Backpacks, Pt. II
Since my last blog, I've gotten a couple questions from friends and readers asking what backpack I eventually settled on after months of obsessively searching for the perfect one. Eventually, I did find a bag that more or less worked for me. But before I get into that, I think it's worth mentioning that hopping from brand to brand and never allowing myself to be satisfied left a burning hole in my wallet, and definitely didn't make me feel good about myself.
I've been thinking a lot about how my quest to find a backpack I'd never have to replace started as an inherently anti-consumerist idea, only for my dysfunctional perfectionism to completely hijack the endeavor. I started off with valid intentions: I was just trying to resolve my back pain and avoid spending money on replacing easily worn out bags. But I never allowed myself to be satisfied; was always incapable with simply making do with whatever small flaws each backpack inevitably had. Ultimately, I ended up spending hundreds of dollars more than I ever would have spent on just replacing a cheap backpack annually, for at least several years.
A lot of friends read my blog and immediately asked me to "recommend" them a "better" backpack, saying that they'd never even considered that this was something worth investing in. While it's true that a lot of them owned the same cheap backpacks that I used to; packs that would fall apart every couple of years and weren't very comfortable to wear; I never felt good about recommending a $395 ultra-premium pack as if that was a genuinely sustainable solution to the problem. Whether it's backpacks or anything else--- the best advice I'd give today is this: If you didn't have a problem with what you already owned until you were made aware of its more premium versions, it's probably not worth your time or money to upgrade.
Something that really frustrates me about the backpack industry in particular is the hypocrisy. A lot of these companies advertise on the platform of extreme durability and longevity; the idea that once you buy one of their packs, you'll never need to get another one ever again. But many of these companies, including every one I mentioned in my last blog, have begun churning out countless new obnoxious colorways, minor tweaks no one asked for, and excessively overpriced "collab" pieces multiple times a year. Their advertising has increasingly skewed to exploit manufactured scarcity and FOMO, which begs the question of why I'd need to buy several different colorways of the same identical backpack if just one is allegedly supposed to last me my entire life. Visit any of the backpack-enthusiast Facebook groups or subreddits, and you'll find hordes people trying to sell off their massive collections of extremely similar backpacks and bags that they impulsively bought. I would know; I was basically one of them.
No shade to this guy, at all. I’ve been there, bud.
To an extent, I understand that this is simply a matter of supply and demand. If your product is genuinely intended to last the user a lifetime, you've essentially just bottle-necked your own company from having any repeat customers. Businesses have to find some way to grow and stay afloat enough to produce their core product, and I get that limited edition, collab, and "hype" releases are just a part of that. Typically, this type of marketing doesn’t bother me, because it applies mostly to novelties such as fashion accessories or collector’s items and trinkets. But when applied to an object as inherently utilitarian and ubiquitous as a backpack, it just feels uniquely obnoxious.
That’s $695.00 for a black fabric rectangle. It carries stuff. Are we serious?
After being so thoroughly disappointed with the Evergoods gear I had bought, I sold nearly my entire collection of bags, pouches, and other useless accessories on various secondhand markets and forums. Luckily, I was able to recoup most the money I'd spent. Plus, a really cool forum member I met was kind enough to basically gift me a used base model Goruck GR1, which I suppose finally answers the question of what backpack I eventually ended up with. And no, I wouldn’t recommend that you go buy one.
Honestly, the GR1 is a bit of a mess. When I got it it had loose seams all over the place, and various small-but-irritating cosmetic errors. At one point, I actually had to send it back to Goruck to get the stitching on the straps repaired. To their credit, they were incredibly cool about it and did it free of charge without so much as asking for a receipt. But even after that, the bag still has a lot of small quality control issues all over it.
But it carries my stuff, it's tough, and decently comfortable. If it ever breaks or starts to fall apart, I’ll probably just learn to sew it back up myself instead of going through the headache of finding a replacement again.
I'm learning to just be okay with that.