Rob Chapman Exposed?

I think the only people who can judge Rob’s guitars are his customers. if he is not selling guitars, then the judgement is given. As for the other behavioral aspects, only those who do business with him know his integrity.

In my view, from the sidelines and judging purely by conjecture, I find Rob to be disingenuous at the very least, smug and nonchalant. In the end, who cares right?

Indeed Rob seems to be back at Andertons. And for this reason, although I give Lee a lot of respect for sticking with he’s mate, I have decided to take my money somewhere else from now on.
I’m also fully aware that it wont matter to them one bit as I never was or never will be a big spender.

For me, there is always been something wrong on Rob. Something that raises hair on back of my neck wrong way after listening him speak for few minutes. Maybe he just reminds me about the bullies I encountered when I was growing up…
I’ve always thought he has a bit too high opinion of himself. Then again, dont we all sometimes.

In my opinion he is not a very good choise as a gear demonstrator. He may have a lot of knowledge but despite that and regardless of what gear he is demoing, he always ends up playing same riffs and sounding exactly same, himself, and at best, average.
Often after wathing some of he’s demos, I end up tthinking that the video was more about himself than the gear.

He’s music is not my thing so never really listened him that much.

He’s guitars I cant comment either. I dont own any and never will. Nothing agains them. Just not interested.

In many ways, Rob is exactly like he’s guitars. Nothing special, important or interesting. Bit of a cheap knock off.

When I watch the Chapman Truth video that was in response to the “Expose” and I take note of the comments on it, or when I see other YouTube videos in which people discuss how badly he handled it and how arrogant he is being, or demeaning he is during his video………I just don’t see that.
Instead, I see the exact opposite. I see a Man, a father, a businessman, a musician, addressing certain issues that were brought up in a YouTube video by some guy that, to me, appears to be a snotty nosed punk kid with no life, who needs to wash his hair, take his sunglasses off, and learn to spell the word challenge (It’s not spelled challange). A young man that brings Chapman’s wife into the picture without needing to. A person that, as far as I can tell, didn’t even attempt to contact Rob Chapman in person to interview or discuss any of these issues.

In this particular video above, what I see is A young man that appears to give away a Chapman Guitar to a young music student named Hanna(h) under the pretense of her being the recipient of a grant/donation/whatever from Rob Chapman, only for her to find out later that it was a gimmick so that he could publish his “Expose'” on Rob Chapman. So, he used this young girl to what…..make a point of…what exactly? He follows this with the statement of:

“There you go Rob, at least one kid thinks you’re responsible for giving them a guitar.”

Well…at least that may have been partially true. She might have thought that until his Expose of Rob Chapman came out and discovered that he used her. Was this legitimate on his part or was it staged? But really, why did he do that at all? From what I recall Rob Chapman did not challenge others to give away a guitar to charity, so…….?????

In regards to the video that Rob Chapman made I don’t really understand what all the fuss is over. If a retailer buys directly from the factory then of course there may very well be no QC between that factory and the retailer……duh!!! I don’t think that’s rocket science is it? Bad business strategy perhaps. So, if the retailer gets bad guitars…guess what? You’re pretty much stuck. But as a retailer you take the chance, and as is often the case some of those chance decisions are bad ones.
In regards to Chapman’s Truth video response, I just don’t see arrogance. He simply addresses a number of things that were brought up, and he addresses them quite well actually. I really have to wonder where it is that people see arrogance and I suspect that a great many people today are guilty of projecting their own inadequacies onto others, perhaps more so than in times past. I have to think that many of these people have subconscious problems with feelings of inadequacy, feeling unsuccessful, etc. This may not be the case at all, but when watching Rob Chapman’s video, to me he just doesn’t come across in the manner that so many people are describing.

According to Cambridge Dictionary the definition of arrogance is:
unpleasantly proud and behaving as if you are more important than, or know more than, other people. A key thing to note here is “unpleasantly” proud. To be proud is not being arrogant. To be proud of ones achievements is not being arrogant.

If a person has money, and they say they have money, that is not arrogance. It’s arrogant if they are constantly bragging about it, or if they think that because they have money they are above a certain population of people. But, mentioning that in a video response to another video is not a demonstration of arrogance. If a person talks about their giving to charity in a conversation, that is not arrogance. It can, however, be arrogance if and when they are constantly reminding others of that fact.

Now, I’m not saying that Rob Chapman is not arrogant. I’ve never personally met the man and he may very well be quite arrogant. However, he is not being arrogant in his video. If, to you, he seems to be arrogant in that video, you really need to take some time out and go look in the mirror and practice some deep introspection.

People today get their feelings hurt quite easily, and this seems to be particularly the case with those who rely on an online presence as a large part of their lives. To be clear….no I am not talking about Rob Chapman. I’m talking about the general population, both real time and online. I’ve encountered people in real time recently (meaning in person), particularly with the younger generations (I’m talking here about folks in their mid 20’ and early 30’s), in which simply being stern with them results in hurt feelings with them tearing up. To me this has been quite bewildering. This same type of sternness many years ago would have simply been understood for what it was, but today folks get their feelings hurt, they feel attacked, or they feel like you have been demeaning to them, or that you have been disrespectful, that they have been slighted, etc. This doesn’t apply to just the younger generation, but applies to a great many that peruse the wealth of online media both younger and older. I just don’t get it, and with all that being said, there will be those that get their feelings hurt by these typed words from someone (myself) who is a nobody (myself) that they will never know, see, or hear from again. But then, that’s my point. And for those that feel that Rob Chapman has been disrespectful, or that my words here are disrespectful, then you have completely and totally missed the point on what respect truly is and isn’t, just as it appears that a great many today do not know what the true sense of an arrogant person is.

As for this Kelan character and those like him, I would suggest that they leave the investigative reporting to the investigative reporters. I would also suggest that he in particular lead by example. Start a band and go on a world tour. Get a few songs on the charts. Start a guitar company and make your own brand of guitars. Come up with a fool proof business model with exceptional quality control that puts other name brand guitar and instrument manufacturers to shame. Demo a great deal of gear and form a web of international relationships both personal and business related. Build a recording studio and successfully record your band and other bands. Donate both publicly and privately to a number of charities. Get married and have a family, buy a house or two, and when you have successfully done all of that, then, and only then, come back and teach all of us how not to be lazy, how to stay awake during videos, how to dress properly, and how to relic or not relic a guitar, how to do things in a transparent manner, how to live our lives in a just manner so that there is no room for criticism, no room for questions, no room for speculation about ones character or personal life, etc.

But, I suspect that he is just like the rest of us. He’s too lazy to do all of that, or even a portion of that. I would suspect that it’s a lot of work, a great deal in fact. More than most of us have either the time or the drive for. It’s nice to dream the dream, but few have it within them to actually go for it. This guy is too lazy to even spell check his video that he puts on YouTube. Challange……what the he*l is a challange?

Oh….and how not to seem to mislead a young music student…..staged or otherwise. That’s just tacky.