A Note from Katy: Blog content has been sporadic at best in the last year, and it’s been nagging at me. I’ve been known to use journaling as a tool to work through things before. So, perhaps spitting my thoughts out onto virtual paper could help it all make some sort of sense, so that’s what this blog post is.
Nobody has asked where I’ve been/what I’ve been up to, but I still feel like publishing an unsolicited explanation into the abyss. So, here we go.
Ah, December 30th. ‘Tis the season for spamming everyone’s timeline with our own respective highlight reels. I’ll get to that, but I’ve been missing from blog world for a while now. Save for a Black Friday post I did while stuck home alone on Thanksgiving with COVID, AthletiKaty.com has been dark. I’ve been active on other platforms, but none of it’s landed here. How come?
Welp, I’ve got a 4h flight ahead of me, and 92% laptop battery. In the words of Taylor Swift at a KC Chiefs game, let’s f*cking go.
(Wow, that sounded aggressive. Tone it down, Katy.)
As I was saying: as far as blogging & lululemon content go… what happened to me in 2023?
Actions Speak Louder than Words
It’s no secret that we all funnel our time toward where our priorities lie. In the past year, feigning excitement over lululemon wasn’t it for me. I’ve been shopping there (pretty excessively) for the last decade, yet my closet is still the same size. And guess what? It’s full. It’s been full for a while now.
In the first half of the year, I tried to keep up with the game. Each time I went into a store, I tried things on, I took photos and video. I tried to muster up the energy to make a fitting room video & blog post. Every online order, I’d try to record an unboxing, photos, a review. Lots of content was captured, but I couldn’t bring myself to focus so much time and energy on a side project when my full-time job, race training and personal life warranted my time and attention.
My relationship. My full time job. My training. My family. These are the things mattered to me more than making videos about another hoodie in a slightly different shade than what was released 6 months ago.
By the time I felt like doing something with the footage after a week or two, lululemon’s fast fashion timeline rendered it obsolete. I don’t even want to know how much of my iCloud is hogged by unused footage of me rambling about a pair of pants or some shoes I didn’t even keep.
Creativity bender, radio silence, repeat.
If long timers haven’t noticed a pattern now… content from me comes in waves. The inspiration HITS, and then it dries up. Creativity bender > crickets > creativity bender > crickets… and repeat.
2023 Posting Schedule in a Nutshell
- First week of January 2023: 4 blog posts
- 2 months of crickets
- 5 posts in March, ok here we go
- 2 posts in April
- 3 posts in May
- 6 months of silence
- 1 Black Friday post about markdowns that didn’t really get the adrenaline going
- Well hello, tomorrow is New Year’s Eve.
Same sh*t different platform. Instagram, TikTok. Post a bunch for a short while, miss a day or 26, overcompensate by starting the cycle again. The only place I’ve been active on a regular basis is Threads, the platform on which I have the smallest, but by far the most engaged, community.
However, the vast majority of the time, I have not been posting about clothing. Running has my mind, my heart, and when I’m training for a marathon… all of my physical energy too. I compiled 19 weeks of NYC Marathon training data into a By Numbers series, shared it on IG & Threads, yet oddly felt like the run content didn’t fit into the evergreen content that’s been living here since 2015.
I honestly don’t have a good explanation as to why I didn’t end up posting it here. I’m really proud of this project.
What happened to lululemon? Do I still shop there?
I haven’t completely stopped shopping at lululemon, but there are weeks where I forget to even check upload. It’s become increasingly frequent that I will walk into the store and walk out empty-handed 5 minutes after completing a lap. Brunch + lululemon used to be a special weekend trip for my bestie Jen and I. The previously serene, treat yo self vibe of the store is gone. It’s been gone for a while.
The shopping experience now feels like a sportier and more expensive Forever 21, run amok by clout-chasing high schoolers much like it’s an Abercrombie & Fitch circa 2002.
Full disclosure: I was one of those A&F high schoolers 20 years ago. I get it. Having money for the first time is awesome.
If you want to stop reading right now, this entire post could all be boiled down to the fact I’ve gotten older, lululemon appears to have moved the goalposts for their target demographic to skew younger, and it’s widened a gap that I don’t have the energy or motivation to bridge anymore.
If you’re here to pass some time on the doomscroll though, keep reading. I like writing.
I haven’t posted on my lululemon-focused TikTok account since that TikTok several months ago. The balloon has popped. Whimsy gone. Enthusiasm spent.
