, though. Actually, it could be to actually quickly pause. Get thirsty over here. We'll come back to you disturbed. Don't you worry. So what are you drinking over there? I'm on Waterloo Orange Vanilla. Check out this thing.

Melted ice pop? Yeah, bubbly melted ice pop. I haven't had it. Those crazy bastards at at bubbly what are they thinking over there let's see how it is oh oh that's interesting so when i think melted ice pop i just just think super sugary, artificial fruit popsicle flavors. Yeah. That's kind of what it tastes like. Yeah.

It's pretty good. It wouldn't be my go-to, but I'll give it a three and a half, actually. Okay. Not bad at all. Melted ice melted ice pop. Okay. So let me do, try this again then.

There we go. Now it's time disturbed. So now it is time for the title topic and having prepared quite a bit for this, but not actually specifically preparing what the exact title is of the topic. This is of the topic. This is a title topic without a, actually like all of our title topics, it's a title topic without a formal title for the topic.

Yes. Usually we kind of know the goal. We know the theme, but the title is TBD. Yeah. But so what would you describe what we want to discuss today? I actually think I would just say the business of online apparel. That's maybe the best way to put it for now until we think of a slightly better title for YouTube. Yeah, so it's like the business of online apparel sales somewhat specifically how it has affected,

how I would say changes to the business, how it's affected massonomics, what we've had to do differently, how we've seen it affect other businesses in the space, probably looking most closely at like fitness or lifting brands in the space, because that's how it relates to us. Of course, you know, the overall apparel business is much larger than the fitness apparel business, know the overall apparel business is much larger than the fitness apparel business but the fitness apparel business is kind of something that we know a lot and we know a lot of the players so changes to other companies in that space and then maybe like uh where we see it going or other challenges and that is part of it is that there's just been a

lot of challenge like that's why this topic comes up as interesting because there has been like a not not free of challenges yeah and that's I mean we're also talking about business like that is business in general there should be challenges it shouldn't just be like all right we solved this problem it's done forever we never have to to think about this again and so what what was the actual the inspiration for this conversation you know this is something this whole you could say this whole next probably half hour so it's going to be a lot of inside baseball we're going to give you a look behind the scenes at a lot of stuff and a lot of things that tanner and i talk about on a weekly basis sometimes for a very long time

of just how the hell does all this pencil out at the end of the day because if you know us we like to put pen to paper and just see how does this actually work and sometimes we'll talk about it for so long at the end of it i'll be like hmm maybe we understand it worse than a lot of times we do we do get done and i'm like hmm i actually maybe do feel worse about this now uh it's like when you really talk about how it's good there was an aspect of ignorance before and you know you don't know what you don't know kind of really drilled into it yes and now it's like oh now i kind of do before and you don't know what you don't know. It feels like we kind of really drilled into it. And now it's like, oh, now I kind of do know what I don't know and I don't like that. But all right.

The main inspiration for this is we had seen over a relatively short period of time. Just I should say this year, there's been a few people in our space that are no longer in business or have announced that they're done. So just recently, Barbell Brigade their apparel side called it quits um live large nick over at live large he said that this will be live large's last year doing apparel uh looking around at some comparables hybrid apparel used to be pretty big they used to be a pretty big name in the space uh they don't exist anymore that might be big name in the space uh they don't exist anymore that might be for other reasons there but uh they don't exist in part at least yes uh there's one we were not aware of until we started looking around at some companies uh

russell or he big time power lifter he has like get better brand get better today whatever his the name was um they used to have big apparel drops tons of stuff you could tell they're putting a lot of effort into it and that website that url does not go anywhere right now that is no longer a thing and we've also heard some rumblings behind the scenes that there could be some other companies that are on the cusp of not being around much longer because sometimes people do talk and not only that but we have also talked to other people that we know and there is a sentiment that things are harder than they used to be and not like oh like things are just a little tougher but what it's like no

no like there are many more challenges that exist now and it is significantly harder to make this work than what it used to so with all those things considered we want to dive into what is actually going on here what's what's taking place yeah that uh and we don't have all the answers no we don't we're just telling you um all of this what we talk it's basically like what we talk about yes and we're yeah we're just giving you this from our perspective and why we think why we think some things are the way they are because we've talked about this before we've talked about this in the case of gyms in the past where sometimes we see certain influencers running the gym and we're like okay we know how much gym equipment costs we know how much rent we don't have a vague idea of how much rent costs in low cost of living areas.

I can hardly imagine what it costs in high cost of living areas. And then we're like, and then you do the math on what you need to even break even at the end of the day, not even make a profit. And you're like, God, maybe I'm just an idiot, but those numbers don't seem to make sense. And then eventually you find out, yeah, well, the gym doesn't exist anymore. It's like, ah, we're not an idiot. Yes, it didn't pencil out and it was where our hunch, our gut feeling was correct. And we've had that same feeling about some apparel companies for a while. And we're going to get into just all of the costs that are associated with things and how we don't understand or how actually we do understand why some of these businesses don't exist anymore and how some of them we don't understand how they still do exist so right where do we start tanner um the only other thing i would just mention it's interesting too like how big of a name some of those like to me like barbell brigade or hybrid how they don't exist

anymore if you just go back like four or five years how like how important of a name that that was maybe relatively speaking in the space not to everyone like some people would be like well i don't care i never bought a shirt from me yeah and like this is also we're talking powerlifting specific to some of these you know did did crossover maybe slightly more into mainstream but if you weren't into powerlifting at all like yeah maybe these companies don't mean anything to you right right uh the other thing i'd say too is like we're not not trying to sound like we're complaining uh We actually want to be – we're very deliberately clear on that, that it's not like about complaining because there is like fair reasons for a lot of the change probably.

And it's just like our opinion is we have to – we probably have figured out ways to make it still work even while that's becoming less effective or like not not being what it used to be we've found some ways to make it work and how we recognize we have to continue to work on those things because they might be the bigger piece of the puzzle than that is or was or was able to be right yes yes and yet you have a very important more thing like we don't want this to sound like just 30 minutes of complaining about like, oh, we want more money. I mean, yes, we want more money, but that's not what we're complaining about. We're just, we've had a lot of observations

and I think it's always a really interesting conversation when we have this. And I think some other people, you know, if you follow mass economics closely, or if you're just interested in the space at all, you might find some of the economics of it all interesting as well. Yeah. So part of it, like from the economics point of it, this is not the only factor, but it is a factor. I guess maybe you call it inflation or whatever, but the economics of printing a t-shirt and being able to sell it for a profit has changed a little bit in the fact that it has certainly got more expensive you know our costs have gone up uh significantly like if you looked at it from a percentage point from four years ago like it could in some cases cost us almost 50 percent more on a lot of items like that's think that's the first thing that's, that's chopping

a lot of people down is the margins used to be, I'm not going to say fat, but the margins used to be pretty good on a lot of this stuff to where you could play looser and not have every dollar accounted for. And now if you want to do that same thing, you basically have to have $40 t-shirts. And then once you start adding in shipping costs, you're in the mid forties for a t-shirt. And that's kind of insane. And I don't, I don't want to be charging people that much. I don't think a lot of people want to pay that much. I mean, I don't want to pay that much for a t-shirt. And that, that really, that's the first one is that is probably where things should be to keep things, everything scaling proportionally. And unless you're the biggest of the biggest names you basically can't do that and so that right there is just cutting a lot of people out of the equation

yeah that's true and i would say even like from us specifically like if you look at the way we price things we price things like i am a price conscious both of us are price conscious shoppers ourselves. And I think that that like plays into our strategy of how we, like what we do with things. As much as we joke, we don't want to be the most expensive on like anything. Like we definitely do not want to be. We also don't want to be the dirt cheapest ever too,

because that's also sends a certain other message, too, probably. And we do think we offer a pretty premium product for the price as well. So we try to be kind of like, we look at what people are doing and we always try to be not the cheapest. I mean, we try to be kind of right in the middle. And really what ultimately sets our price most of the time is what, we know what our cost is on this. That's defined. What price can we sell this for and still justify even selling it like if we sell it for too cheap it's like okay now we just officially

