The most important thing I want to say this week is a massive thank you to to everyone who has written notes of support and kindness on our social posts in the last few weeks.

It's so mind-blowing (and disheartening) to see the Anger Algorithm in full effect.

Even with 100K+ followers on Instagram, our posts normally get seen by ~100 people or less. A handful of likes, maybe an emoji comment or two. Our best content, our biggest product launches, it really doesn't seem to matter.

But, share something even remotely controversial today, and there's a good chance the algorithm will send every rage-baiting troll, bot, and otherwise to comment on it.

We had so many "I'll never buy from you again" and "I'm unfollowing you" comments.

To anyone reading the comments, you'd think we lost a lot of loyal customers. Just by telling people to be kind, no less.

But the thing is: They weren't customers. They weren't following us. They're mostly just trolls. And bots. Both.

You don't buy products from a brand that prints "Feel Good. Do Good. Pass It On." on every product, runs a Pay What You Can program, and is on a 20+ year mission to spread happiness - and then wake up one day to one of our social media posts and say "Wait, Trek Light doesn't hate all the people I hate? I'm out."

The only good thing about an algorithm designed to breed anger and argument, is that it also got our posts in front of a lot of good people too. Our community of customers and friends showed up, along with a lot of new people who likely had never heard of us before, but saw an opportunity to say thanks to a brand for having a moral compass and speaking up.

A few people also wrote to share that we really weeded out our "bad" customers with our posts.

But, here's the thing, my goal is never to weed out, but to inspire.

I don't want to push anyone away by sharing about kindness or empathy towards EVERYONE, I want to bring more people in.

When you use your voice to stand up to bullies, it inspires others who may have stayed quiet. And when enough people use their voice, even the bullies start to wonder if they're on the right side.

I don't want a community of customers who all share the same politics, and I don't want to create a brand that's an echo chamber.

Unless that echo is Love. Decency. Equality. Empathy.

I said it before, and I'll say it again - it's not politics, it's humanity.

And in that, I hope we're all on the same side.

- Seth