Two of my favorite terms in marketing are “tactical” and “military grade.” Marketers want you to think that the product you’re buying is so tough that it could survive a war. Expect to see giant pockets, jagged edges, and general military chic. However, some people in the military are quick to point out that “military grade” often means “by the lowest bidder,” not something unusually tough.
Today, Lewin wrote about a tactical multi-fuel Ford Ranger with a stealth mode. Angrycat Meowmeow is sold:
Too bad they don’t sell these to private citizens. I really need a truck to compliment my tactical fanny pack when I’m taking the kiddo’s to Legoland.
Oh, and I’m not kidding with that headline, you can really buy tactical jeans and wallets. I wonder what’s the weirdest tactical product out there? Could I buy, like, tactical contact lenses?
Earlier today, Jason asked if a car is a public or private space. For the most part, your car is technically a public space, but that doesn’t matter for this Comment of the Day. What I love is how many people came to the same conclusion.
From Myk El:
Legally speaking, there are better choices to answer. But me, here in my car, I feel safest of all. I can lock all my doors. It’s the only way to live.
To Saul Goodman:
Well here in my car, I feel safest of all. Not to mention I can lock all my doors. So I would say private.
Thanks for the laughs this week. Have a great weekend, everyone!
Oh thank you. I’ve been watching and mocking this trend for years. Tactical walking sticks, phones, shoes and of course knives. Glasses, underwear (yes, underwear).and COVID masks . And don’t forget our best friend. Tactical leashes, harnesses and water bowls, all for my bad ass Chihuahua.
I don’t see anywhere to make a complaint about the web site tech, so here is where I will post:
When I come here, eventually I will get a notification that my comments have replies. Today, there were six, which, great: people love or hate my posts enough to write back!
However, I cannot look at all of those comments, because after I look at the first one, all of the notifications go away!
Is there a fix, or is this privilege only for paying members?
Same thing happens to members, so this is not a paywall issue.
Oh, my first COTD. I feel kinda bad because Saul Goodman actually beat me to the reference, I just didn’t look.
Lowest bidder was drilled into us when I served from 89 to 94. We bought lots of better stuff ourselves.
The Gary Numan video probably had a minimal budget, probably 10k. It’s still awesome I show my 11 year old just to make him understand…it was different then.
As someone who camps and off-roads, The word “tactical” just bothers me so much. There is too much insecure cosplay.
Yep. I hate how brands that were great 20 years ago (like The North Face) have become “lifestyle” brands. I went shopping 5 or 6 years back for a day pack that (A) had webbing loops so I could pack a tent and (B) had an ice axe loop. Practically non-existent, with the exception of a Kelty MAP, which itself was on the verge of discontinuance.
I grind up clothes in technical canyons, and something that would not have been difficult to find twenty years back – tough material that isn’t jeans and has some pockets – is now the bailiwick of entities like 5.11 and gets stuck with the “Tactical” label.
Want some decent safety-rated eye pro (which is a requirement for some technical rope work)? Tactical Oakleys for you.
Part of it I blame on the cosplayers, but there’s also some really weird marketing dynamics at work. There was a time when you could buy something from Kelty or Coleman at inexpensive entry prices – it might be heavy, and not as elegant, but it would work. These days everybody seems to be chasing the “Lightweight, says ‘I’m Outdoorsy even though I never go outside'” vibe (Cotopaxi, North Face) or “Tactical! Military” Ultra Heavy Duty in anodized black!” (5.11, Kelty, among others).
Even the last carabiner I bought was “tactical.” I just needed a steel biner with an offset gate. Found one, rated at 70kn (yay!), and of course the marketing material is “Also useful in tactical applications!” as though I’m going to be dangling my truck off of a helicopter at some point with this $24 biner.
Rant over. I hate the tactical marketing and I hate the disappearance of properly effective outdoor gear from the market.
Oh man it’s not just me then. It really does seem like outdoor wear option are super limited.