donated our time to do this that's not worth it on top of taking on a lot of risk to make almost nothing right that's another one we've just been more conscious of as well right right so we are pick our our price point that we're picking for the final purchaser is usually based on what we have to sell it for to make it even remotely worth doing like that's kind of usually the driving force on what that price ends up and then also comparables of what other people are doing but there's it's no doubt everyone has seen it those prices have gone up yeah but that's and also like is, we've talked about this, you know, you work in a large business. I work when my other job with people across a lot of businesses and like, yes, it is

without a doubt, a real thing. Inflation has existed. Prices have gone up, but what are you going to do? Are you just going to complain about it and like whine about that? You're that that's all right. I can't make like either you're going to stay in business and you're going to figure out a way to make it work or you're just going to whine about it and be a baby and you're going to go out of business. Like those are your two options there. So like just dwelling on the fact of and crying about it, I don't think achieves much in this. And I always hate even as a business owner when I see people just whining and whining and whining about the price of things increasing yes i get as a consumer it sucks yes that that you can complain about it more because okay whatever but as a business owner you have things you can do

like i don't know right find some way to save money in the other part of the process or look at a different vendor or quit offering that product if it really is that bad like there's some things we have actually not done because the price just doesn't make sense. Like with the price we have to sell this for in order to make money, people don't want to spy it for that. And we also don't want to sell it for that either. Right.

Right. So you just don't make it then for that reason. Yes. But that is without, and that is a fact like prices have gone up and that's not just, that is on shirt blanks. That's on t-shirt printing. That's on shipping the t-shirts to us after they're made that's on them out that's on shipping

them out that is on um well actually credit card prices have stayed mostly the same like that hasn't really changed but almost every touch point across the board like the prices have increased there and so it's that is price is one for sure, without a doubt. Right. The other thing I think of too is like, I don't know if this is true or not. You know, we're talking about some of these old standing brands going away and not doing it anymore. But it seems like overall, like from like,

especially compared to 10 years ago, there is way more options out there too for the consumer, like which is a good thing. I think it just got, although we're talking about getting more expensive, it got way easier for people to sell a T-shirt if they wanted to sell a T-shirt. Like just like the business model just got easier for everyone to be, which is a good thing, I think, honestly. But for selling stuff, you's dealing with, you know,

fighting over the same dollar from the same person that could be split a lot of ways, even within the same little niche market that we exist in a hundred percent. And so where, where's the first challenge would have been pricing this next challenge. You could say competition, or you could even just say options. Cause right.

Yeah. 10 years ago, if you were into powerlifting and you wanted to get a powerlifting shirt, I don't know, you'd maybe get like something that said Inzer on it or like Titan support systems. And maybe there was something else. I don't even really know. Like, cause that was, you know, that was relatively early YouTube, Instagram, as far as like the fitness world goes.

So there wasn't like Mark Bell was coming around with, you know, like slingshot was starting to be a thing. So that was getting, and there was a lot of people wearing that at the time, like you'd find that stuff, but there just wasn't a ton out there. Like fitness influencers were starting to be a thing, but they weren't getting for the most part, they weren't making t-shirts. And if they did, it wasn't anything like sophisticated or, or they didn't have like this team built out to fulfill design, build and fulfill orders and all that. Whereas nowadays, just look the number of drop shipping companies that will do print on demand. I mean, if you have a following or a audience of any kind online, more than likely you probably have a link that is selling you a T-shirt of some kind that either is on your own store or a store that you're it might you wouldn't even know it's a consumer but it's behind the scenes there's a dropship or forums they don't actually have inventory

or they might be teaming up with a apparel company that actually you know does all this for them and then they're that that influencer is getting a small piece of the commission so there's just so many more avenues for people to monetize their audience that didn't exist the way they do now and because of that we're just seeing if you're into anybody if you follow anybody if you're engaged with anyone more than likely they have merch they can sell you and that was not a thing 10 years ago right right. Right. Even just like, and also just e-commerce in general. I mean, just like even in the last, of course, 10 years ago, e-commerce still existed, but I would say from 2014 to now, it is just way more common for people to buy, you know, just, uh, purchasers make like that's how everyone shops now too. So just it makes sense but yeah uh so what else has

changed then overall like in the larger you know there's a lot of unknowns like we don't know exactly all the reasons of why it gets harder too you know like these are just some of our theories of why it's gotten harder for probably us on others like us yeah um okay i this is where i have so many we have a ton of notes here that we haven't talked about yet and some of these it's like i'm actually running out of ideas how to keep these cleanly organized but i think where we're seeing where we struggle to see like how did some of these businesses make this work and we couldn't figure out do i still got standard you were you were freezing for a second there oh yeah yep i was hearing you okay so we're looking at it as some of these bigger companies so people might not know

this if you followed us for a long time you know this but maybe more recent people don't know is that basically every one of our shirts we do everything in the entire process besides print the t-shirts so we design our own t-shirts we photograph our own t-shirts we do the email marketing campaigns for our merchandise we do the instagram social posts if there's a video we make promotional videos for our merchandise we warehouse our own merchandise we fulfill our own merchandise we ship our own merchandise we also do all the customer service that comes with that as well and yeah we we do every step of the way besides the actual putting print of ink on the items yeah that's the only thing we don't do is the actual manufacturing of the products and a lot of companies where we struggle

to look at it is you know especially some of these ones that are bigger that they're designed. And this isn't a knock to any of them. Like this is just what makes us a little different. And maybe part of the reason why we've been able to stick around is that look at some of these bigger companies. They're not designing their own stuff. They're not manufacturing it, which most people don't. They're not fulfilling and warehousing their own items. They're not shipping their own items. They're not fulfilling and warehousing their own items they're not shipping their own items they're not really doing the customer service part of their own items they're definitely not doing the marketing they're not doing the the the only part of the marketing they do is their large audience that they have yeah just like yeah i'll make the post but they're not doing the

photographs they're not doing the email campaigns they're not doing the videos so it means most cases they're paying people to do so every one of those steps is getting every one of those steps is someone you got to pay and depending on how legit you know i work in the creative world uh the ups and downs of it are man you can go on fiverr and you can find someone to do just about anything for five bucks and as far as creative goes you might get lucky and find someone that's really good and you might get something that's not worth it at all. And usually the more established your business is, you can't afford to be taking risks on like things to go wrong. So you pay the good photographer, you pay the good video guy, you pay the good people that do email marketing, you pay the good website designers, you pay all of those. And every single one of those touch

points, like those people aren't cheap because they're not super easy to come by. And then all of a sudden you're looking at the margin on a 30 to $35 t-shirt. It's like, okay, out of all of my units made, that person's getting several dollars. That person's getting several dollars. That person's getting several dollars. And Tanner and I are looking at it and thinking, where does the person that's actually running the company make any money in this whole thing? Like how do you, and also the t-shirt world, like there is the economies of scale, but it's not that much. Like, no, it's not as much when you're printing t-shirts, the difference from 50 to a hundred t-shirts is a little bit. And then the difference between a hundred to $500 to 500 t-shirts is a

little bit. And the difference between 500 and a thousand t-shirts is a little bit. Like we're not talking like 50% savings. We're talking about like a few percent savings. Like, right. So it's, it's not like, Oh, well they print like a ton. So they're saving a lot of money. They're saving money, but not a whole lot. And so I think that is an advantage we've had is that we do everything in this process and yeah, it's time consuming, no doubt about it. It's a ton of work, but we also are very familiar with every step of the way. We know how this goes. We know what stuff costs and we also get to know our customers way better throughout the whole process too yeah i think that's an advantage also other you know that's an advantage for us obviously and then for other small small uh companies similar to us it's

an advantage when they do the same thing or even some have gone the step farther like uh frank at lift evil he does everything plus he prints it so he even has a little more so he can move then do they even move a little less volume and still make an equal margin or huck finn barbell they print there they do all of their own stuff too they do everything we do plus they print it too so they could even do a little less volume still and still make the same margin. So companies like that can probably survive longer. Yes, because both of our business models. Because you're putting in all the sweat.

