#knightfighting

[grumpystrongman]

Great Team Practice this Sunday WOD was 5 rounds (EMOM minute 1-6 cleans, minute 2-6 overhead presses,minute 3-thrusters) Then we worked skills and drills followed by 4 minute rounds fighting gauntlet with a fresh fighter every minute. We finished with 50 meter sprints, cool down, and finished chatting with our new fighter. #armoredcombat #knightfighting #durhamnc #durhamdiredrakes #armoredminotaurs

[grumpystrongman]

Progress update @bullcitystrong #crossfit #knightfighting #ketologic #keto #grumpy

[aleccontentmarketing-blog]

MEL Magazine teach men to be men

My first introduction to Mel Magazine, a Dollar Shave Club owned magazine was a dynamically captured video which had nothing to do with shaving. The video followed the life of Damion a Manhattan native and Harvard graduate in his journey towards becoming part of the best Knight fighting team in the world.

Interestingly in the video what caught my eye was not only the ridiculous Knight fights and the compelling story of this mild-mannered man, but in every shot of the Damion, he had a stunningly clean shave. Every single shot of him features a perfectly shaved faced, which subliminally ties their product; in this case, Mel Magazine is embedded the value of their product by associating a shaved face with this exciting and impressive man. This seemingly insignificant aspect of the story is the Trojan horse Berger suggests that every story should have. The video finally ends on the team losing a match against a team from New England but you walk away with a sense of awe, like “that guy is cool” and inherently feeling that sort of emotion for a person I don’t even know was the tactic Dollar Shave Club’s was going for. Because this guy is cool and the sport of Knight fighting is hardly known sharing this video brings a great deal of social currency, most people not having heard of this sport would be very visually impressed by it, making this video all the more shareable. Along with that learning that this sport even exists, perhaps for a person like me, who likes to fight and exercise it would have a great deal of practical value. But the largest contributing factor of this videos content marketing genius is that they were able to package the entirety of these marketing tools into a story and deliver that story without even a mention of the product, yet the product is visible in almost every scene of the film.

This is just one of many stories that are featured in Mel magazine, everything from interest pieces to sex life and relationships is featured in this GQ meets Men’s Health style magazine. The platform functions as a hub for male culture specifically men above the age of 21, whom not so coincidentally are the primary age demographic for the shaving goods. They include other lifestyle pieces more closely related to their demographics like “Why you’re losing more hair now” which obviously appeals to an older audience. The article then goes on to describes its causes and ways of looking good with balding. Again, they invite the idea of grooming a beard to compensate for hair loss ingraining their product within the narrative. As you scroll down the website each recommended articles ties back to either hair or a form of grooming which furthers a need for grooming products. The inclusion of a “Sex and Relationship” category on their website fundamentally touches on why men groom themselves, to begin with. Dollar Shave Club understands the motivation their consumers have for using their products and built another narrative around that. Sex and Relationships are also emotionally exciting and edgy things to talk about which garners more virality in social media. Even the idea of speaking about sex on a platform like this creates social currency, because of the edginess of the topic as well as relatability to most men.  They delve deeper into the edginess with articles like “To be monogamous or not to be monogamous” by exploring something that is often taboo in our society. 

They relate this article to pretty much any man who’s been in a relationship since most men admit to having thoughts that question their monogamy. However, instead of being an article that simply says monogamy works, or it doesn’t; it dives into a deep conversation about the reasons why one man, formerly married to actor Olivia Wilde thinks monogamy doesn’t work. A man who was married to someone as beautiful as Olivia Wilde thinks that monogamy is unsustainable is an excellent conversation topic and is easy to relate, building social currency that way. Finally, the article takes the reader through this man’s upbringing to help the reader get a sense of where these ideas come from. Just like in the story of Damion the Knight, they paint an elaborate portrait of a “cool” type of guy, or simply someone you’d want to be more like which makes these stories much more interesting to read even if monogamy or battling in armor isn't your thing.