Several years ago I hit it off with someone who was really fancy; not the type I would normally hang out with. When we hung-out I was embarrassed before she even arrived at my place: I was living in the part of town referred to as rat city with five roommates. Some time later after we had been chatting for a while, we started talking about things we had bought and enjoyed. I showed off my new TV, robot vacuum, even my mattress. She laughed at a certain point noting that all of these things were off brand versions of the market leaders. There was no Samsung, Roomba, or Casper to be seen anywhere.
I later realized that buying off brand allowed me to live a slightly more luxurious life. However, there are some things I have that are on brand that I swear by. What I aim to accomplish in this blog is to bring some truth and user experience to these discussions, and never to lead with items just because of affiliate incentives or freebies. I hope for this to someday be a successful affiliate blog, but I’m worrying about that after I really nail down the voice of the site. You ever read a product list that sounds like it was written by a robot that just randomly generates words and phrases and lists a bunch of products with links? Here I’m trying to do something crazy, to just talk like a normal person. Lots of items I’ll talk about I have direct and indirect experience with while others I will be extensively researching user reviews to try and come up with as accurate a depiction as possible. I sometimes obsess when trying to find the best items, which frankly has been kind of a dumb and time consuming habit. Hopefully this website will be something where I can at least put these thoughts and have something to show for it.
Final note, I use the term “dupe” very liberally. I am expanding this to essentially just mean any off brand item, or even just to mean a brand that isn’t the market leader. Another caveat is that doing research on some off brands is very difficult, and sometimes even difficult for well known brands. Unfortunately the reviews on these tend to be a bit sketchier, especially when you talk about items that are very affiliate incentivized. If you try and search for a mattress review for instance, you will be bombarded with a million user reviews on blogs of people who just want you to buy it through their link. I’m sure I’ll be wrong in some instances but I’ll try my best.
Cheers!
Tim