You're doing all the work. Yes, and both of our business models don't rely on either having a ton of different creatives on retainer or just a lot of freelancers that you just have to hope are around. And if they start bailing out or you start losing them,

like whole parts of your business start falling apart. So there is that reliability when you, when you do it yourself on top of actually making things profitable. Yeah. We also talked a lot about like what we've done, some of the stuff we've done differently. Do we want to talk about that? Or is there other stuff more to talk about what we're closer to what we're um yeah well okay yes so so this next one actually talks it's just like strength training actually

is what you did 10 years ago isn't necessarily what worked 10 years ago isn't what works today and i think i mean you see it online all the time. People have some success in their business and whether they hopped in at the right time or whether they were just, I mean, some of it is just dumb luck. You were in the right place at the wrong, at the right time. Some of it was the thing that you made aligned with what the algorithm wanted or what was a popular fad at the time. But there is this thing of what worked at one time doesn't guarantee that it's going to work today and um i mean we've seen that over between all of our stuff actually like with uh with instagram i mean how many different media posts for sure just social exactly for sure i mean what worked on instagram in 2015 2016 would get you nothing today. I mean, there was a time of like a couple

years where we could make the versus series. If you've been a long time, Massanox follower, we would, we would make a dumb thing. Like one of the first ones is like Arnold Palmer versus Arnold Schwarzenegger. And you'd make just dumb comparisons between them. Yeah. That one's maybe not the best example because what we try to do is we try to target a popular power lifter and compare them to something right and then they're going to share it on their page they're going to share it and it was guaranteed to be like a couple hundred new followers every time and we knew once a week every week we could guarantee we're going to get a couple hundred followers if we made that post nowadays that post would maybe get a few hundred likes and if it got shared even if the person shared it we would

get no like there's no carryover from that yes and like whatsoever and like that's just one example i mean there's a lot of meme formats i mean i don't know if you guys know this but memes have changed drastically from the days of bad luck brian and that stuff to whatever you even want to call a meme today to like even like the tiktokification of everything like the the language and the vernacular and the style of your posts if you want to be relevant today you can't post like you did in those days and you also if you complain about it you're just yelling into the clouds because you know who doesn't care instagram and the algorithm like it's just the machine keeps turning so either you going to get on the ride and play the game or you're not, and you're going to get left behind. And a lot of people don't seem to have that awareness. So like, I've always done this. It always worked. It's like,

has it always worked or did it work for you five years ago? And you're still like crying and complaining that it's not there today. So right there, you just like online marketing, social posting has changed drastically over the years. And it always is changing. Like the second you maybe think, Hey, this is working, you can almost be guaranteed it will not work anymore. Yeah, that's true. So that's, that's a big one in the social side of things. And then with us, if we're going to talk marketing, just the marketing picture in general has changed a lot. You know, whereas before you could just, the world was so, it was so innocent and young and naive. You know, whereas before you could, just the world was so,

it was so innocent and young and naive. You could do all of your marketing just purely off of Instagram and things would go great. And it's like, no, if you look at how we do it now, we cast a pretty wide net. Like we have Instagram posts, we have Instagram reels, we have email campaigns, we have YouTube videos weekly, we have podcasts weekly, we have youtube videos weekly we have podcasts weekly we have a supporting members we have a discord we have we do our own meet our email list we do our own meet like we do so many things to hit different people and a lot of these things we weren't doing or we weren't doing to the extent we are now like you know five six years ago like that that has also changed a ton and that's part of the evolving business mark i mean that's just part of the

the landscape of where things are is you have to keep i mean we even have tiktok tanner you post things on tiktok occasionally that's true yeah a couple times a week and and youtube shorts yep is another thing and uh, so there is a very wide, just in general, way wider variety than there used to be too. Some of it of ours is less effective than other parts of it. And other people have other parts

figured out way better than us too. But we work on a lot of that stuff all the time. We do. And so along those lines, we've also diversified our our income as dumb as that sounds for an apparel business we have though where yes whereas that's a big part of what's actually has worked for us that we've found that like that is the recipe for us to be able to keep making even while this specific thing is getting more challenging we diversify these other areas and then overall our total picture is still good

because we yes we have had to do that had we not done that if we if we would be saying yes what the hell are we doing if we still were just purely a merch company especially a company that was based mostly on i'm actually going to say even take out drink spotters if we were purely like an apparel company i I don't know. There's like maybe a 50, 50 chances is still going right now. Maybe even less than that. If this is purely an apparel company, because, uh, you know, it's still probably exists, but I don't know if we'd be putting a whole lot of effort in.

It'd be like, ah, this can just live online forever. And we'll collect our few sales that just organically trickle in. I'm not sure it would have been worth our time to keep doing this, but we have diversified in a few ways. And so from just being purely apparel, we have some hard goods. We got some different items that are like drink spotters, or we've tried to throw some other things on the website that aren't just always apparel. So it's kind of the same thing. It's still kind of in the merch line, but it is outside of pure apparel sales. The other one, the podcast has been an item that has had a lot of branches come off of it. So one, we have been able to monetize the podcast. It's nothing crazy. I actually still think for all of our sponsors, it's a pretty damn good deal for, for the, uh, how loyal our listeners are, how engaged our audiences.

I think for all of our sponsors, it's a pretty solid investment for them. And with that podcast, we've also been able to market our supporting membership program. So, you know, with that is the discord. And so for people that listen to this if you are a supporting member thank you thank you thank you so much because you for sure have played a role in like just supporting us directly and making this whole thing work uh it really is hard to imagine massonomics without the discord and without the podcast nowadays i mean that is just that almost is what massonomics is. Right, right. Yeah, that like is such a huge part of it now. Yeah.

What else have we done differently? So it's the different products. I mean, we have a meat now. We actually have a power lifting meat. And this was another debate we had at the end of the day. It's like, ah, for the amount of work we put in financially, was that worth it? debate we had at the end of the day, it's like, ah, for the amount of work we put in financially, was that worth it? Sometimes if you just look strictly at the numbers, you can tell yourself one story. But then if you look at, sometimes you got to take a bigger picture and be like, well,

okay, yes, it is clearly worth our time and effort. But I mean, yeah, we're doing a lot of different things here. So that list again again merchandise apparel hard goods youtube podcast supporting members a meet um technically actually yeah i mean youtube itself even pays a little bit of money that's nowhere near get a little money what it does for the effort we put in but it pays a little bit of money and like affiliate codes and links and stuff like that we get a little bit of money from that stuff and we've branched out on that and thought, you know,

cause at a certain point we were like, yeah, let's not waste our time, you know, diluting too much, asking people to do things. But at the same time, eventually it's like,

no, we'll have it there. And it's an option if people want to use that stuff. Great. And if we get something from it, uh, great. Because kind of like,

uh, if we have 10 of these streams that maybe none of them are huge, but together they add up to something that becomes significant enough to keep the wheels turning in the right direction all the time. Yes. And that was, so that may be turned into a little bit of like how massonomics is, is working right now versus, you know, the general peril. But I mean, that part of that is part of the reason like if we would have taken the approach of just being apparel i'm not totally sure mass dynamics definitely wouldn't exist in the capacity it does right now and i'm not i can't say a hundred percent certain that it would it would actually still exist today if we were strictly

apparel and i think comparably that's why we're seeing some of these companies just quit. That they're just saying like, no, that's enough of a, like they haven't done as many different things. And like, okay, this just isn't worth doing the apparel side of it anymore. Right, well, because also that now turns into another thing that you have to do. And if you're, again, when we do everything, that's fine. But if you're not doing these things and now you need to hire, I don't know if you know, but podcasts and weekly YouTube videos are pretty labor intensive. And if you're going to hire a company to do that, I mean, unless you have an enormous audience, I can guarantee you are going to be losing money on that for sure. Like go do this, go, go look at a local videographer, an actual videographer that's running a business,

not a college kid and go see what they're're charging like an hourly rate or for a video project. And you'll realize, yeah, I can't afford, I cannot afford to hire someone to start a YouTube channel for me. Like that's something you have to do for the love of the game right there. Yeah. Big Anthony asked about the gym money. Yeah, the gym is separate. So the gym, actually the money from the gym literally stays in the gym in the sense that all of the money that's ever come from the gym just goes back into the gym in terms of equipment or paying the bills and stuff like that so but that is separate i guess it's if someone from the outside is looking in and wondering why we didn't mention that it's just

