New Gen Camp = Misogyny Training for High Schoolers

Fair enough, and thank you for the serious response (no sarcasm).

I think it's crazy that they ran that article and have Wisner out in Budapest just a few weeks after the camp/info about inappropriate conversations he had with minors at the On sponsored camp came to light

I agree a lot with jecht last paragraph, and that the guys involved aren't going to see a ton of repercussions outside of the New Gen name. I think that the "New Gen" era is done, and that the guys will focus more on their solo careers in the sport, and will sadly probably be successful at it cause these big brands don't care

But that doesn't make it not sh*tty still of the brands. It's one thing for On to f%*k up by not paying attention and being blind-sided about how New Gen ran their camp. But it's another thing for all of this grooming level stuff to come to light and for On to not pull this article. It feels very tone deaf to be giving matt more paid gigs and support at the moment, it looks like the brand doesnt care about the campers/teen girls in the sport safety.

The article 95% likely was already close to done when the camp drama happened, but there's plenty of good writers in the running scene. On could have gotten someone else to quickly write something great in the past few weeks. Or, at the very least tell wisner his only option if he wants the article to still go live is for On to publish the article with no writer listed, and that he can't publicly claim the article as his own (which On should have the power to do with how most contracts these big brands have freelancers sign, it's basically a NDA thing they can pull).

Their parents aren't in the running scene/don't have any pull over brands

They've just done a great job at getting brands eyeballs and views from the high school and college age members of the sport, a good bit by doing questionable things, but at the end of the day the brands care a lot about the engagement anyway so they'll just let them do whatever

But, now that's biting the brands in the ass. So they'll probably work with the members one-on-one going forward (like letting wisner write this article), but I'd be shocked if any of the major brands in the sport hire new gen this fall

Most likely, the brands are just gonna ironically turn to the 'new generation" in the sport, and hire whoever is the next new shiny young thing in the running influencing/social media community (and then when they mess up, rinse and repeat)

My prediction, is expect to see a ton of the Running Effect Podcast and The Butter Boys this fall working on high school events for the shoe brands. Are there any other popular media accounts ran by young people in the sport that's doing well with the high school audience at the moment?

New Gen started as a Youtube channel made by college kids, seemingly with college kids in mind as the primary audience. While the guys behind it were in college they were mostly interacting and making content with people their age. They picked up a large high school fan base because of the high school running scene and the covid years increasing Youtube content consumption.

After New Gen guys graduate from college they want to find ways to make money doing content along with some of them being pro/semi pro runners. Looking at their fanbase it is obviously much easier to make money from high schoolers than college athletes. Camps for kids can be surprisingly lucrative and with brand partnerships it makes sense. They are also capitalizing on the fact that they are cult personalities from years of personal content being uploaded online. Even Ben as the mind behind the scenes who doesn’t even run is a cult personality in his own right. They are niche micro celebrities and have parasocial relationships with large swaths of high school running fans.

The thing about having a camp for kids run by recent college grads is they don’t have guidelines or handbooks that an established institution would that has more experience working with children. Also, part of the appeal for the campers is they ostensibly get to be casual friends with the people they view as celebrities. Most instituions that work with children professionally do not allow personal contact with children or minors of any kind and only allow necessary and professional communication.

I don’t think the New Gen people did anything actually bad to the campers, there have been no allegations of abuse or even boundaries crossed despite what some people on this thread are alluding to. It is clear that New Gen did not take precautions to make speculation about such things impossible. The transition from casual cool media company with your friends to summer camp for minors seems to have missed a step where they really tighten down how to handle working with children who look up to them so much. It is tricky to navigate given that the personalities are the biggest selling point for the camp.

I don’t think New Gen deserves this cancel mob and wild speculation about social media posts without any actual allegations or complaints from campers. Even if they didn’t have a super professional set of guidelines that does not mean anything inappropriate happened. Hopefully they can learn from this and figure out how to move on.

Do you think On is paying Wisner's travel costs or hosting him in Budapest? I guess it's possible, but I haven't seen any indication of such on his social media, and I haven't seen him in any of the content that the On brand account has put out either. I assumed that Matt was already planning on vacationing to Budapest on his own dime because he's close with Hocker and Gear. There are a number of American elite/pro runners who are in town for Worlds right now to support their friends/training partners/significant others even though they didn't make the team themselves (Steelman, Henes, Rainsberger off the top of my head). I want to be clear that asking that question isn't me defending Matt; I'm just not clear that the assumption that On is currently hosting/paying Matt is accurate.