The tactical “off-road”accessories are pretty bad too. Everything looks like it’s supposed to fit onto some kinda stealth truck. I’m seeing super expensive, anodized black roof racks on crossovers that will never leave the pavement.
Gotta wonder how insecure these people are…
I don’t wonder. It’s clear.
(See comment above about “tactical” lifestyle-brand versus actually good and effective.)
I have a tactical spork. Not even kidding.
It’s this one, FWIW, and is actually…useful? Not a bad camping utensil, NGL. The hide-away knife part is a big step above the flimsy/dull knives on a lot of camping sporks. https://www.kabar.com/p/9909
I laughed when I heard the phrase “tactical spork,” so one of my friends bought me the tactical spork, and then I ended up using it — first as a running joke of whipping out the tactical spork from my purse, then as a “wait, this thing actually works pretty well.”
(Thing With Use is kind of a far cry from MOLLE-covered baby onesies, though.)
That spork hides MURDER
I also have a tactical spork. I came here to post it.
I haven’t needed it (yet), but if the poop hits the fan I’m not going to be eating cold canned beans with my fingers like a savage!
Gary Newman still kicks ass.
No thanks, apart from hauling stuff in a 5.11 bag and wearing cargo pants I avoid “tactical” stuff. MOLLE festooned bags, a wardrobe from a Recoil magazine photo shoot and a jacked up 4×4 with Magpul stickers and punisher skulls screams loot drop. I just want to look like every other hiker shopping REI, or a construction superintendent.
My love of cargo pants explains my love of vehicles (vans, Prii). Practicality almost always beats looks in my book.
My favorite was the battle bottle. The army calls that a canteen but these Infidel Incorporated dudes made… A larger canteen and sold it for $60. Lol
They are still pushing this thing. Battle Bottle. That’s just ..too pathetic.
At some point during the pandemic, Meta opened up a firehose of dipshit right-wing “tactical” product ads on me. Definitely lowered my faith in humanity knowing there are dudes so deeply insecure in their own masculinity that they needed, for example, a baby carrier that looked like a military backpack
My gf is an art teacher. She works with a social studies teacher who claimed he knew for sure which kid threw an eraser in class because he “watches a lot of missle trajectory videos on YouTube.”
Seems like the prototypical customer for bogus “tactical” gear.
I kid you not, but there is a company that sells a “tactical toothbrush”. It is military green, and the head is removal and stows inside the handle (which is styled like a mix between a switchblade and a hand grenade). I’ll have to see if I can find it online again. It’s absurd.
https://www.battlbox.com/products/grenade-soap-co-tactical-toothbrush
They have a section called “SOUTHERN SURVIVAL”, whatever that means – but it has fire, guns and a flag on the thumbnail image.
There is a review on that site that begins: “It has become an essential part of my hygiene routine.”
I am so glad this presumably adult human has finally worked tooth-brushing into their hygiene routine …
My brain immediately posed the question to itself of “Does that person brush his teeth like he is cycling a pump-action shotgun, and if so, does he make the sounds too?”
Removable head and stows in the handle sounds great for traveling I’ll find a normal one though.
I’m tired of using ziploc bags for toothbrushes.
That which you seek is pretty common I see them in the supermarket a lot
Yeah, it’s a travel toothbrush that you can find at pretty much any supermarket, pharmacy, or convenience store – nothing tactical about it except the silly design.
I travel a lot for work and just got one of those travel toothbrush tubes that separates in half. It’s been working great for 15+ years and has tiny holes on each end to allow it to dry inside and keep it from getting funky.
I see your modern tactical toothbrush and raise you this 1950’s tactical toothbrush:
https://i.etsystatic.com/5845898/r/il/2f7bbf/3055724637/il_300x300.3055724637_28wy.jpg
Wow. Just…wow.
I was working on a military base replacing some floors and used the one attached to an office. There was a package of what were called “Dude Wipes”. Apparently the difference between those and baby wipes is that Dude Wipes come in a package decorated with American flags, smell more like Axe body spray than baby powder and they cost like three times as much. Apparently even people who should know better fall prey to these marketing techniques.
