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The Bro Culture Behind GoonTape (and why it works) (ft. GoonTape)
Description
Adam, the founder of GoonTape, joins host John on GOA's State of the Second to explain how a heat-resistant athletic tape became a brand with a community behind it. The product started during COVID. Adam was doing enterprise software sales, commuting four hours a day, and hated it. He trained at the Executive Protection Institute, ran black-tie security gigs in New York City, then watched that work disappear when corporate events stopped. As an AK shooter, he wanted a cheap, disposable way to handle a barrel that gets hot fast. After some hillbilly testing across metals and cloth types, he landed on a cotton-poly blend, committed to a factory minimum, and ended up with 10,000 rolls of tape in his apartment and the sudden realization that he now had to sell them.
The name does double duty. A goon is an enforcer and a goon is a bad guy, and Adam saw goon culture in the Second Amendment space as a way to say he carries to defend his family, not to hunt deer. The marketing leans into what he calls advertainment, the kind of weird, artistic gun content people either love or hate. That approach pulls in people who tell him they have no interest in guns but liked the marketing. Adam talks through the surreal feeling of seeing GoonTape stickers and shirts in the wild, the handwritten notes the company still puts in every package, and the bro community that has formed around something as simple as tape. He also recaps GOALS in Knoxville, where smaller companies and big names like Smith and Wesson all felt approachable.
The back half is the soapbox. Adam's gripe is that the gun community needs to recruit people on the fence instead of preaching at them, reaching gamers, airsoft and paintball players, and people overseas who only know guns from mass-shooting coverage. He and John trade real situational-awareness stories, from a near home invasion to being followed on the Las Vegas Strip, and argue the police often arrive after the danger is over. They cover constitutional carry, the racist origins of gun control, Virginia's 2020 turnout in Richmond, and why a concealed-carry event might bring more people in than open-carrying rifles. Adam closes on the gun-store experience as many newcomers' first impression, praising welcoming ranges and calling out egotistical salespeople who run people off.
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Questions this episode answers
What is GoonTape and what is it actually made of?
GoonTape is a heat-resistant athletic cloth tape made from a cotton-poly blend, marketed toward firearms and combative sports as a cheap, disposable way to handle gear that gets hot, like an AK barrel. Adam describes it as soft tape for rough work that can be used for anything.
How did GoonTape get started, and what was Adam doing before it?
Adam started GoonTape during COVID after working in enterprise software sales and running black-tie security gigs in New York City that dried up when corporate events stopped. As an AK shooter, he tested metals and cloth types, landed on a cotton-poly blend, and committed to a factory minimum of 10,000 rolls.
Where did the name GoonTape come from?
Adam chose the name because a goon is both an enforcer and a bad guy, and he saw goon culture in the Second Amendment space as a way to say he carries to defend his family, not to hunt deer.
How does GoonTape use marketing to bring people who aren't into guns into the community?
GoonTape leans into what Adam calls advertainment, weird and artistic gun content that draws in viewers who tell him they have no interest in guns but liked the marke