7th Anniversary of Gentologie: Toward an Affirmed Positive Masculinity

Seven years ago today, RDPMAG became Gentologie, and with this new platform, even though a few articles from the old site still linger, I decided to take a new direction: making every man a gentleman. I’ll admit I wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting into, wanting to talk about men’s style while speaking to an audience that had, and still has, very few platforms of its own. I believe more than ever today that this mission, to guide men toward a discourse of positive masculinity and equality, matters, as far-right rhetoric continues to endanger different communities and democracy itself. So, let’s look back on these seven years.

The Origins: Wanting to Change Men

If you follow me and know my story, you know Gentologie has a long history. It began as a food and drink project called Recettes de Pub back in the 2010s, before becoming a lifestyle website called RDPMAG (the previous name, shortened), and finally evolving into the platform for gentlemen that Gentologie is today. If you’re wondering why I wanted to create a site aimed mainly at men, it wasn’t because one was missing: it was to become another voice, one of elegance, good taste, good manners, equality, and caring for others, without compromise, far from the generic “lifestyle” sites that follow trends instead of setting them. As we like to say: style before trends, always.

These origins were built on a digital magazine, but let’s be honest, it was, and still is, hard to stand out with a digital magazine when you want your audience to step away from screens.

The pandemic hit us hard just as we were beginning to grow, wiping out a good part of our revenue, but it also gave us time to reflect, and that’s what led us to move toward a print magazine.

I had never done anything like this before. Fortunately, I had help from my cousin Anne-Renée, who worked on Université Laval’s magazine, and from Geneviève Vézina-Montplaisir of Caribou, who was a huge help with the structure and how it all came together.

The Print Chapter: A Step That Nearly Sank Us

So, in 2021, together with a few collaborators, including Marc Bouchard, I launched Gentologie’s first print magazine, featuring Daniel Craig as British secret agent James Bond, timed with the release of “No Time to Die.” Thank you to Chris Hollinrake and OMEGA for that permission, and for the exclusive article on the connection between Daniel Craig and the Swiss watchmaker behind the Seamaster Diver 300M Edition 007.

I’ll admit I was a bit naive about how successful the magazine would be; after 5 issues, it didn’t take off the way I had hoped. We printed around 1,000 copies, but without newsstand distribution, which significantly limited our reach. I’m certainly partly to blame, not having built up a subscriber base or proper sales channels. As a solo entrepreneur, you’re doing everything at once, and you can lose sight of the real objective: growth and generating revenue. That’s what pushed me, without the funds to keep the print venture going, to put that side of things on hold. That said, a comeback isn’t off the table if our subscribers and advertisers grow significantly, which isn’t the case right now.

It was good for recognition, but it nearly pushed us toward bankruptcy, and we’re still paying the price today: some debts from that venture remain.

The Redesign: Toward a World in Colour

To close out 2025, Gentologie adopted new colours and a new website, moving from black and white to Green and Cream, while also launching a subscription system for Le Club by Gentologie, built entirely in-house with four tiers (Sphene, Jade, Emerald, and Grandidierite). The rollout of the members’ newsletter “Prasino” has begun, though it isn’t quite finished yet; I’m still working out how to best align it with our content. A major shift in our internal newsletters is also underway and will roll out over the coming weeks.

The Gentologie Radio podcast has become “En première classe,” and its English counterpart, formerly Gentologie on Air, is now “The Finest Class,” which is still finding its footing. A new French-language podcast is also taking shape over the coming weeks.

An Evolution Toward Taking a Stand

Of course, it would have been easy to keep Gentologie surface-level, but that would have been the easy way out, and we’re more than that: we’re not just a trend, we’re here to stay, and here to stir things up. To do that, we need to keep evolving, showing the maturity that comes with 7 years by taking positions on different issues, as we did with the film François.e, for example, or many others, like the idea that being a gentleman is about far more than good manners.

And this is only the beginning: you know as well as I do that our society is sorely lacking in perspectives that champion a positive, inclusive masculinity for everyone, and Gentologie needs to stand out on this front. You’ll see more of us, and more of me, showing up on these issues over the coming year.

Looking Forward Without Forgetting the Past

Yes, Gentologie is 7 years old, but a lot has happened, and even bigger things are still to come. This growing presence on the issues that matter needs a bigger platform behind it. My goal is to grow this media outlet, not just in reach and readership (thank you for reading us), but in headcount too (I’m currently the sole employee, with a few freelancers), and not just here in the Québec province, but across Canada and beyond. The opening of a larger market with the European Union gives us that opportunity, and we’re confident it can only be a positive thing, given how many readers we already have across the pond.

We want this growth for one reason only: to make this message, that every man can become a gentleman, resonate even further, in a world that needs it now more than ever.

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