Snap a photo in 2012.
The London Olympics are on the telly, Barack Obama is the President of the United States of America, and a Korean rapper called PSY is about to take the world by storm with a little tune called Gangnam Style. It’s a strange time. A different time, almost lost to the vastness of history. Can you even imagine what it was like back then? Tough Guy Book Club was only a vague idea, a couple of friends in the suburbs of Melbourne getting sick of talking about work all the time, and deciding to talk about a book instead.
Now snap another photo in September 2026.
Things are much different now. Not sure where that Obama guy or the Korean rapper ended up (we wish them both well) but Tough Guy Book Club is absolutely unrecognisable. We’re an international organisation with thousands of members. We appear in newspapers and on television, and we singlehandedly bend the algorithm to our will when we choose a book to read. Don’t believe us? Try something from our back catalogue and then check your recommendations.
As we’ve grown, we’ve brought in new traditions. These days we do challenges – monthly activities designed to get goons out of their comfort zone and give them a cool story to tell. Usually our challenges involve social activity, caring for your health, or getting involved in the community. This month it was something brand new. You had to dig up a historic photo, go to the exact spot it was taken and recreate it. Then share the photos together and tell us something about them.
Hence the hashtag #snap26.
If you’ve seen our website you know we have a bit of an obsession with monochrome photography. Hey, sue us. Black and white looks cool and boys like history. It’s cool to see that whole generations of men came before us, struggled in their own ways, got out there anyway and found strength in friendship and adventure. So, you won’t be surprised to learn that this challenge was a huge hit.
Train stations and power stations, dams and customs houses. Post offices, toy factories, warehouses, train tracks and tunnels, hospitals and boats and airstrips. We’ve seen enough old photos in the last month to make your local historical society piss themselves. Special shoutout to the goons who went the extra mile and posed in their photos, in groups and even in period costume. Now we know the story of accused murderer Arthur Gerald Huet leaving the Supreme Court Building in Rockhampton QLD in May 1949 (he pled not guilty by reason of self-defence – it’s a wild story, seriously, Google it).
Because this is how history works, right? Some things change and others stay the same. Just look at those two snaps of Tough Guy Book Club we took at the start.
TGBC might be Kind Of A Big Deal now, but we stand on the same foundation upon which we were built 14 years ago. The bones are the same. Even with almost 200 chapters worldwide, we’re still just a bunch of guys who wanted to have more friends and a better conversation in the pub. Time moves on, landscapes shift, buildings get sold or rebuilt or fall down or catch fire. But everything leaves traces, and those who are interested can still find them. When you read a lot like we do, you really get a taste for it.
We had such a good response to this challenge, let’s do it again some time! Until then, see you first Wednesday of next month.
By Sam Barclay
