Speaking as someone who found PS eminently useful when I first discovered it, my enthusiasm for the Cromptonator and his content has diminished massively over the last year. I also think his acolytes - often in the comment section - often seem deranged in their sycophancy, repeating much of the received wisdom of the site and smugly parroting the exclusive mantra of 'if you can't afford it, you're not the target market! Move on, you filthy rat! Get outa here, with your tawdry beliefs, such as how lining a vintage M65 jacket with fur for £1000 is anything other than a superfluous status symbol or actually rather gauche content fodder. We don't need your sense of perspective here! Back to M&S with you, begone!'
There is so much laughably wrong with his site these days and all the more during a cost of living crisis that I wouldn't know where to begin. I think for me the nauseating nosedive into a mix of bloviating drivel that his guest writers pleadingly offer up, his advertorials for ludicrous 'sustainable' initiatives such as resoling old trainers for £500'000 a shoe (when it's usually the uppers of trainers that deteriorate first anyway) and most detestably the increased celebration of industry familiars, that for me renders the site basically pointless.
All those posts showcasing their little dress-up parties (oh look! what's 'Ethan' wearing?! Here comes 'Tony' in his admiral's hat and ceremonial qipao! But don't worry team! Its not cultural appropriation because 'Tony' actually read a very long book (and wrote an even longer article) on the actually rather surprising history of the Qipao and it's actually very surprising cultural significance to white men that look more like the pillsbury doughboy then anyone else you've ever seen wearing a Qipao. Doesn't he look sophisticated and quite unlike someone in the grip of a manic episode!) It is hateful sludge, now, all of it. The Cromptocracy has become a parody of itself. He isn't a journalist. He is an influencer, influencing not the frequenters of luxury for whom he likes to present himself as the torchbearer, but rather aspirants that hope that he'll show them how it's done.
There is so much laughably wrong with his site these days and all the more during a cost of living crisis that I wouldn't know where to begin. I think for me the nauseating nosedive into a mix of bloviating drivel that his guest writers pleadingly offer up, his advertorials for ludicrous 'sustainable' initiatives such as resoling old trainers for £500'000 a shoe (when it's usually the uppers of trainers that deteriorate first anyway) and most detestably the increased celebration of industry familiars, that for me renders the site basically pointless.
All those posts showcasing their little dress-up parties (oh look! what's 'Ethan' wearing?! Here comes 'Tony' in his admiral's hat and ceremonial qipao! But don't worry team! Its not cultural appropriation because 'Tony' actually read a very long book (and wrote an even longer article) on the actually rather surprising history of the Qipao and it's actually very surprising cultural significance to white men that look more like the pillsbury doughboy then anyone else you've ever seen wearing a Qipao. Doesn't he look sophisticated and quite unlike someone in the grip of a manic episode!) It is hateful sludge, now, all of it. The Cromptocracy has become a parody of itself. He isn't a journalist. He is an influencer, influencing not the frequenters of luxury for whom he likes to present himself as the torchbearer, but rather aspirants that hope that he'll show them how it's done.