Late spring, I had a video creep over 1 million views on YouTube Shorts; it was a tongue-in-cheek jab at lululemon girls who freak out about same shirt different color. A little self-deprecating humor, if you will.
The comments opened my eyes up to the brand’s place in Gen Z’s cultural lexicon, and it’s not something I’m inspired to perpetuate. We are talking girls making fun of one another because a girl reached into her purse when asked if she had lip gloss. This girl quite sensibly thought she was being asked about makeup, but instead was teased for not knowing it was the newest “it” color at lululemon.
Same thing happened in January when a time lapse of my assembling the lululemon mirror went viral on TikTok, and again, the comments rolled in about how girls will buy anything with a lululemon logo on it.
Before the randomly viral videos, my ‘foundation’ had already begun to crack. My posting cadence (or lack thereof) is a pretty solid illustration of that.
I began to notice the shift when the in-store cash wrap began its evolution into a blatant cash grab a few holiday seasons ago, with the introduction of tiny inexpensive branded items like keychains and scrunchies. Those items have nothing to do with athletic pursuits or leisure, and everything to do with making sure that anyone who wanted to own lululemon as a status symbol could at least afford a tiny piece of it. $98 pants? Too much. $9 keychain? Mom will probably let me have one.
Why do I believe the Everywhere Belt Bag has had such a chokehold on women for a solid 2 years?
Convenience, sure. But also… it sells for $38. That price point is more accessible than lululemon’s jackets & leggings, and it’s prominent when you incorporate it into an outfit. Shoppers on a limited budget could afford one when clothing items were out of reach, and more affluent shoppers would go nuts and stockpile 20+ of them in a rainbow of colors because it wasn’t a as big of a financial hit per item as they were used to.
The EBB is quite literally an item that one can drape across their chest to advertise that they’re “in”. Can we call it the basic suburban girl’s version of a graphic tee of her favorite band?
FWIW: I used to see EBBs all over the airport last year, or even 6 months ago. Lately? It’s gone from ubiquitous to the occasional sighting.
I think I reached the end of my rope with the “OMG lululemon” factor when they released those packing cubes over the summer. As I noted in the TikTok above, you could find lululemon-branded keychains and packing cubes, but couldn’t find a single pair of tight running shorts in the middle of summer, aside from the way-too-expensive SenseKnit. (Originally $108, the price finally tumbled down to $49 with the End of Year markdowns.) It was confirmation in my mind that the brand had shifted its position to being a lifestyle brand with athletic and functional undertones, when it used to be the reverse.
I loved shopping at lululemon because I wanted functional items that were stylish. Incorporating lululemon items into everday non-workout outfits used to be a game. Now, it’s the norm.
lululemon’s marketing focus seems to have shifted toward what young women are wearing to class and on campus, and not what they’re wearing to stay dry or chafe-free while training for their next marathon or big athletic endeavor.
Back in my day…
This is when I put on my old lady hat for a minute and accept that I’m aging up. I’m less than 2 years away from 40, and fully aware that some of this is giving off big “when I was your age” energy.
The only people we had to keep up with as teenagers were the other kids at school. I didn’t know what kids in my rival high school across town were wearing, much less random strangers from across the world. We had T9 texting at best, and Mark Zuckerberg was still going to class.
Online shopping was still on its way into the mainstream. We could look at things online, but for the most part, you still had to GO to the mall to get your hands on whatever it was you were coveting. We didn’t have prepaid debit cards, Paypal, Venmo… nothing that helped us order instantly. We had CASH.
Today’s pocket rectangles (i.e. smartphones) perpetuate this cycle exponentially faster. You don’t need to leave the couch to learn of a trendy new item, then immediately see 15 videos in a row of different girls wearing XYZ pants, makeup, or a purse, to be quickly convinced you need it too. Everyone else has one, so should you!
Add to cart.
It will be here on Wednesday.
Twitch Streams : Superfan Gamers :: Unboxing Videos : Superfan Shoppers
With shortened attention spans and obsession with NEW THINGS NOW, the type of retail-centric content that does well on YouTube and TikTok is all about unboxing and hauls. If you can’t afford to order the dopamine yourself, it’s nice to follow along and share in someone else’s thrill of seeing a new item fresh out of the package. Nobody gives a flying yogo about a long form review with thoughtfully styled, staged, and edited photos like they used to.
Aspirational Hauls
People like to watch professionals.
