The Instant Gratification Generation

Ramblings From Australia About The Future Of Revelry Collection

Hey Everyone! Bentley here, It’s been a hot minute since my last newsletter. It’s been busy. A little chaotic, but not in a bad way. I finished my first year of college. That’s a whole newsletter in itself. My finals week was two weeks ago and it’s so weird but also so freeing to be done.

Three days after finishing college I flew to Australia with my family to see our close friends. It’s been a wonderful week full of new adventures and good times with friends. This time has been so good to unplug from school, from the magazine, and from daily life.

When life gets crazy I notice my email inbox starts to pile up and the to-do list gets longer by the hour. But recently I have been finding myself being ok with it. Some thing’s can wait until tomorrow. I see alot of people today try to disconnect without ever disconnecting really. I wonder to myself, why did you go on this trip to disconnect anyways? If you’re not intentional in this modern world about actually disconnecting you might as well be back in the office. It’s a conundrum many of us face. While the access to information is great, we have to balance it with time away. Time doing something or nothing for no reason at all.

Everyone wants to know everything NOW. Like a friend mentions a restaurant while chatting and the first thing you do is look it up. Or someone mentions a movie and doesn’t know the name of the actor and they need to find it right then. I have found myself lately enjoying not knowing. I don’t know everything and I am perfectly fine with it. I don’t need to, and frankly I don’t know want to know everything. It gets exhausting. The endless feeds, the constant emails, the blaring advertisements. I simply want something real.

Now I am not saying this as some forty-year-old who remembers the good old days before iPhones (to be clear I am not mocking forty year old’s, I think those were probably the good old days indeed). I grew up at the very beginning of the smartphone era. I have a vague sense of what life was like before them, growing up in the late 2000’s and 2010’s. But I worry for those who don’t have any sense of what it was like before instant gratification. They don’t remember CD’s and DVD’s and wired internet. This is the generation that had everything instantly given to them for the low low price of $19.99 a month.

AI has only furthered this revolution. Now you don’t even need to do research or talk to people. You can just ask ChatGPT.

Planning your next trip to Idaho. Don’t call your friend who lives in Idaho, just ask AI.

Making homemade pasta for the first time. Don’t walk over to your Italian friend and ask them for a recipe. Instead ask AI. Why would you want to make a genuine connection with your neighbor?

The world has been slowly and now very quickly becoming rid of its humanity.

While I have been in Australia I have been searching for those REAL and LOCAL places. I know those are two words that have been thrown around lately, but stay with me. The world has become so globalized which is great in some ways, but also when you travel now a lot of the souvenirs you collect can be bought everywhere and anywhere with two day shipping. That’s why when I came to Australia, I made it my goal to only get souvenirs from businesses that I can’t get in the USA. The local places. I can say I have been successful.

The other thing is finding real things. That doesn’t mean buying a ton of crap with “Australia” plastered all over it. But instead something that has soul, grit, a story. As an example, these have been my findings this trip and a little background behind each one.

Print Surf Magazines: Now as you may know from the fact that I run a print only magazine centered around adventure, I love magazines. When I came to Australia, the heaven of surfers, I knew I wanted to try and find local print-only Australia specific surf magazines. A very niche market indeed. I have gone to probably 30 surf shops and upwards of 10 book stores and I have found four titles that fit those parameters. A small but packed collection of surf mags. I am very pleased.

Canvas Jacket: I found this jacket at a small local 1 of 1 surf shop in the industrial zone of Byron Bay. It was an awesome find and an excellent addition to the wardrobe as well as a fun story.

Surf Biography Signed By The Surfer Himself: This I found at a surf shop called McTavish. I found out two things as I was buying this book, first that you can’t find this book outside Australia. Second, that it was signed that very morning by the 80 year old surfer who wrote the book right before he went out to surf the south swell. That was special.

Beach Boys Vinyl Records: I found these today at a local shop in Burleigh. I don’t have a record player yet, but want to start collecting records from my travels around the world. Music is better with a story. Prove me otherwise.

The experience of being intentional with each souvenir has been really cool. Much more enjoyable and ultimately leaves you with stories behind the mementos you bring back home. That brings me to my last statement which I will dive into more in a future newsletter, but will touch on lightly here.

Revelry Collection will NEVER make crap of any kind. We will only make products of quality.

I have been thinking about this for years and something just clicked this past week. I can’t bring myself to make anything crap ever. The world has way too much crap in it. Walk around any large box store, grocery store, or drug store. The world doesn’t need more crap. And I simply can’t contribute to it.

In everything Revelry does. It will be done with quality and integrity in mind. From our magazine to our apparel and wherever else this wild world takes our small company, it will be made with quality and to be passed down for generations. It’s very important to me and central to the core mission of the company. Quality goods that truly are quality.

Well there’s my Sunday Letter rambling for you, Australia edition. I hope you enjoyed hearing a little life and magazine update. We will be back on our normal Sunday Letter schedule starting next week.

For now, have an incredible Sunday and try to get outside if you can. Those trails aren’t going to hike themselves.

Cheers mate, Bentley Zylstra (Founder & Editor)

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- Volume 002 Is Shipping -

Fuel your summer adventures with the Revelry Collection print-magazine. It’s 140 pages of pure outdoor storytelling. Perfect for long days by the lake, sunsets on the porch, or for in between surf sessions.

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