While I think his interactions with the teens and the way NG handled all the camp drama was very concerning, but I also wish On had tasked a better writer with profiling Yared. Even before the camp stuff, Matt struck me as someone who was pretty full of himself without the creative output to back it up. His overreliance on polysyndeton and his repeated eschewing of commas feels like a juvenile writing style, and the final paragraph of the profile didn't match tonally with the rest of the piece. I don't know how to describe his style other than to say it's like he's trying to mimic the aesthetic of Woody Allen films in written form. Plus, Tyro is a tortoise, not a turtle! Fact checking? I can see why high schoolers or image-enamored college kids would be impressed with his writing, but I feel like On could have hired someone with a better handle of the craft to produce a more interesting piece.

There has been proof behind the allegations found in the campers blogs about inappropriate stuff coming to light from the camps, which people rightly will be concerned about

And we also don't know if any of the campers had issues with any of the camps from the past 3 summers, it's possible that issues were brought up by campers/parents and that it was handled behind the scenes. I mean if I was their parent I would not let them take it to social media and have a digital-paper trail on their name on the issue (or at least a bigger one then they already had), but instead work with the brand responsible to get answers/possibly even compensation if it's warranted - You best bet On would be paying for my kid's therapy if I hypothetically found out that my 17 year old daughter had a 25 year old man she looked up to tell her to write sexually about another adult male that she looked up to, and she did, and then months later was accepted into this camp and got to spend a week out of anyone's supervison with these same two men - and that On funded it

Which leads me to my next point, and this is reaching I will admit, but a possible reason that campers haven't come forward with stories is because New Gen got to hand pick their campers

They knew not to let kids that would speak up about this kinda stuff into the camps. They probably wanted kids who have proved that they love and think of New Gen as gods and will do whatever they ask. Proof in case, the fact that they let that young girl into camp this year after she took wisner's advice in her blog articles

Which is also a separate issue: were there deserving kids who should have gotten into this 'coveted' On summer camp by merit, but not allowed in cause new gen didn't think that they would be 'cool' enough?

I have no idea if On paid him to go to worlds, all I know is that they paid him to write this article.

And I think he's a good writer for the kinda style that he goes for. For young readers, his stuff is a page turner and easily to digest. And feels witty and 'cool' if you're an average 15-25 fan of the sport

He can do the "normal" sports reporting stuff, like when fast women or whoever hires him, his articles are much different. He just prefers writing in this style, and now that he's as big as he is, I bet a lot of brands are getting clicks on their website cause wisner's fans want to read what he said, so On wants him to write often even if it's at the cost of taking attention away from yared in the article when wisner's talking about himself so much

With the amount that he put's himself into most pieces, it kinda reminds me of how kyle merber always relates stuff back to himself in his newsletter. Not saying that it's a bad thing, more of a "hate the game, not the player" kinda thing. Cause building your personality and name up more helps so much in landing more work and makes you harder to replace

Your post seems pretty reasonable, but this seems like a big stretch. The things that have been presented were brought forward by campers - kids who don't necessarily know what is appropriate and what isn't when it comes to a camper/counselor relationship. If you don't think anything inappropriate happened, you either think that the 15 year old who said she took a rice purity test with a counselor is lying, or that taking a rice purity test with a 15 year old is an appropriate action for a counselor.

Seriously I don’t know why anyone would try and downplay the severity of an adult taking the purity test with a 15 year old or telling a minor to literally sexualize his adult friend.

That is predatory and grooming behavior. Predators will often broach sexual subjects in a ‘joking’ manner to minors to try and see how far they can get away with pushing their boundaries.

Not everyone thinks some awkward conversation between wisner and some girl is the end of the world like the pearl clutchers on this board.

It is not the end of the world. Either you are of high school age or do not spend time around high school aged children as an adult over the age of 21. Once you are out of HS 3+ years you do not view them as peers that share the same humor, conversations and interests as you as an adult should. They may share the interest of running, possibly music, movies, food, etc...not sure how that leads to a rice purity test with a 15 year old.

Trying to engage a high school CHILD in a sexual conversation is not normal behavior that should ever be overlooked and says a lot about the adult.

So if you had a daughter who was 17 you’d be perfectly alright with Matt Wisner telling her to sexualize his adult friend?

This is how New Gen looks in this situation:

To be fair to Wisner, if he does mature and change, then I'll give him props for that too in a few year. I see him growing but not Crawford...Crawford rubs me the wrong way.

And as some others said upthread, these guys will put the attention on themselves to boost their brands, the companies make out with more clicks and $, and it's all swept under the rug.

Until they piss off the WRONG person...but I see them as deceitful enough to only allow *compliant* people into their "camp."

They did offend the wrong people. Wise for them to move on, move away and into a different line of work completely—and grow up quickly.

BUMP

Honestly I didn’t see the stuff about the Rice Purity test. I agree that is not appropriate at all.

It is great that this topic has outgrown the athletes special

Personally my dad liked my article🤷‍♀️

In this corner weighing 135 lbs from New Gen we have Matt ‘The Groomer’ Wiiiiiiiisner