New Gen Camp = Misogyny Training for High Schoolers

I have a feeling we’re going to hear a bunch of sexual assault allegations from these camps years down the road.

Those guys just seem like the type who love finally getting to be the cool guys around 17 year old girls even though they’re 25.

Emma Gee needs to lighten up. looks like a bunch of staged photos, everyone just goofing around having fun. nobody bullying anyone.

Yeah, I'm on Emma's side on this one. It's not like she tore into the kids; she called the shoot "disappointing." They could have just replied to her reasonably explaining how they intended the photos to go over or what they meant to communicate with the shoot. Instead, they thought her concern was funny and started attacking her personally. I understand that 17/18 year olds are still learning and their brains are still developing, but they're not so young that we shouldn't expect some degree of maturity out of them. If anything, this would at least be a good opportunity for Ben & crew to teach the teens how to deal with PR issues professionally, but as of now it doesn't look like they're taking advantage of the opportunity.

The worst part of it, to me, is that Ryder Lee seems to be the person behind the burner account that was leaving the worst comments. He's the creator who did the promotional photography for Coffee Club's new merch. I like Coffee Club, but I'm really not interested in supporting any brands or athletes who partner with Ryder in the future. 17 is old enough to understand that ugly, personal attacks of the type he was posting are not okay.

Even before this New Gen has been pretty cringey. Hopefully the top kids the next few years start to avoid these guys.

I just don't understand why you would post those photos on an instagram account in this day and age.

If I were the guy in that photo I would not want a picture of myself shoving a girl in a locker, even if it was staged for a photoshoot. Obviously someone is going to take offense with it. Why associate?

And yeah New Gen is kinda creepy. It's not like there's anything overtly wrong that they're doing but it seems like grooming. I would not want to spend a week with some internet stranger at a summer camp way far away with my family if I was 17/18 years old.

Yeah. I'm sincerely wondering what message they were trying to convey with this shoot. What new insights am I gaining into the personality and perspective of Jackson H. or other athletes featured in the photos? What am I meant to learn about the next generation of young runners? I think there could be lots of ways to do a photo shoot involving lockers, school bathrooms, school crushes, etc. They could focus on locker decor of top runners, girls meeting up to share secrets in the bathroom, star athletes like Jackson being treated as school "golden boys"- tropes like that. In the comments the New Gen kids were trying to talk about the "creative message" or whatever of the shoot, but honestly, they probably needed to refine that message.

In theory, I think the New Gen camp could be a cool concept. The "counselors" and New Gen founders are mostly young professionals doing creative work in the running industry. Bringing them together with teens who want to follow the same path could be a great opportunity to share knowledge and build mentorship networks. However, it's not clear from what they share that the adults in charge are mindful of keeping necessary guardrails in place when running programming for teens. I'm also not sure how much of the camp is about learning craft, and how much is about ginning up New Gen clout amongst the high school crowd. Are the counselors teaching the campers about pitching, setting rates, communicating with clients, and building their personal brand? Are they learning about the best platforms for making and sharing deliverables, storyboarding, layout variations, consistent branding across mediums/platforms, and multimedia projects? Or is it mostly just highly stylized photoshoots and instagram reels featuring some of the most popular teen runners, which therefore garner likes and influence amongst the average high school runner? I sincerely wish I could hear from someone who's attended the camp about what they actually learn and what sort of safety guidelines are in place between the kids and adults. I think it would help me understand how to feel about it the whole situation and about New Gen as a brand.

just saw the pics from Emma gee’s story and I have to agree with her 100%…I’m dumbfounded at the inappropriateness and the comments

every critical post in here is valid

Jennings and littlefield…who even are these girls? They ran in high school?
Seems like the more talented girls stayed out of these photos and these two signed right up for the attention?

I’d be livid if they were my kids

Kennedy’s kid was at this camp?!

Did the photographers want to take pics of her head being shoved in a toilet?

I’m not sure what Ben Crawford is doing to change the sport. I liked it when they post running content on Youtube.But now it seems like their priority now is to sell magazines that no one buys and host after Nats parties that get new gen kids wasted.

I thought the idea of a camp crush type thing was really good and I thought the other pics were pretty interesting, but why are we shoving someone's head in the locker very weird, but whatever it's photo. Oh wait they shoved someone in a toilet too seems weird. Ok fine.

But when you make a public post and someone disagrees with it you can't get mad. And the parents and friends of the people insulting someone for criticizing art, which is meant to be thought provoking is frankly disgusting and unintelligent even by 6th grade standards.

Idk…it’s not a good look I know that. Seems like this guy def doesn’t recognize the age divide here?

It’s kinda scary actually…the dynamic involved

On running sponsors this? If I were them I’d be mortified having my brand attached to this.

Agree. And I also the irony of runners as being in photoshoots as the “cool kids” kinda makes me laugh. Kinda makes me wonder what these kids are like in school actually

Oof, the imagery in those photos is…not great.

It looks like new gen deleted the photos off insta? Maybe things seem to be resolved?

I'm curious on what ben has to say.

New Gen deleted the post from their own account, after repeatedly deleting critical comments for much of the day. The photos are still up on Ryder's account. I haven't seen anyone from the New Gen camp say anything like "Sorry for being puerile jerks to you, Emma" or "We don't condone mistreating women; the creative concept behind this shoot was xyz, but I guess it didn't land with everyone." It's possible they've sent apologies privately, though.

Hopefully they handled it privately. I don’t think they needed to bring any more attention to it honestly.