robert brandt jabs at tinman again

Honestly this is super accurate and kinda funny. Thinking about pre tweeting and whatnot is accurate and laughable.

My point was that pre was more popular than the most popular runners in an era without social media.

Solid take by you.

Track was more popular in general back then among the general population.

strengthmoneyinthebank wrote:

They have twice as many followers on Twitter? Oh my gosh!

Serious question: how do you suggest that we measure popularity if not through objective, quantifiable things such as social media followers and T-shirt sales?

This whole thread is stupid. Tinman does great work and the team is good for the sport. Posting about your Christmas Day workout may be “lame” in the eyes of the blue collar LRC crowd, but who cares? It is motivating and exciting to the masses and that’s the idea, right? Brandt comes off as a tool in this exchange (but I still like him the same way that I like all of the dudes who are out there busting their asses and putting up decent results). “A bunch of other pros are training too, wah wah wah”... of course everyone else is training! The tinmen probably wish the others would post their workouts too because they want the sport to succeed.

I guess I live in a different bubble than a lot of you guys on this thread so I shouldn’t be so surprised maybe.

Here’s how I’d answer your question:

I don’t value Tinman based off their social media and tee shirt sales. I think Tinman fans (I used to be one) and I can both agree that the tee shirt sales come from high schoolers mainly. Regarding their social media, they have a diversified demographic compared to their tee shirt sales but the biggest slice comes from not so serious runners.

The way I value a professional running club does not come from any of these two areas like many of you guys on here and many in general obviously.

I come from a well recognized program and have ties to the post collegiate scene. Myself along with people I associate myself with now see Tinman as a joke because they market themselves to be much faster than they are and their supporters tend to be pretty uneducated on the running scene. These are generalizations but that is my opinion and the people I associate myself with.

I am not acquainted with Brandt but my bubble has similar views to him, he is not an outlier.

Myself, my friends, teammates, coaches, and ties to other programs etc. value a club off its performances and the subjective way in which they conduct themselves (this is where things are up for debate- like we support NAZ so much more as an example).

I hope my points make sense, I keep coming back to this thread because people need to know that Brandt, whether he meant to chirp here or not, is in THE NORM for runners of his class not being Tinman supporters.

I supported Tinman through 2019 and do not anymore (just scroll up in the thread if you want to know why, I’ve rambled too many times). They are smug, not fast, and overshadow the performing pros in America. This is not just my opinion or Robert’s.

Calling someone out like that is basically just a projection of insecurity. Why would someone posting of their workout annoy someone for any other reason?

Give me a break on the holier than thou BS. I have ties to real runners and programs and I also value a club based on performance. I am not claiming that the Tinmen are on the same level as BTC, NAZ Elite, etc.

In fact, I don’t think that anyone is claiming that.

Your whole argument here is that “real runners” dislike Tinmen. This simply isn’t true. I like them. So do all of my running nerd friends, including the former D1 All-Americans and OT qualifiers. Trying to appeal to these niches exclusively would be silly though - after all you can’t grow the fan base by catering to only the existing hardcore fan base. This is common sense.

I personally feel that any “pro” team (meaning a team of runners who have sponsors and the responsibility to be “visible”) should do the type of crap that Tinman is doing. Is it my cup of tea? Do I follow them on Twitter? Hell no. It is clearly for hobbyists and younger kids. Does that make it wrong? No! In fact, it’s pretty smart and it potentially helps the sport I love. That should be the goal.

Just reread that previous post and it sounded more aggressive than I intended. My overall point is that WE are not the target audience for the Tinmen, nor should we be. We are already hardcore fans. What they are doing is smart and Brandt is being obtuse if he thinks that Parsons was suggesting that he works harder than any other pros. Parsons was trying to appeal to the masses, as he should be. So should Brandt. Please note that I am a fan of Brandt.

ndeisn wrote:

Just looked up this Brandt kid - he’s completely irrelevant. A 4:07 miler that has run 13:40 and 27:40? Poor kid is gonna get blasted in a championship race in which he needs to close in sub-55 or better.

Drew Hunter would lap him over 2 miles and that kid ain’t making the team.

Robert ran a 3:58.19 time trial over 1 mile, while doing 10K workouts.

In his 3:58 mile a couple of weeks before his 27:40 race, he finished his mile in 58.

The hater doesn’t like to look at objective data - he wants to merely spout anecdotes that he uses to craft an argument that only high school losers care about an obviously popular program.