{"id":35547,"date":"2024-10-04T08:59:35","date_gmt":"2024-10-04T15:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=35547"},"modified":"2024-10-04T11:38:07","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T18:38:07","slug":"sketchy-is-as-sketchy-does-a-watch-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=35547","title":{"rendered":"Sketchy Is as Sketchy Does: A Watch Post"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m a watch person. Watch people love to discuss their obsession on forums and groups, and I&#8217;m no different. One of my prize watches is a Breitling, so when group members talk about the brand I pay attention. Lately the word &#8220;sketchy&#8221; has appeared in the title of nearly every Breitling post. From context, it&#8217;s clear the posters don&#8217;t mean anything bad by it \u2014 more like approval or admiration, actually \u2014 but what&#8217;s behind it? What did I miss?<\/p>\n<p>So I posted this to WatchCrunch, one of the groups I&#8217;m on:<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Screenshot 2024-10-04 at 6.50.42?AM\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/halfmind\/54042073051\/in\/datetaken\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54042073051_7663ebb184_z.jpg\" alt=\"Screenshot 2024-10-04 at 6.50.42?AM\" width=\"548\" height=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The very first response led me to this YouTube video, which explains everything: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ZAcW0Z7ShRk?si=Mp7BqC7TgvlJcp9y\">Sketchy Dudes Wear Breitling \u2014 We Don&#8217;t Make the Rules<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZAcW0Z7ShRk?si=nIrjoCEY8zSoWPny\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center>Here&#8217;s a quick summary for those who don&#8217;t have the patience to watch an eleven-minute video:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In the 1990s and 2000s, Breitling watches became popular with elite military and espionage personnel \u2014 fighter pilots, commandos, SEALs, undercover operatives \u2014 sketchy dudes. The video even singles out some genuinely shady Breitling wearers: international arms dealer Viktor <span style=\"font-size: 1.2rem;\">Bout, Blackwater CEO Eric Prince. Breitlings have featured in action movies from Thunderbolt to Blood Diamond.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That&#8217;s the source of the meme, and now I know. Not only that, the video is so on point it&#8217;s almost scary.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_6021\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/halfmind\/52739853782\/in\/album-72177720303430078\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52739853782_16287fe6cc_c.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_6021\" width=\"558\" height=\"800\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I must have sensed some of the points made in the video when I bought mine in 1990 (right at the beginning of Breitling&#8217;s sketchy era). I&#8217;d flown from Japan to Hong Kong, intending to buy a Rolex Submariner (another watch associated with the military and espionage, thanks to the James Bond movies). I&#8217;d recently come off a joint staff tour with U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida and had returned to the cockpit for my third operational F-15 Eagle assignment, this time at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.<\/p>\n<p>I told some Air Force, Navy, and Marine friends beforehand I wanted to buy a Rolex in Hong Kong, and they recommended a broker who worked out of the Royal Navy&#8217;s China Fleet Club. When I sat down with the broker I learned that the Submariner was at the very upper limit of my budget, and wasn&#8217;t a particularly exciting watch in person. When he showed me the Breitling, I instantly knew it was the watch for me, and all to the better the price was half that of the Rolex. I flew back to Japan with my new prize, wore it for the remaining seven years of my time in the service (including a few hundred flying hours in the Eagle and other aircraft), and still wear it today, 34 years later.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m retired now and fairly sedentary. I read books, cook, blog, and walk my dogs. But I\u2019ve got the watch to show I once was a sketchy dude!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m retired now and fairly sedentary. I read books, cook, blog, and walk my dogs. But I\u2019ve got the watch to show I once was a sketchy dude!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4432,18,14,2,1601],"tags":[4645,4646],"class_list":["post-35547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-seiko","category-consumerism","category-military","category-personal","category-photoblogging","tag-moveoverjamesbond","tag-sketchybreitling"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35547"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35569,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35547\/revisions\/35569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}