WHO's BROKEBOI?

 BROKEBOI is a person like you and I. I would know because that's me, and this is my creation.

 BROKEBOI started as a conversation with different titles as I grew up in a small town with minimal opportunity. That's what I saw it to be. I didn't come from the slums. I didn't come from immense poverty. What I did come from was a life quick to change with a much greater understanding of how BROKEN everything can be. As a young kid, mental health was my first obstacle. From there, I could find myself. My mental health will never be a cry for help or a source of attention as much as it still affects me as a young adult. The truth is, my art comes from the trauma that I carry on my back and hardship from what I, as an individual, define it to be. I could give a list, but there's no room for comparison in a world of fingers pointed and stories suppressed. This brand is for everything I couldn't express before while putting my all into something much bigger than myself. I present to you BROKEBOI Apparel Co., the offspring of BROKEBOI Productions.

 Like I said, BROKEBOI started before I decided to leave my mom's crib. When I was a young kid, drawing was my only therapy. It worked hand in hand with what I found to be a creative taste in music, such as genres like underground metal, 2000's nu-metal, deathcore, metalcore, and of course we can't forget rap/hip hop. My influences rarely came from anything mainstream at all. Being different was and still is the idea, but it isn't the goal for the B/B that I rep so heavily. Life as a big dreamer, I would fantasize about having a mob of people sharing a cohesive energy that you could feel in your chest that could turn into a culture.

 After that, I devoted most, if not, all of myself to this brand representing what it means to STAY BROKE. Even if it meant that there was more work to finish as one of the millions trying to create something of nuance. Fast forward to the next five years of my journey, my struggle with my trauma has just kept filtering energy into a system that wasn't meant to be easy. The motivation to keep pushing for the relief I desire about myself has only ever been resolved with the creations, collaborations, and products presented to you through this entire brand.  

 To create something for everyone just like me. I began networking through my passion for capturing digital frames. Cinema and photography weren't something I grew up in or had any interest in learning in the past. This new passion started when I was on my own, attending college just to be awarded a piece of paper. Throughout college, I used each project to cultivate my ideas and make them a reality to study how this brand would look. My degree was in digital media, but I didn't learn shit from any professor because everything I did with these projects was self-taught and trial and error. When opposed to ideas from your mind, grabbing a pen, and putting it on a blank canvas; the experience was different in ways that didn't feel as free as just creating art. There was precision, loose ends, fear of not being good enough, lack of credit, lost friendships, continuous investment, learning more to provide more, sleepless nights, immense confusion, not being understood by whom you thought you'd be supported by, and the list goes on. Nothing stopped me from securing that feeling of relief when all gears were moving. They didn't have to moving at the same time, but being stagnant wasn't an option.

 After that, I dropped everything and anyone that was holding back. Soon after I started expanding my contact list shooting music videos for underground musicians, mainly in the hip-hop genre. Cities like Abilene, Dallas, and Austin, TX; I would shoot photos for free on my off days from my day job to travel to the same cities documenting live events, receiving contact info from the artists or bands, and sending them the photos I edited just to network.

 Obviously, at this moment in time, I wasn't financially solid, so I would sleep in my car while traveling if I didn't go back home the same night. When I did have an extra $60-$80, I'd be in some shitty ran down motel to stay one night and then head back to Abilene at like 6 AM to make it in time to get a change of clothes, freshen up, and head to throw freight. RINSE & REPEAT.

 The goal for BROKEBOI was to be a clothing line from the beginning. Once I picked up the camera and studied, I could provide quality content for my brand to help tell the story of what BROKEBOI truly is. I couldn't turn a blind eye to the endless possibilities for how flexible the brand could be in learning the other side of this craft. Truthfully, I had ups and downs within the first three years of grinding to make visuals more of a foundation for BROKEBOI. In reality, the clothing line just kept coming into the conversation. Now, as BROKEBOI grows, it can be more than a video. It can be an actual piece of clothing recognized for those who know and noticed by those who haven't discovered BROKEBOI...yet.