because it is a you know a separate uh piece of the pie for us yeah one other note i wrote down and all of our stuff is i think another thing that maybe distorted or skewed some people's perception of the market was if you were had an online business or actually a lot of businesses in 2020 and 2021 uh yeah you could have seen some awesome action in that time because, and we did too, you know, people, depending on what state you were in, were locked down with nothing to do and weren't spending their money anywhere else. And so they were looking for a place to spend it. And also people were getting some checks, you know, some stimulus checks were out. So there was some money floating around. And if you were in business

in 2020 and 2021 online, there was a good chance that you were picking up some of that extra money because things were, there was a while, some of those months it's like, where are, where are these sales coming from? Like, what is, I mean, it, that was dumb. Like thinking back at those times, there were some days you would just roll out of bed and it's like, who is buying this stuff? Like, how are they finding us? And that has changed drastically too. So if you built your whole business around like, oh, we existed for a few years and 2020 hit and we increased this amount and 2021 hit, we increased this amount and you were projecting that 22 and 23 and so on, you're going to keep riding that wave. No, I don't think so. I mean, there's a good chance that your business actually contracted a lot the following years, depending on

how hard you did ride that wave at the time. So yeah, just because things were good for a year or two, maybe doesn't guarantee that they're going to be good for the year or two after that. And I'm, I mean, there was a lot of business that happened with, this isn't just us. This is right. There was a ton of companies that were killing it in, in,

in the 2020s. And all of a sudden now they might not exist anymore. Yeah. What else do we got on the list? I guess that's about everything on my list i think okay i think maybe i'm ready for the final thoughts of the conclusion here unless you had something else to add before we go one one thing i would add towards the final thoughts is i think our strategy like it has always been we'll wait for every one of these companies every other one of the other ones to go away. And then nobody has a choice, but,

but to come to mass economics when they want to buy a t-shirt in the power lifting space. But that is a joke, but part of it, it just gets to be more and more real every year. That's why I'm like, I don't know. Like if enough of these go away, eventually, like there are still people that like lifting and want a apparel that is talking about lifting. Like in the, if, if I realized there's some,

it's kind of contrary to what we're talking about. Cause there are so many options out there too. And like, there's always going to be new ones coming. But also a lot of them going away. That is part of the thing. A lot of them aren't companies. They're right.

It's just a large people, influencers that have an audience that are selling something. And so they're capturing that disposable income that a company like us maybe wouldn't then. Right. Right. So that I think is part of our strategy. It was just outlasting all these other ones.

And then we were just last man standing. Last man standing. Yes. Final thoughts for me would be now more than ever. If someone ever said they wanted to get in the apparel game, I almost feel like, dude, you are wasting your time.

Do not do it. If you have some other company or if you have some other business model and you want to have some apparel for it, I could be like, okay, yeah, you should do that. You're not planning on like apparel being like 50 plus percent of your business's income. Right. You know, like don't, don't plan on that because unless you have an enormous, like nowadays with so many online businesses, it's, do you have an audience? Cause unless you have a big audience, don't even waste your time. Like you need to make the audience first to make this whole thing work. Um,

but I think what I would say is all the people that have supported us, especially through our supporting memberships on our website, massnomics.com slash join, in case you were wondering, like those people, they, that is one of the easiest ways to like directly support us on a continuing, continuing basis. Like I understand, like maybe you don't want to buy a t-shirt every single month there's people that do and that is amazing and we love you people for that but if you are looking for a way to support us and you want to see massonomics going forever and ever being a supporting member is one of the best things you can do um oh this was all just a really good

supporting member it was just a big sales pitch for that but you say no i don't even want to do that i don't want to spend any money i like you want to do that. I don't want to spend any money. I like you guys, kind of, but I also don't want to spend any money. Well, then at the very least, liking things on social media, commenting, doing that stuff, even just subscribing, following, sharing, that stuff does make a difference. It might not be huge, but collectively over time, enough people start sharing things that it does get, it's like it gets absorbed to the ether like people like i just feel like i see your stuff a lot you know they don't even really know why

and it's those things all do a collective collective effort of that does make a difference so thank you for everyone that supports us thank you for buying our stuff thank you for being a supporting member thank you for sharing stuff if you don't do any of those things maybe start doing one or two of those things uh if you do all those things great keep doing it man and as long as you keep doing that we'll keep being here yep uh that is kind of i guess the last thing i would say i'm like ah we've had to up to this point no matter what changes i'm like it seems like we're probably going to figure out a way for it to still still keep making sense and working and big uh big moto did have a point too you know we also do have other jobs yes outside of this where some people don't and that's kind of like a different x factor for us too like that is too yes we can play yes we can play different a slightly different game when i mean we would

have taken a lot of different approaches to things if in the past five years, if our income was 100% dependent on massonomics, it would have, I mean, it would have, it would have been different. And the fact that it's not means also there's just not enough income. No, there's, there's not. I'm just saying like, let's say in 2020 and 2021, like we're like, oh, things are taken taken off let's go all in on this like yeah yeah that could have been a recipe for disaster for the whole like that could have imploded the whole thing honestly like that could have because there was like you could see that like the line all of a sudden changed drastically you know and it was like oh like if you start doing this you're dumb projections of well if this could have got wrapped up and yeah yeah we're gonna be at this amount really if we would have been a little too over-eager. Yeah, younger or just over-zealous on that and less cautious. You could have made that jump in a hurry,

and then all of a sudden we're not doing this out of fun. We're doing all of this out of necessity. And that is a way different approach to how you are spending money, the products you're making, the things you're doing. And then when sales go down, it's not like, oh, oh dang what do we got to do better it's oh shit yes like what how are we going to pay our bills yes like this this is now a sales machine this isn't nothing about this is fun anymore this is a machine that has to generate money and luckily we haven't been in that position and so we can keep things like we always massonomics come to it it's always fun and fresh and it's kind of whatever we want it to be and that's sort of a

luxury in a way i mean it's a luxury that we had to work very hard for meaning like basically running two full-time jobs all the time but right and to that point too it does go to others that are continuing to make it work even as it gets more of a struggle like the friends of ours that run similar businesses i know like they've talked about themselves having to take on more other work whether it may not be like going and getting a new job but it's like using some of their skill set and being like yeah i can't i'm not busy enough on doing this apparel company. So I'm going to use some of what I'm able to do and do it for someone else to, you know,

like whatever those services are, you know, whether it's printing or designing or whatever that is that they're doing now, do that for some other companies too, as like an additional shipping and fulfillment. Like some people do that for other people. Right. Yes. So that's like for us would you would you say like could you ever add in the printing you know could we take advantage

of that uh like that's the one step we never have done and that's not something we've ever really wanted to tackle that has a lot of constraints around equipment with it a lot of time labor like the biggest thing to me is also like the know-how like you've like, that's printed screen printing. Isn't easy. No, you know, like it isn't an art.

Actually talk to anyone that's hired a screen printing company for anything. They've probably have many issues. They could tell you about what they've had with prints over the years. Yeah. So that would be the one area that if we were going to like, you know, integrate more up and down our chain, like that would be the one thing we could, like, if you were saying, what aren't you doing that you could, that would be the one.

And I just don't see it. Like it just thought I've thought about it many times and I've looked at it many times and, and every once in a while, I'll think about it again and be like thinking, and then start penciling out and i'm like i still don't see how it even makes any sense you know when you start talking with the time commitment you're like how many units and we save this many per unit per year even at that whatever that number is it just doesn't seem worth it at the end of the day that's where to justify it at a certain point you almost got to say well this also just needs to be a printing company.

I mean, it does. You know, like to justify the equipment that you need to do it right and then to be using it enough, then it's like, no, it's just also a printing company for others too, you know, to make that make sense, I think has been my assessment on that. Yeah.

One other thing too, maybe this is just people doing stuff in general is it felt like especially a lot of the things i followed for a while it's so easy to get caught up if you're listening to audiobooks or youtube channels or whatever it is that it's just always bigger is always better like you gotta scale scale that business grow that baby keep it keep it, keep it going. And at a certain point there's like, you know what, you know, it's actually also kind of nice. Like just having your thing be your thing. Like not having to have four owners or two owners and 10 investors or one owner and 30 employees. Like at a certain point it's like, nah, you know, it's cool just doing what we want to do because we want to do it. We don't want to got to run it by anyone. We don't got to clear it with anyone.

