Like many people, before I knew much about watches, I thought Rolex was the king of watches. Now, getting to know a bit more... Rolex may make good watches but they have an even better marketing department and quite possibly the most insufferable fans. It has completely turned me off of owning one ever. This Timex collab is a tongue in cheek way of poking fun at watches, watch nicknames, and how serious we get about watches.
I see what you're saying - and I can see some similarities for sure. For this collab, there are differences IMO; this thing didn't cost $20,000, Timex doesn't follow that playbook for their normal watches, and ain't no one feeling exclusive rocking a Timex. Take, for example, the Timex collab with Peanuts, a long standing collab. It's also limited pieces, but prices are reasonable, they don't hype it up, it's just on their website, and it doesn't get promoted any more than their other watches. I can get behind that for sure. Plus, all anyone needs to do is compare r/timex and r/rolex and the differences are pretty stark.
Now, if this thing cost 50x more money, or I had to jump through some sort of weird hoop to get it, then it would be the same. But plain ol' me went on my computer and ordered one, I am lucky to have enough in my savings to afford it, and it arrived in a cardboard box, that's pretty grounded by my books. Maybe I lucked out on getting one, I had no idea if these sold out quick or not.