Hardcore?

What is hardcore?

I used to write about being hardcore, I defined it in words.

I did that quite some time ago, around the time of the Simms advertisement campaign, maybe before, it doesn't matter. I thought it was cool to write about how cool being hardcore was like you could measure cool by being hardcore.



What a bunch of crap.



I have learned most from experiences challenging myself what is hardcore.



There is no hardcore measuring stick.



It is you, practicing what you enjoy 100% without influence from the media.



It is not the advertisements or alternative media that define hardcore.


It is you, alone, doing what you do.


Its out there, lots of people do it, there are web sites based on it, communities of people surrounding themselves with it. I think its a phenomenon based on a lack of self-fulfillment. And its not just fly fishing, looking at the demographics, it is largely based in the lack of security.

I am talking about magazines, web sites, media and the people that support the idea that you must fashion yourself a certain way in order to be like them.

Simms does it.

That is the first series that really stood out for me. I am sure there were others before but the three guides standing in the water looking like they just gunned down a bank next to the wall of cars for erosion control on the riverbank. And I am almost sure that some of us have our own personal photographs in that vein. But the advertising must work, actually, I own Simms waders because they work, not because of the advertisement, that part is completely ridiculous.

Patagonia does it.

Their catalogs reveal what it is to be a dirtbagger. You see them fishing in Yellowstone, climbing in Argentina, surfing the slope in Idaho, standing at camp in Yosemite. I am a dirtbagger but I have a $600 jacket made in Viet Nahm? G~d damn I don’t get it, what happened to the good ole USA? and I own a few Patagonia jackets myself because they work, not because of their ridiculous dirtbag campaign.

The Drake, This is Fly, Trout Underground, there are more...

There is a common theme there and it is not balanced at all, it's about an escape to something we are not. A longing to be a part of something you can never be a part of, the desire.

The campaign is built upon desire and based in a desire that you will never satisfy.

From day one, I have made it my swan song to produce a site that you can "self publish" your story. The story that you wrote for yourself. What ended up happening is that many of us here wrote stories for magazines and they rejected us. Probably because we didn't fit an editors mold or the direction we wanted the magazine to go.

Are you seeing my point?

Many of us went on to write our own books and become authors of our own writing style, some of us went on to become part of the machine I am writing about. And that is ok. It is a personal struggle, your personal struggle but it is often more than not, the struggle being the success, the pursuit being more enjoyable than the destination.

Never let anyone tell you who you are.

Set the standard yourself and constantly adjust it just out of reach.

That's what we do.

[work in progress]