We don't got to ask for permission. We don't have to worry about keeping this person fed and paid and all of that. It's like, no, it's just, it is our thing and it starts and ends with us. We don't have to answer to anyone else with that. And a lot of people, I don't think they realize yet growing a business. Yes, there's unlimited options with having a ton of money and scaling and all that, but it's not all without, it's not for free. Like it is going to cost you something. And that might be a certain amount of freedom. It might be a certain amount in just choices, but that's at the end of the day, like this is still our thing and we can do whatever we want with it. We're not beholden to anyone else.

Right? Yeah. That's a good point. All right. Does that, is that our title topic in a nutshell? I think that is the title topic. How did we get in this bloody nutshell?

How did we get in this bloody title topic? And thank you to Sterling. So maybe closing title topic would be disturbed also. Closing time. Oh, I don't have that one. Should we kick out the live listeners and get them out of here? So just so I know, big ortho bro. That's big Anthony okay

I wasn't totally sure but now I know it's Ronnie Coleman and it says discord isn't that Ronnie yeah I just presume it's so small but I just assume that that's Ronnie the other thing

is crew falls December to remember uh the other thing is crew falls december to remember have we announced on the podcast that that's happening yet or i don't know if we've no we haven't announced it last week i don't think we have it should be worth announcing actually this week then so crew falls speaking of other things we do like here's another event yeah that we like didn't exist that we're like, no, how do we make this really awesome for the people that do want to be a part of it and do want to be in it? And it's like, well, maybe we have this one huge event every year, but how do we have some other smaller ones? So we added this Crew Falls event where we go to Crew Falls, where Tommy's hometown, Sioux Falls.

Well, hometown. South Dakota. Yeah, Sioux Falls. Well, hometown has the last year and a half. Yeah, that's true. What does it mean if someone says hometown? I always assume hometown means like where you grew up. Like to me, that's hometown. Actually, I think it depends on the setting because if you were out at a business conference in Atlanta, Georgia,

and someone said, Tommy, what's your hometown? As you will frequently find me. You were saying that, and I'm just like, oh, yes. What one, Tanner? I've been to so many of them there. What year are we talking about? What business quarter are we talking about? Because I get there quarterly. Maybe that's why we're not making more money. We spend so much on these cross-country business trips. We're always getting our associates together and going to benihana's and they're like cooking food and throwing in our mouth and it's just okay how about this we're at the arnold and uh someone from a booth that we

we talked to a few times you know through the last three years they come up and they say oh what's your hometown what do you say i mean now actually say it's millbank or you'd say sioux falls i would say sioux falls right right if they're a big alabama person i might say millbank because maybe that would mean something to them you know with with coach deborah right right right actually that's a good point but otherwise i would say sioux falls now yeah you are but i i do think with it did sound weird when i called that your hometown as sioux falls because that's not what i've never thought of it that way what's tommy's hometown i wouldn't say it's sioux falls but in certain situations you would say sioux falls probably or if someone says where are you from obviously that one right sioux falls yeah where are you from so where are you from is

different than what is your hometown i think i think so i know i think you're right i think it is different but it's it really also these are situation dependent though it does depend from is weird too if i really think about from it's like where are you from like where did you come from originally or like just today let's actually be honest here if anyone from outside the midwest says where you're from you just need to say south dakota because right even that's already that's ambiguous blob maybe that's the thing like the farther away from home you get the more general the answer gets i guess too that's probably the thing too like okay all right so i'm talking to someone they're not from the midwest i say where you're from they LA. I know exactly what you're talking about. They say Seattle.

I know you say Miami. I know those places, New York. I know what you're talking about. You say something in Oklahoma. I have no idea what anything in Oklahoma is. So you might, you could just say the entire state at that point. And I assume the roles reversed. It applies for South Dakota as well.

For most people, I don't think. That's why you say western northeast South Dakota. Let's just really throw them off. I don't think Sioux Falls carries much more weight than Aberdeen in that scenario, other than they've maybe heard the word Sioux Falls before. Maybe, yeah. A lot of times, maybe people, if they've heard of a town in South Dakota, it's probably Sioux Falls.

Or actually, they'd be like, oh, Fargo, right? Is that close to Fargo? The most common town that they know'd be like oh Fargo right yeah they're gonna be like Fargo that'll be the most common town that they know from South Dakota is Fargo a town not in South Dakota that has to be actually would be interesting to know if you were to say the most popular cities just by awareness in the Midwest Fargo has to be in the top three doesn't it I I think so because honestly like I think people if you say you're from a Dakota, the first town, they're like, ah, yes, Fargo. I mean, if someone said name a city in one of the Dakotas.

Is Sioux Falls bigger than Fargo? I think it actually is a little bigger, but Fargo has the thing of they have Moorhead right next to them too, but Moorhead's in Minnesota. Oh, right. It's separate population. But I think the metro area here might be a little bigger still. Like Sioux Falls is probably growing large faster than Fargo is, but I guess I don't have my pulse on Fargo, so maybe I'm wrong on that. I think they probably have an easier time naming Fargo than they would a city in Iowa, wouldn't they?

Someone not from the Midwest. I kind of feel like that, yeah. I think so. I think Fargo really has a ring. There's something about it. I mean, the movie and the TV show. Yeah, the movie and the TV show alone probably like do something for that right yeah you know iowa got to ride off the slipknot wave for a while but it just didn't have the same thing that couldn't last forever

i think part of the problem with iowa there's a lot of towns that are all there's a lot of cities that are some semi-comparable to me almost like where you don't have like these outliers when we're talking uh cities now that i'm not that far from iowa and we've driven through it several times i'm like yeah i don't know in my mind just passing through like des moines and actually some of these won't even go to but just in my mind des moines and iowa city and cedar Rapids it's like I don't know they all kind of seem like big Iowa cities they don't stand out as being drastically different and I'm sure Iowa people which we do have a lot of listening are like oh my god you think those places are the same but in South Dakota it's clearly like well that city is significantly bigger than the other ones it's not even it's not even right comparable

right do you take the big three which would be Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Aberdeen. They're all drastically different than each other in size and geography. Yeah, and really it's the big two there. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, if I say four, then it would be Watertown. And I would say Aberdeen and Watertown you couldn't necessarily tell a difference from. Same thing with like Brookings.

Right, yes. It's like, I don't know. Those cities are sort of the same. Those are all then kind of the same. But part of it is geography maybe too in South Dakota that separates it. Or topography maybe is the factor. I don't even remember what we were talking about anymore.

We've gotten so deep into Midwest cities here. I've lost track. What did we say? Where are you from? I just remember we were going to a business conference in Atlanta, and I've just totally lost track of where we're even going now. My hometown, but I still don't even know why we were talking about that. Because I said, what is your hometown?

Tommy's hometown is Sioux Falls. Why were we talking about that, though? I feel like this is like an actual point to our next thing we were going to say here. Oh, December to remember. Yeah, but that's what it was. I'm like, what the fuck are we talking about? I could not remember. All this for the December to remember.

Which reminds me. Back to our point. December 7th, 2024 in Tommy's hometown, where he's from. Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We call it Crew Falls. And this year it's a December 2. Remember, because this is our second annual event here. So Crew Falls is back.

It's going to be better than ever. The date, like I said, is December 7, 2024. It's in beautiful sunny Sioux Falls. Similar to last year's event, including probably a few crew meals that we haven't exactly decided what those look like. But I think we also kind of know what the hot spots are and what works well for us. So I don't know. Probably comes down a little bit to numbers of what we need to do there.

We probably should. I think we did it last year. Now I'm just thinking we should do this soon. This week is put on a form on the website that if you're planning on coming, you RSVP ask it just a couple of questions when you're coming, who's coming, et cetera. We'll put that on there so we can start to get numbers put together that are somewhat more concrete. But then also there is a big crew training session.