It could be young kids watching a Twitch streamer beat a level that they haven’t yet in their favorite game, or your uncle watching his favorite NFL team live out the athletic career he could have had if he didn’t bust his knee in high school. Maybe it’s makeup fans watching an influencer try out a whole PR box of expensive cosmetics that are out of their price range… we like watching professionals do the things that we can’t do and/or afford.
It’s so easy to watch things. With cameras and internet in our hands all time, we all have the capacity to make those things (if we choose), so if you really want people to WATCH and pay attention to you and your content, you better not be boring.
You better have 8 new items every week to make it worth the screen time. You better have the newest thing, you better have it the day it comes out, and you better have more of it than any other creators. Otherwise, you can’t keep anyone’s attention for more than half a second.
Where do I even fit in anymore?
I did not create this blog to flex hauls on an audience. I created it to share photos and honest performance reviews of items that were A) a bit of a splurge for the average person and B) at the time, not showcased on any body type larger than a 5’10” size 4. (Thankfully, body diversity in stock photos has begun to move the needle in a more inclusive direction over the last few years.)
At the core, I have always wanted to showcase what an item I chose to buy looked like and how it performed once it was off the rack and out in the world. I have never purchased anything from lululemon for the sole purpose of content creation. Every cent I have spent at that store has been with intention to keep those items for myself and use in my day-to-day life. Of course, returns happen, but I have never shopped for a simple act of show & tell.
I don’t have the time, energy, and frankly, income to be spending thousands a month at breakneck speeds to feed content into an algorithmic slot machine. But, the slot machine is where the eyeballs are. People are looking for reviews of items on YouTube and TikTok, not Google. Google is a blogger’s best friend, social media isn’t. Sure it’s an extension of your brand, but who’s honestly clicking over from an Instagram story to read what you’ve got to say? A small percentage.
You can post a video that goes super viral and get nothing from it, aside from psychological validation and a bunch of trash comments from randos outside of your niche. Unless you’re posting ALL THE TIME to build and maintain a core community of parasocial connections who will take the time to actually go to your bio, click on the link, and buy something, you’re doing all that work for very little return.
It’s possible to sustain super high spending levels if you commit to making content a full time job. The larger influencers can keep spending like crazy because the commission is good. But, to show up as often as necessary to make sure you’re in the front of the pack is not something you can do without serious time and dedication to keeping the wheels in motion.
It’s a full time job.
I already have one of those, and it’s got health insurance.
So, what’s new?
To me, lululemon isn’t really innovating with new designs right now. They are sticking with what they know. The lululemon influencers who are doing well right now are hauling everything, but lots of content is simply showing the core pieces we already know another new (or ‘so old it’s new again’) color, or slight variations on core styles.
Different metal zippers, hooded vs not, half zip vs full, high rise vs mid, short inseam vs long… you get the picture.
A new color in a core style isn’t going to get me to jump as readily anymore. Like I mentioned earlier, my closet is physically full. To fit new items, I need to move old items out of the way. Each older item I move out, I have to take a look and ask myself if I really got my $78 out of that shirt, or could I have lived without it?
There are some items that I wear EVERY wash cycle, but often… the answer is yeah, I would have survived just fine.
The rainbow of Speed Shorts and Cool Racerbacks I have in my closet… they’re old and out of style. For a solid 5 years, I wore them like Steve Jobs wore his uniform. Trends then shifted.
The more prominent influencers I’m seeing in the lululemon space right now are younger. In their minds, they have always been the stylish generation. I don’t know if any of them have stopped to consider what they’re going to do with their 47 Scuba Hoodies, 32 Define Jackets, and 58 belt bags once these pieces become the next generation’s version of cheugy?
I’ve tried to sell off older items, but even that takes time. lululemon holds resale value pretty well, and with the sunk cost of it all… it’s no sweat to throw a race shirt into a donation pile and think nothing of it. But, when it’s lululemon, you hold it back. Even if you’re not going to wear it anymore, you don’t just want to give it away. It could still make you some money. So the pile of “I’m not wearing it but I’m not giving it away either, I just need to take the time to take the photos and create the listing” keeps growing in the corner. Luon purgatory.
What does all of this mean?
I don’t know, we’ve begun our initial descent on the 118th of 118 flights that I’ve taken in 2023.
If I can think of an eloquent conclusion when my brain isn’t jet lagged soup, I’ll come back and put it here.
Otherwise, happy new year.
Gold star if you get this far.
You’re a real one.
xo
Katy