The 3-month “birthday” of Brutal Honesty is a couple of days away, but there won’t be cake and ice cream for this little soiree. What is Brutal Honesty? Glad you asked…
…and it’s not the dictionary definition you might have been expecting, or the Google search result for a struggling and possibly already-defunct ecommerce apparel brand that has inverted the words into a business brand of sorts (“Honesty Brutal” – which makes no sense from any perspective, least of all a business one).
If you read the descriptors or biographies or two-sentence summaries on the various social media channels where Brutal Honesty has a presence, it is a lifestyle brand that serves up mundane apparel and accessories with a slice of real-world truth. No woo-woo. No toxic positivity. No self-help “feel better” inspirational quotes. Just the plain ol’ truth for all the world to see.
Why mundane items? You wear and carry and see things like t-shirts, mousepads, coffee mugs, candles, tote bags, and phone cases everywhere you go. Odds are you have more than a few yourself, as does everyone you know – including your eight year old cousin and your 80 year old grandmother. Mundane items are things that we all have and use every day of our lives, so they make perfect sense from a commercial or marketing perspective. Neither your cousin or your grandmother wears hooker boots and propeller pasties while doing pole dances near the water cooler at work, do they? So, see…it just makes sense.
Why real-world truth? One of the primary mottos or slogans of Brutal Honesty is that it is “the brand that life built.” Most of us have a running commentary in our heads on a regular basis that contains a small number of repeat thoughts or statements. Even if the primary unspoken thought in your head is “WTF?” most of the time, it’s still a thought that was given its own life by the situations and circumstances of your own (life, that is). And there is a difference between the “truths” we are told to adopt by the media, social and otherwise, and mainstream and otherwise. Those in the wellness woo-woo camp would have you chant the mantra “We’re all in this together!” while doing yoga and sipping a $10 cup of espresso. Brutal Honesty sits in traffic with a half-flat gas station fountain drink while appending “Unfortunately!” to the end of the yogi’s happy chanting.
It’s sassy, snarky, smart, sassy, sarcastic – but real.
Life is way too short to bother with curating a false image and cultivating a shallow pool of sycophants. You’re never getting out of here alive, anyway, so why waste time with superficial engagement metrics or being fake and pretty? Stop listening to the marketing hype telling you to be the best version of yourself and realize one simple truth: you already are the best version of yourself, and it’s the only version you’re going to get – so what are you waiting for?
Brutal Honesty wants to be brutally honest about life’s little truths, no matter what they may be. We aren’t cruel or aggressive or destructive, we’re just honest. And even though no one can really define exactly what “it” may be – it is what it is, after all. Right? It’s a brand with a message that we all need to see and hear, because we’ve already seen and heard it in our own hearts and minds many times in the past.
It’s the truth, and –
The truth looks good on you, my friend.