A big part of the event is the training session. We do a YouTube training vlog. We'll do a vlog of the whole weekend and then probably a gym tour while we're there. And this year we're going to be going to a new gym in Crew Falls that's not even open as of right now. I don't think it's actually technically open, right? I don't think it is yet, no. But it's Big Casey down there in Crew Falls.

We wanted to go to a new one. Although Liberty Barbell was awesome for us last year, we just want to do a new one for the sake of people that are coming again and just, like, do something new, like a new one although uh liberty barbell was awesome for us last year we just want to do a new one for the sake of people that are coming again and just like do something new like a new experience and then we get to do a new gym tour while we're there too at los campeones campeones yep campeones close enough how do you say that's that's as good as you'll get tanner yeah okay that's the that's it's stands for a whale's vagina i know that it's spanish for a whale's vagina uh it is i don't understand i don't actually know the exact business model of that it's sort of a chain or like a franchise gym yeah i guess i don't know the legal workings of the whole thing but yeah yeah, there are. I'm going to need to see their articles of incorporation here.

I want to see some partnership agreements. I will not support any business until I can know on paper how this framework is. Are you an LLC or acting as an S-Corp? What are you dealing with here? And if you're familiar with our podcast, we, you will know that we'd like to know when businesses were incorporated. So we're going to need that date as well.

Yes. Not particular. I suppose not altogether. All that relevant, the structure of the gym business that they're running for us going to visit for a day. Once you actually get in there, how relevant that can be. I'm going to need to know day. You might be surprised once you actually get in there how relevant that can be.

I'm going to need to know what kind of company this is in order for me to trust working out there for one afternoon. Is there any silent partners in this business? But I think they got really cool equipment. They've been following along on Instagram, some of that stuff they're getting. So we'll be excited to go there and train with the crew. So it's essentially just a day and night long hangout of that stuff they're getting so we'll be excited to go there and and train with the crew and so

it's essentially just a day day and night long hangout for everyone that wants to yeah just a weekend weekend hangout get everyone together last year we did have a few guys fly in uh in case anyone is hearing this and they think maybe they're interested Sioux Falls it's significantly easier to fly into than Aberdeen and also depending that's part of why we do this event in Crew Falls just because so so people that are flying, like you can... I know there was, I think in the Discord,

there was some guys out of California saying, oh, flights into Sioux Falls are 300 bucks is all, which is... And then once you're here, you're here. You don't got to worry about driving three more hours. So depending on where you're at, you might have a decent flight. And also Allegiant does fly in too.

So if you're near an Allegiant airport, sometimes you can find really cheap flights that way, too. But, yeah, throw it out there. And also, it's a pretty reasonable drive for obviously all of our South Dakota people, for our Fargo people, not that far. A lot of our Iowa people we talked about, not bad. Nebraska.

A lot of our Twin Cities, Minneapolis people, not a... You know, there's a ton of people. If you draw a three-hour arc radius around Crewe Falls catches a lot of people in that three-hour or less drive which to us is like nothing yeah it's just waking up in the morning our Brookings our Watertown Omaha yeah Minneapolis is not far from there Omaha Omaha that's my Peyton Manning impression so yeah we're putting it out there early. Hopefully, we can get some people to show up again this year.

Last year was a pretty damn good time. What do you think? Was there about 20 of us last year? I think the number was right around 20-some. Was it even a little more? It might have been like 22. Because by the time we went out for dinner, we had a few extra people show up that Saturday night

once we started hitting up the hitting up the downtown what we probably really need to do is for like the the saturday evening see if i know we tried last year but maybe didn't do enough we didn't have enough lead time is like see is there anywhere we can get where we actually have like a dedicated spot because i'm wondering like what if we end up with 30 people well the problem is is then you actually like yes you can get a dedicated spot but it's like 500 bucks to rent the party room and it's like i don't really want to do that either i guess it worked actually last year worked perfect it did we we actually had ended up with our own dedicated room at a place right right uh so it did actually work quite well

yeah it did it did so i'm looking forward to it again it's going to be a ton of fun uh it's always always great getting the crew together lifting and drinking yeah so that's another perk of being a supporting member come hang out on this uh you meet some new crew we usually got some goodies there you know this year probably knew me no no exception i don't know what it is yet that we'll be handing out to people but uh it'll be fun and you get in on the youtube videos and the party too right the anyone that's a big cigar guy probably wants like that saturday night i can't picture a better time for a few good cigars and i mean there's no roll the dice

there's nothing more exciting more random than what the weather could be the first week of December in South Dakota. Outside of being like 70 mile per hour winds last year, it was really quite nice. Outside of just earth shattering winds. And I say that like actually, honestly, my recollection of like outside of it being like horrendous wind, it was pretty nice day. Yeah, I think the temperature was like 30, but yeah, with the wind chill, it was pretty nice day yeah i think the temperature was like 30 but yeah with the wind chill it was all of a sudden negative 10 or something i remember trying to carry the massonomics 4x4 banner into um uh jonah leo's gym i'm like this will literally take is going to take me like soaring down the interstate. If I go away. Yeah. Yeah.

That, that wind hit some bite last year, but it could be a, you know, like Christmas this year, rain on Christmas. It was like 40 degrees. So it could be 40.

It could also be negative 40. You don't know. It's like rain on your crew falls. December two. Remember day could be anything. So, so don't, don't actually just be like, be on the lookout for a RSVP within the Discord,

and then more importantly, once we have a page set up where you can actually fill out the RSVP form, do that if you're planning on coming to the Crew Falls December to Remember event. Tommy, the Brown County Fair started this week. Aberdeen, Western, northeast, South Dakota. It's actually, I believe it might be the biggest fair in the state of South Dakota. It might actually, in some capacities, it's bigger than the state fair. That's what they say.

Oh, I think for sure it's bigger than the state fair. Yeah, and then it's bigger than the Sioux Empire Fair, I think. I think so. Rapid City's probably not even close. Do they even have a fair out there? They do have a fair. I did a strongman competition at the fair ground oh that's where that was okay yeah yeah but it was i think it's kind of rinky-dink one

thing that i'm realizing is unique because i went to the the sioux falls fair is called the sioux empire fair that was this past weekend i ran into big bryce big bryce how'd you spot that little guy i know right just uh Just ran into him. You know, I always run into people in town here. The perfect little sweetie himself. He was. One thing that is unique about that fair, though, is just to go to the fair does cost money, whereas the Brown County Fair...

State Fair does, too. Does it? Okay. That's part of the appeal of the Brown County. They've hung their hat on that for decades now, is that the Brown County Fair is no general admission. That is a huge selling point of the Brown county that's but they've hung their hat on that for decades now is that the brown county fair is no general admission that is a huge selling point of the brown county fair is no matter what changes they're pretty stuck on the no general admission cost to get into the fair yeah so you can go in walk around see stuff i mean you can't go on rides for free or anything but you can see all the sites and everything for free whereas here like the sioux sioux falls one

i think it was 10 bucks per adult to get in. So, I mean, just kids are free. It's at least that at the State Fair. Yeah, I'm sure the State Fair is close to $20, I think. Yeah, right, right. It makes sense, though, from the standpoint of encouraging vendors because I'm like, well, once you're in there, everyone's spending money once you're in there.

Oh, God, yeah. That's just how it is. Just bust out another 20. You just make it rain money at a fair and be like, I have nothing. Just dissolves into nothingness. Yep. Yes. Yes, that is true.

How was the Sioux Empire Fair, though? How did it compare to the Brown County Fair? Did it feel like a slice of the Brown County Fair? Kind of. fair though how did it compare to the brown county fair um did it feel like a slice of the brown county fair kind of it's a little different here because what do you want to call what do you call it the midway or whatever where they keep all the rides like that whole area is asphalted here you know it's right asphalted so it's a little cleaner in that way that you don't have you know gravel and dirt dirt blowing around if it's a windy. That's part of the mystique of the thing. It's just filthy. It's just like constant dirt clouds everywhere. Yeah, so like that is a different aspect of it.

