Thanks For Watching

Airdrop Bikes just hit 50,000 followers on Instagram (@airdropbikes) which is a small milestone and it's something we should celebrate. But maybe not for the most obvious reason. Allow us to explain...

Many of us have a love/hate relationship with social media. We spend a lot of time on these platforms. Maybe too much time. And it's easy to get drawn into the negative side of things. Which is one of the biggest problems. Sometimes, it seems like an endless hellscape of AI generated slop, greed-driven consumerist garbage and narcissistic wannabes spouting inane drivel just to get a bit more clout.

Which it is, unfortunately.

That's the hate part of the relationship. From that point of view, maybe getting 50,000 followers isn't something to be proud of. Maybe we shouldn't even be talking about it. Have we sold out for clout? Are we just as bad as the corporations force-feeding us junk? Are we wrong to be chasing after more followers, as if it's a badge of honour or a currency in its own right? If so, 50,000 followers isn't that much anyway. Cristiano Ronaldo has 672 million followers and all he does is kick a bag of air around.

Wait a minute.

That's not it at all. What about the love part of the relationship? We've never actively tried to grow our following just for the sake of it. We don't particularly care if we have more or less followers than some other account. Everything we've done has been authentic. An honest attempt to tell our story as we try to build a bike brand from scratch. Sometimes we've posted good stuff. Occasionally we've posted great stuff. And sometimes we've made mistakes. But at least it's all been real. We've enjoyed sharing it with you, and hearing what you've got to say about it. 

That's the key. That's what's really worth celebrating. It's what 50,000 followers truly means... 50,000 real people with real interests out there in the real world. You've chosen to give us a little bit of your time and attention. And by doing that you've given us your support. You've kept Airdrop alive and you're giving us the confidence to keep doing what we're doing, even when it's hard.

It's incredibly humbling to think that the thing we started in Ed's garage ten years ago has managed to reach 50,000 people. We've sold nothing like that number of bikes - maybe 2,000 in total. Some of those have found new owners. But to think that so many people like the idea of Airdrop, just that in itself is a huge compliment.

So when we say "Thanks for watching", we really mean it. This isn't some auto-generated highlight reel for us to repost with #blessed. We're genuinely grateful to you and every single other one of those 50,000 people who are supporting Airdrop.

Thanks. It means a lot to us.