Author Joyce Carol Oates posted this to Twitter today:
What is this distinctly male predilection for amassing watches? can’t be a way of seeming to control–by “owning”–time; a way for well-to-do megalomaniacs to stave off quite normal fears of mortality by coming into proud possession of trinkets of “conspicuous consumption” when elsewhere in the world suffering fellow humans have no watches nor even wrists to wear them on. how explain?
What prompted her question was an ad for Trump’s latest grift, gold-plated and zirconia-encrusted wristwatches with his name on them, as garish and vulgar as one would expect, but Ms. Oates asks a thought-provoking question. Here are two responses that resonate with me, a male with a known predilection for amassing watches:
My $0.02 is that historically, men have had fewer options for expressing themselves through fashion. In formal offices, you basically get to play with your tie and (maybe) your socks. A watch is one of the few outlets for self expression.
In addition to “men also want to wear shiny things,” watches have a long significance in the military, competitive sports, sailing, mountaineering and exploration, and other historically masculine pursuits and class signifiers.
I would add an attraction to, and appreciation of, mechanical craftsmanship, and my sense that many women (and more every day) share in “historically masculine” pursuits, including watch collecting.
None of these reasons contain a hint of well-to-do megalomania, at least to me. As for these suffering fellow humans who have no watches nor even wrists to wear them on, give me a fuckin’ break, Joyce. How many suffering humans have no Twitter accounts nor even fingers to type tweets with?
Discussions like these are the reason I maintain a presence in the enemy camp. It’s not all racism and Nazis on X/Twitter/MAGA-Muskland, at least if you keep your feed set to “Following” (and of course be selective about whom you follow).
Joyce Carol Oates is still alive? And she feels that male watch hoarders are megalomaniacs, because something something?
This reminds me of the claim that men are sexist pig male hegemony supporters because we think about the Roman Empire so much. Well, I do think and read about the ancient Romans now and then, after all they invented the republic, concrete, garum and the color blue.
But how much Roman Empire contemplation before I cross the line into full pater familias authoritarianism? It’s a thin line. I’d better think more about the friendly Persian and Nazi empires instead.
Watch hoarding/collecting seems pretty harmless to me, like amassing buggy whips, sun dials and Pez dispensers.
She doesn’t mention the mostly female shoe collecting kink I assume, Imelda Marcos style, which surely must indicate a hidden sinister desire to walk on people and things.
Or the deeply unfunny Jay Leno’s enormous stash of internal combustion death mobiles, the most evil technology ever invented. And that idiot celebrates them. I cried because I had no shoes: then I met a man who had no dick.
Tod recently posted…Escort Carrier USS Corregidor in WWII: and Destroyer USS Ingraham in 1947
In her defense, Tod, she’s one of the chatty ones on Twitter, and many of her tweets are jokey and meant to provoke responses. And she did apologize for this one, though I didn’t think she needed to. I’m happy to poke fun at my own obsessions, and don’t mind too much when others do.