Hello all! So I understand that the vast majority of us want the market to go back to reasonable prices. We don’t like the insane pump and dumps of 100% price or more in a lot of cases. We want to be able to buy ETBs at retail price. We want to be rid of the Whatnot shippers and the repackers to go away forever. Yet it seems like a lot of people have simply resigned themselves to waiting for this phase to magically end, as if we have no agency in the matter. What I’m asking is: who says we don’t?
The Plan: Lure scalpers and their ilk away from the Pokemon hobby by using E4’s community reach to hype up a totally unrelated collectible so that prices may drop once they lose their capital on useless pumped collectibles.
E4 has hundreds, if not thousands of users (I see you lurkers, and you are valid, and you are loved), many of which have significant sway in the hobby. I recently even saw a high executive of CGC grading company post on a thread. I am proposing that we all band together to hype up some worthless junk collectible to the MOON. Even if it only distracts the scalpers and crypto bros temporarily, in the meantime we will be able to secure the cards for our collections that we’d previously been priced out of. Maybe Vertemes will finally be able to afford his GS Rayquaza. Some of us have thousands of instagram followers. Some of us have clueless grandmas. Some of us have dogs. All of these are potential nodes to hype up our collectible to. We can set a chain reaction that, if all goes well, could maybe land us a few national news articles on CNN or InfoWars. With all the attention drawn away from Pokemon, we can finally walk into Target on a normal day and pickup a box of Ascended Heroes for our children.
“But Lemon, what collectible would we even hype up? One Piece has already gone to the moon, and that hasn’t affected the Pokemon market at all.” That’s because One Piece is a similar market, both being trading card games. The collectible we choose has to be in a totally different realm, that way the scalpers will have to spend their efforts trying to reach a totally different demographic than the people who buy Pokemon cards. This is why I’m proposing that we hype up this limited-edition 250th anniversary American soap.
Forget the 30th anniversary of Pokemon, after careful research I determined that 250 is more than 8 times 30. Less than 5% of Americans collect Pokemon cards, but nearly 100% of Americans are American. And since a majority of Pokemon TCG players don’t know how to work a shower, let alone apply soap, scalpers will have to look outside of the Pokemon community to make their gains, which is when we strike. And if you live outside of the US, don’t worry, keep an eye out in the supermarkets around your country’s independence day or national holidays for any similar collectibles that we can use to our advantage.
Things we can advertise in favor of the soap compared to Pokemon cards:
- Lasts a long time, even without slab protection (don’t have to deal with insane PSA grading fees or shipping times!)
- More socially acceptable to have in the house than pokemon cards if you’re in a cishet relationship with a female partner (although most scalpers will not fit into any relationship demographic)
- Smells really good (get compliments from your mom about how you’re really turning your life around!)
Folks, this is the answer. Let’s stop waiting around for the market to return to what it was, and take action into our own hands!