And I do think the Brown County Fair plays into the agricultural part of it a little more. Oh, right. Like the Sioux Falls one does have the barns with the animals and all that, but I think there is more of it at the Brown County one, which also makes sense. The night... The State Fair is premier one i think for 4-8 showing yeah i think so the night i was at the the one here you know we went did the rides and there's a lot a lot of people there and also that night was a flow ride a concert and i'm not lying when i say that that

line to get into the concert had to have been several thousand people long I'm not exaggerating the line was one of the longest lines I've ever seen in my entire life and it didn't it didn't change so I don't know if they weren't letting people in yet or if they were that slow to get them in but I mean it would take you many many many minutes to walk from the front to the back of the line uh so that was flow rider flow rider on a thursday uh do you think everyone got low then or what it was going down for real is what they said everyone had their apple bottom jeans on ah flow rider yeah if you're like 2007 to 2012 i gotta say to say, though.

He had the market. He had the Zubar top shelf on a stranglehold for five years. He did. Absolutely. That was even into maybe even like 2014 or 15. He just, for a while. He had an absolute stranglehold. I have so many memories, just vague memories of being pretty all of his songs and

just just playing so insanely loud and it's like i don't even know what's going on but i do know florida is inside my brain it's kind of funny i don't really i had to look up florida like i know all these songs have heard them a million times, but I actually don't actually really know. I wouldn't even, I didn't even really know what Flo Rida looks like. It's how little, like it's, this is just like permeated my consciousness without me ever spending any

time actually looking into Flo Rida. Like it just was unavoidable music for a decade. It's crazy though. How many songs like you don't even have to be a fan of him or like music to just know i mean i'm looking i know that's what i mean his top song on spotify okay low you know apple bottom jeans okay wild ones you might say i don't know what that song is club can't handle me the second you hear you'll know good feeling i get a good feeling like that one yet club can't handle me. Right around.

You spin my head. Like that one. And those are just the first five. Let's see what's next. Going down. Welcome to my house. Whistle. That one's going down for real.

I cry. I don't like it. I love it. Those are all super popular songs. I mean, most of those songs on Spotify have over 600 million plays. Some of them have a billion plays. Dude, the guy has managed to crank out some hits. Yes, he has.

Wow. So do you like Flo Rida? It's actually funny because we'll play his music for my boy. Right, right. That's actually good. Like My House. He thinks My House is a good song probably because we just play it. And so he thinks it's funny.

I think Flo Rida is one of those people where people like to clown on him because he's like this commercial rapper, you know. Yeah, I can see that. He's not getting a feature with anyone that has like any like street cred or like that's hardcore. He's not hard. No, he's not. But you can't deny the guy has made a lot of pop bangers and uh i'm uh i'm not above hating or yeah i'm not i'm not you're not gonna hate on yeah i'm not just gonna like sit and hate on pop music because the whole point of it is just to be

like songs that are just dumb fun and well known and i mean that's what he's done so for that i do got to give him a ton of credit yeah um also who i want to give credit this week is build fast formula if you like florida you'll love vaso blitz that spun me right round like a record baby right round uh and i got low with some full blitz uh what were the other songs uh you take you take full blitz and mix it with some uh um actually now so blitz take basil blitz and mix it with some full blitz and you're gonna be a wild one yes and also 80 20 protein powder okay you take full blitz with some basil blitz and go to the zoo the club's not going to be able to handle you that night ain't nobody gonna be able to handle you that night use discount code massonomics at buildfastformula.com that saves

you 10 on your entire order every order that you there. Also, if you sign up to get a subscription model on any of the products, you get another 10% off. I think they have free shipping on all orders, $100 or more within the U.S. I've been seeing a ton of Mass Anomics crew members getting Build Fast Formula supplements and trying those out. Kind of our go-to is the 50-50, one scoop of vasoblitz, one scoop of fullblitz. Mix those together for your pre-workout. You'll be right as rain, perfect as punch.

Buildfastformula.com. And this episode is also brought to you by Texas Power Bars. Buddy Caps first started lifting weights in the late 60s and began powerlifting in the mid-70s. At the time, he was working for Image Barbell building gym equipment. Around 1976, a local machine shop started making Olympic bars for them, calling it the Image Bar. In 1977, Image Barbell became Champion Barbell. It was then that Buddy started looking at the bars with an intent of changing them for the better.

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state right well actually i got uh one more thing here uh okay brown county fair we did that's not this is fair related. Oh, it's okay. So you go into your fair thing and then I have mine's a little bit longer. Okay. I wasn't done with that topic yet. Yeah. No, this is fair. This is just Mount Rushmore transitioning to a fair thing.

So everyone listening to this podcast is just dying to know what is the musical lineup for the Brown County Fair? Who the hell is playing there and uh just for you you might as well be walking on the sun for you little listeners i'm gonna find the lineup here um so annoying how they don't actually just put it out there uh how this i know though i know the the friday night line a full line I want to give okay okay I want to give the full week all right Wednesday night so Tuesday night was rodeo Tuesday night's rodeo this is this is Monday night's rodeo yep Monday Tuesday's always rodeo Wednesday night which is actually oh no today's Tuesday okay Wednesday night you get Sawyer Brown with special guest

Ned Ledoux don't I feel like I recognize the name Sawya brown what's that uh ned ledoux is chris the late great chris ledoux's son okay it's ned ledoux that's why i feel like i know the name ledoux because of chris don't know any of those songs but i feel like i know the name so you're brown i think i know that name too though some of their songs they've probably played at the brown county fair 30 times in the last 20 years somehow okay okay so that is your wednesday night uh thursday night gabby barrett with special guest tiger lily gold uh gabby barrett i actually do know who she is because my wife watched a lot of american idol one season and i remember her on there and i was gonna say i have absolutely no idea who those people are. I don't know this tiger Lily gold.

No idea who that is though. But judging by the picture, it is two ladies that probably sink. Friday night. Now Friday night though, this is where I'm going to catch your attention here. Friday night. We have sugar Ray with smash mouth and lit.

It's lit sugar, a smash mouth and and lit that is quite the lineup right there yeah um smash mouth being i'm curious what that concert's like so okay i can give just a very little bit of insight here so the lead singer is dead you know that right that's what i'm really wondering here how like i feel like it maybe loses something with being the entire front man of the band. It maybe does, but I'll say this. I went to Zombie Pub Crawl in the cities probably, was that like 2017-ish, somewhere in there, and one of the stages had Smash Mouth play, and we went to it,

and that guy was not bringing the energy. You could tell he was going through something at the time so as much as as much as they had classics okay and songs that everyone from their childhood nostalgia they remember that guy was suffering at the time so um yeah he maybe this is for the better that they have uh uh a more energetic person at the front i'm not saying it's for the better that he's dead. I'm just saying for the better, for the listener that they have a more interesting show there. Sugar Ray?

Do you think Mark McGrath brings the heat? I mean, that guy's kind of transcended pop. He's really crossed over in pop culture as far as that goes. There's some people that might... Actually, he's probably old enough now that if you know Mark McGrath, you know Sugar Ray. I don't know. Maybe there probably old enough now that if you know Mark McGrath, you know, sugar Ray, I don't know.

Maybe there's some people that only know him as like Mark McGrath, but I don't think so. Is there, it is, he is sugar Ray and they've had quite a few hits lit. I don't know a ton of lit songs outside of, um, the big,

yeah, please tell me what's that song called? I mean, it's on that, that podcast, the, the iPod in the gym, and sometimes it gets stuck on repeat way too long. Is that My Own Worst Enemy or what song is that?

Yeah, I believe that is, yes. Okay. And that song, when that came out in probably about 99, was a banger. My Own Worst Enemy, yeah. I don't know any of these other songs by them, though. Yeah. That is a good song, though. 99, that is when that was, yeah. I don't know any of these other songs by them, though. Yeah. That is a good song, though.

99. That is when that was. 99. Okay. Then Saturday, there's one more concert, right? Yeah, Saturday. Russell Dickerson was special guest. Matt Stell, and I have never heard of either one of those guys.

Dickerson? Hardly knew her. Do you know those names? I'm not going to go Dickerson. I have no idea who that is. Even you don't know. Okay. Nope.