Garbage like that is what kept the money flowing for Alex Jones. Once he realized he could fleece his sheep whenever he wanted to, all of the commodified toxic masculinity and prepper bullshit appeared on his store and in his show.
Hey, whatever gets you dudes to wipe…
“I wonder what’s the weirdest tactical product out there?”
Probably condoms.
Tactical Kilt anyone?
https://www.damnnearkiltem.com/products/tactical-kilt-utility-kilt-airsoft-paintball-milsim-hunting-black
Why not both?
I think that the guy that gets to use both is very lucky to find the right person.
Hey, now…Utilikilts have actual utility, haha.
I like my utility kilt for camping. but it is not a tactical kilt.
oh gosh, I just saw the ultra-tacticool version with the MOLLE strips
no no no no no lol
I would never, I do really like my wool black watch tartan dress kilt and my utility kilt.
I saw an ad for tactical deodorant once. Had a silhouette of a rifle on the label, if I recall.
TBF you do want a deodorant to kill odor.
It’s true, though I’d speculate that this particular product smells like gunpowder or something, rather than being an odor-killer.
Better that than Axe body spray.
100% TRUE
middle school teachers have been saying this to middle school boys for a very long time:
“axe body spray is not the same thing as an actual shower!!!”
My favorite are the military grade screen protectors and rubber phone cases.
I half jokingly just googled tactical sandals … I got many results.
There I learned that combatflipflops.com is an actual website.
I just can’t. I tried to can, but I can’t.
Good thing you can’t, because if you can-can, your tactical flip-flops will fly off.
COTD within COTD!
That’s, like, 16 COTD!
I went to combat flip-flops and they (of course) have a blog about politics, decrying the attacks on the second amendment and all the usual cowboy bullshit.
This is next of a video of a guy doing a quick draw of his flip flop while firing an actual gun. I suppose this is, technically, a fetish website about feet and guns.
That place depleted my allotment of can for the day. I’ll go back to bed.
YIKES!!!!
If you want this thing to be truly tactical, then it should be sold from the factory as a technical. Mount a .50 cal rifle in the bed of the damned thing! You’d sell a buttload of them in Africa…
Too expensive and unneeded. All the world’s terrorist guys just buy the cheapest Toyota pickup truck they sell over there and mount their favorite high-caliber weapon in the bed. Watch TV news and you’ll see them in every video footage clip about terrorists. And why I would never buy a Toyota vehicle, even if it were the last brand on earth (which it probably will be).
Not when the U.S. government is providing them to the terrorists for free!
that is an *exceptionally* dumb reason not to purchase a toyota.
I was about to say: selling it for purpose means it’s not really a technical, right?
Besides, the homebrew technicals are just so much more interesting. Hell yeah, go strap a big ol’ gun to a BMW M6 and see which group of invaders wants to Find Out.
FAFO is a universal concept, and not exclusive to hoods in the USA. Every culture has their own flavor of it.
You won’t buy a Toyota truck because terrorists use them?
Better not fly on a Boeing then.
That’s actually sound advice these days…
Milspec readings ain’t all BS- Back when I ran ham radio gear in rough riding big trucks, a mil spec rating for vibration resistance meant that radio would probably outlast it’s one year warranty.
And mil-spec connectors take 4,367,776 turns to connect/disconnect. I counted. They ain’t coming loose.
Those round high density aircraft connectors with the orange gaskets are the best. Just don’t wrap the wires with flammable tape like Boeing.
I agree. My LG V20 phone is MIL-STD 810G-rated for resistance to shocks
That was put to the test when the POS handlebar mount I was using broke when I hit a hard bump. I was going at a good clip and the phone hit the ground hard, right on a corner. The screen was fine but the plastic bezel was damaged. No problem, a new bezel was $3 on Ebay and replaced in a couple of minutes.
There are variations on the theme. An elephant is a mouse built to government specs; a camel is a horse designed by committee.