Growing up, every Christmas we were the only family actually celebrating. Cuz, ya know, Jewish neighborhood. My mom would invite over anyone who didn't have a place to go. I'm talking ALL the neighbors, the gay son whose parents disowned him and the new-in-town couple who she ran into at Starbucks. And these Christmas parties, they were ragers. 10/10 bangers. They built community and bonds that made absolutely no sense – but lasted a lifetime. And I didn't realize how much my moms Christmas parties influenced me until recently.
Fast forward to about a year and a half ago when I left Beats to work with PopSockets and well, it was definitely an unexpected pairing. I think my friends thought I was going through something - and my stepmom assumed I would get to meet the Kardashians (or at least a low-tier Bravo TV star). But it made perfect sense to me once I got to know the brand. While I've been here, I keep finding magic in these unexpected pairings.
For our new luxury line of Popsockets called Dimensionals, we built a campaign around a 17-year-old kid from Minnesota whose never modeled before. His name is Glaive, and that campaign just got featured in Rolling Stone.
Most people don’t know this but PopSockets is a vegan company. Sustainability is at the core of the brand. A company whose main product is plastic trying to help end climate change? That one kind of broke my brain at first, but in a good way. It was unexpected but made a big statement about who the brand is deep down.
Which is why OGBFF was the perfect fit for a collab for the brand’s new PlantCore grips. OGBFF is everything PopSockets isn't. They're bold and brash, unpolished and unapologetic. You don't get opinions more unfiltered and razor-sharp. And this collab is a statement for the brand that starts to show people who we really are. How we’re more alike than you might think.
And that's when I realized that this all started way back at those Christmas parties. Looking at this random assortment of New Yorkers, who I now call some of my best friends, it never should have worked. But it did. Like french fries and milkshakes.
The best friendships are often unexpected. They’re not built on aesthetics and they're certainly not skin-deep. They’re deeper than that. They're built on values – a shared DNA that manifests in wildly unique ways.