So I know the Sawyer Brown and Ned Ledoux. That one would be, I'm actually not that interested in going to that even. I honestly have probably seen Sawyer Brown. Do you think? I've just been at places and be like, why is Sawyer Brown here playing? You guys again. Do you think at a Sawyer Brown, Ned Ledoux concert, they'll tell you to be quiet if you get a little too rowdy?

No, this is not no Clint Black. Like, I think Sawyer Brown does like a good time at least. They encourage loud noises from the crowd? Yeah. Sawyer Brown has some bangers, though, of country music, like classics. I just don't think they've made a good like they've been touring for the last 30 years and haven't

made a good song in 35. Which is a weird dynamic I feel like that they have like all these good songs. To really peak so early in your career? Well I have a lot of good songs from like the 80s and early 90s. To peak in the first 3% of your career. But then still stay together the entire rest of the time and like never have a good album

again or you know like just um but they do have they do have some good songs uh last year regarding the fair i can't remember if it was friday i think it was friday night uh the the headliner was lil john and yeah oh i had some fun in that one. That was cool. I think a lot of people were caught off guard that Lil Jon is a DJ set and not, in fact, Lil Jon just rapping the verses to every song that he's in

because that would obviously... That would be also a really weird thing that wouldn't work very well. That would get old and weird in a hurry. Yeah. And as far as the DJ set goes, yeah, I was having a good time for that one. So are you going to go to the Friday night concert?

Well, this is actually where this actually brings up another conversation where things get more complicated is I don't think I am this year because, and there's a, there's a reason for this. Cause the smash mouth guy died. Cause the, the original smash hot lineup isn't there.

I don't want a part of it. No, my wife did decide a long time ago that in Sioux Falls, you know, my new hometown, you could say, that on August 17th, they're having what's called the Tacos and Tequila Festival. So this would be Saturday. And it's all like early 2000s hip hop. So the lineup for this thing is actually Lil Jon again.

So Lil Jon, Genuine, Chingy, the Ying Yang Twins, Petey Pablo, Twista, who? Mike Jones. Oh, DJ Ashton Martin. I don't know who that is, but this is on Saturday. That that lineup really speaks to my wife's taste. So she said, we're going to this. So that's...

I'm not at the age where I can handle two nights of this craziness. Mike Jones, I'd like that. Dude, I've... Out of everything you said there, I'd be like, Mike Jones? Oh, hell yeah. Little John would be number one on my list if I hadn't just seen him last year. So yeah, Mike Jones. I'll also talk about us talk about some songs to

get played a lot at the gym yes yes yeah i've heard a lot of mike jones over the years at the gym i'd be all over mike jones yeah so we'll see how that goes so that'll keep you from not going to the concert on Friday night. Yeah. So I'm gonna have to bow out Friday night. Yeah. Yeah. I really thought I could pull it off in my life.

Like, are you sure you can do that? Like maybe could. And then, and then she goes, I think we're going to go back. I think we're going to head back to Sioux falls Friday night. So we don't have to come back Saturday morning.

I'm like, that is actually the right move here. Yeah. That makes sense. So what would your Mount Rushmore be of fair food? Okay, yes. Fair food classic for those that are not. Yeah, the classics, the staples for a lot of people

are like your footlong corn dogs, your cheese curds. I mean, the whole dessert stuff but i'm not really gonna i'm not know if i'm gonna allow the dessert items you know you can get your fried whatever candy bars all of that junk but i'm usually pretty hot okay well trying to think the brown county fair specifically or fairs in general, but the Brown County Fair for me, I actually struggle with this one. I do struggle with this one. It depends on the year. Sometimes I got to have the big turkey leg.

Turkey leg can be pretty satisfying at times. So the turkey leg is on the Mount Rushmore? It might be, yeah. There's always a guy that has a uh there's always a euro there's always the euro guy yes that's very familiar to me and sometimes i have it and i'm like this is really it's fine but it's not as satisfying as i would hope it would be that would have for sure that would have been a lock on my mount rushmore at one point in time. Right now, I'm thinking about that one at the moment. There's another person that does

a drunken noodle, and the drunken noodle's pretty damn good. They'll make it really spicy. Oh, last year, there were some guys there that had some really good... I think they're from Texas. They had some street tacos or something like that, or burrito tacos, something.

And those were really, really good. What else do I always like to get? Part of the problem is with a lot of this stuff is it used to always be, I would just try to get whatever I could at like midnight, you know, after you'd had a lot to drink. And so it was just like whatever happened. Oh, there'd be the people that have the little,

the wood-fired pizzas. Those were always good too. Domino's. Yeah, Domino's. Maybe you've heard of them. Domino's is always at the Brown County Fair. They always are.

They always are. But I feel like the things that I just said aren't maybe necessarily the best fair foods. Like those are the foods that I like to get at the Brown County Fair.

But I'm not necessarily, I think if you just said like, what are the quintessential fair foods? It's the corn dog, probably cheese curds, a funnel cake, and maybe like a blooming onion. You know, like those,

those I feel like really hit some of the classics as far as fair food goes, but I don't really like any of those that much. My wife likes all those and I get bites of hers and that is more than enough of that stuff for me i my wife likes to get the mini donuts at the fair yeah that's another one too and i don't yeah i don't care i don't get those myself but yeah um actually overall to me i like the idea

of fair food but every year when i get there i'm a little overwhelmed by the number of choices and I never really like anything I get that well. So then I'm like, I just would rather not eat here probably. Like it's just not. Me too. I think it's way overrated. It is. I think it is too actually. Like this year, Sioux Empire Fair,

I went to the same place I went last year. The people that sell brisket sandwiches because it's just the most regular food you can get. That's what I end up getting is a pork or a brisket sandwich somewhere because I'm like, well well i just want some i think like i think the swim club in aberdeen yes i think they have the every single don't they always do pork sandwiches there yes they do and i like i end up getting those because i'm like yes just meat on a bun okay i know what we're getting here yeah i'm not paying like 12 for like the fancy fair item when it's just like some

garbage carbs that aren't like that well that's what's like a breading around a hot dog you're really just paying for different breadings of different amounts of friedness around your main item and i'm like actually not that excited about the fried part i want the main thing right right that's where i'm at on that and then like i guess you can buy some like really expensive beverages then too you can get like a ten dollar lemonade or something my wife loves the lemonade she's got you get the cup and then the refills are like so then ten dollars or whatever it is refills yeah i don't that doesn't excite me either um then my kids always like the ice cream parts of it that's probably the number one yeah the the ice cream for the kids

oh you know what i do really like though and i did this this week i'm a sucker for kettle corn kettle corn just does it for me where it's that's way better than popcorn it's just sweet enough that it makes you want a lot more but it's not so sweet that you like get turned off from the sweetness and uh yeah i can absolutely just crush one of those giant bags of kettle corn i did i did it i did i mean it's like it's like a horse you're hooking up the feed bag you know and we drove home it took so long with traffic to get home into your mac i ate at the oh i did dude and i'm like i don't even really know how to count this and then i realized i got home and i'm like oh there's this actually has a nutrition label on the back

so i scanned the label and i mean it was many many hundreds of hundreds of calories of kettle corn which is a lot of kettle corn because it doesn't weigh anything uh yeah kettle corn that's that is my that's the closest thing I get to a guilty pleasure at at fairs yeah I so I didn't really answer the question of my Mount Rushmore I guess if I'm in Aberdeen, my Mount Rushmore is the tacos, the wood-fired pizza, the drunken noodle, and probably the turkey leg. That's my Mount Rushmore. So is the turkey leg good?

You kind of got me maybe a little interested in the turkey leg. I actually don't even think it's that amazing. It's just better than all the other stuff. Is it a show of carrying around the turkey leg? I mean, it can be a decent amount of food. It's just like better than all just like the show of carrying around the turkey leg is that i mean it's a decent amount of it can be a decent amount of food it's just like you know you're actually getting you're just not paying for fried shit is the thing right that's why i'm kind of like yeah maybe the turkey leg is the way to go but it's been admittedly quite a few years since i have gotten one of those too so and also the last time i had one i had had a lot of alcohol

before so maybe i hadn't seen it through alcohol-colored glasses, you know? Yeah. All right. This week, I want to do something special here that I haven't done. We haven't done for a hot minute. Make sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Did we do support our supporting members? Yes, we did.

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