Hi! I’m Nate. I just got hired by Shinesty to help write these marketing emails. I’m excited but a little nervous. This is my very first one! I think it’s going ok so far. Aw, crap I already forgot to mention the product. Hang on, lemme find a pic... [CTA: “You’re so good at this I’m already sold!”]

Seriously? Plain white boxer briefs? Of all the thousands of crazy prints we sell, they assigned me plain white boxer briefs. Maybe it’s some sort of test. Ok here goes nothing. This pair really takes me back. I grew up wearing white briefs, or “tighty whities” as the bullies later told me they were called. Back then my mom bought my underwear and I just kind of assumed everyone wore white briefs. (To clarify, my mom no longer buys my underwear. I’m a full grown man. My wife buys it.) (Graphic Design: Cartoony, simple illustration of a mom laying a pair of tighty whities on the bed in front of a little boy) Fast forward to high school and suddenly having to change in front of dozens of people in the boys locker room. Everyone had on boxer shorts. And everyone saw that I didn’t.

(Graphic Design: Illustration of the boy as a teen in tighty whities surrounded by other teenage boys in boxers pointing and laughing at him) Fortunately, I knew that the things that make me different are what makes me special and I used that self confidence to grow an even stronger sense of who I am. Just kidding. I was a teenager and desperately wanted to fit in. I needed to get boxer shorts by any means possible. (Graphic Design: Illustration of the boy buying boxer shorts from a man in a dark alley selling them from his open trench coat)

Unfortunately, some problems popped up right away: My mom still bought my underwear and I didn’t have a driver's license to go buy some on my own. (This was back before things kids take for granted these days, like the internet and blue M&M’s.) [CTA: “This is getting too personal & I just want to buy underwear”] Obviously I couldn’t ask my mom to buy me a pair of boxers because then I’d be a teenage boy talking to my mom about underwear and that was a non-starter. And then it happened. The miracle I’d been praying for. On a family outing to the mall, I came across the 1999 video game “Aliens versus Predator.”

Pic of Aliens Vs predator game with sticker for free underwear.

A free pair of underwear! All I had to do was spend $60 on a game I didn’t want! Then after waiting a mere 6-8 weeks for shipping, (again, kids have it so easy these days) the boxer shorts I selected arrived in the mail. I couldn’t wait to put them on. Then after about 10 seconds, I couldn’t wait to take them off. They offered no support, bunched up when I tried to put on my pants, and since I have wide hips and a higher than average waist, they immediately began riding up my waist, stopping only when the inseam pushed my balls aside and wedged itself against my taint. (Graphic Design: Illustration of an uncomfortable boy with a huge boxers wedgie with the waistband up to his nipples)

There was no way I could wear these for an extended amount of time. But there was also no way I could continue taking the harassment from the other boys in the locker room. So I came up with an ingenious solution: I wore my boxer shorts over my tighty whities. Again, some problems came up: 1) My junk was now triple insulated and sweaty as hell. And that’s in addition to the natural puberty sweats. 2) I only had the one pair of boxers, which eventually became an issue when people noticed I wore the same pair every day, and also because of the first problem I mentioned. It was gonna be a long year. For all of us. (Graphic Design: Illustration of the boy fully clothed but with a clear boxers-shaped bulge under his pants and stink lines, but still looking proud, while another boy holds his nose from the odor)

And here’s the crazy part. Just a few mere months after I started wearing boxers over my briefs, the fashion industry came out with boxer briefs. Coincidence??? I hope so. Otherwise I’d have a lot of questions about what fashion designers were doing lurking around my high school locker room. All of this is a long way of saying that if you want to buy these new white boxer briefs, that’s great. They’re made of a MicroModal fabric that’s 3x softer than cotton. They’ve got Shinesty’s supportive Ball Hammock®. And the price is decent. [CTA: “I love all the features you eventually mentioned!”]

But I still have so much deep-seated boxer & brief related emotional trauma from my teenage years that this pair is gonna be a pass for me. Probably not the best way to try and sell a product, but even if they fire me after writing one email I’m pretty sure I’ll get to keep my health insurance until the end of the month. Anyway, if you wouldn’t mind forwarding this email to my therapist I think they’d be proud of the progress I’ve made today. Do you have a traumatic, embarrassing story about wearing tighty whities? I’d love to hear it and commiserate. (Graphic Design: Illustration of the boy, now a man, in a support group setting with a circle of seated men all wearing tighty whities) [CTA: “Best email of all time. I’ll take 1,000 pairs!”]

Are you ready for the big twist ending? The boy I’ve been talking about this whole time? It was me.

Stay Weird & Happy Labor Day

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This extremely tasteful, hand-crafted, organic, non-gmo, vegan, gluten-free email was designed by Dain and written by Nate. Walter White would be proud.

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