I have been noticing this throughout the last 3 months or so. What I refer to is collectors/sellers referring to themselves as “we” and calling themselves companies. Has been occurring across all social media and very noticeable on my joint least favourite Instagram.
Why do people do this and why is it currently the “hot” thing to do? I would assume to add some legitimacy to their storefront. Or are they attempting to lie to themselves and pretend like the hobby is in fact a way of life.
I only thought it was a personal observation until @smpratte brought it up in a recent video. Very interested to hear Efour’s thoughts on it.
art dealers do the same thing. i guess its similar. the dealers name is The company name but there are usually more than one person doing the sales and dealing. its pretty pretentious with pokemon cwrds though. but harmless.
It’s Funny, I actually never noticed (or maybe just never paid attention) to that until I saw Scott’s Video - forget which video he mentioned that. Since that video, I have been noticing that whole “we” or “business” mentality EVERYWHERE! And, it drives me NUTS!!! LOL
Like, there’s no “we” when you have an eBay Account with a couple hundred feedback and 50 Listings - stop pretending you’re this high-and-mighty Fortune 500 Company! Haha Better Yet, there’s definitely no “we” when you’re entire “business” is through Social Media (Selling on IG, FB…).
I really don’t understand why that’s the “new trend”. My only explanation would be for appearances - sellers wanting to appear as if they have this huge business / collection when in actuality they don’t have shit. You’ll never hear the ACTUAL small-businesses refer to themselves as “we” - looking at Scott and Rusty. They’re both doing Pokémon as a full-time job and yet they’re both alone - neither have an office building with hundreds of employees sorting-through Pokemon Cards! LOL
If you’re doing a lot of business then registering as a company makes a lot of sense both financially and in terms of liability (especially liability). However I’m sure the vast majority of CharizardBaller69s on instagram and facebook are not legally incorporated simply because they don’t have the $500-1000 it takes to pay a real lawyer to do the actual documents.
As @oldskoolpokemon put it, this is just another instance of the lack of maturity in the hobby. Everyone is trying to appear as if they’re a big boy with lots of real business to do, when in reality you’re just flipping cards here and there. I actually think it’ll be a detriment to these people when they don’t associate themselves with their hobby. If they actually do something unique and relevant or get good at the Pokemon game, putting your name to it can greatly aid your exposure. You don’t contact TrollAndToad or Dave & Adam’s Card World when you want a Illustrator, you call Scott. People like Gary and Rusty and even others here on E4 have made names for themselves through their own businesses, and I highly doubt they would be where they are now if they hid behind the ambiguous ‘we.’
It can be a subtle way of deflecting responsibility especially when dealing with customer service type interactions. Or to imbue a certain reliquary for pertained written codifications or in other words come off more important than you really are like the first part of this sentence
Also as a side note if your company is called something with a connotation to an individual like Mrs Potato’s Card Emporium or even any eBay type store setup for that matter 99.9999% of people register that as a single person. You can only pull off a ‘we’ in the most minimal of circumstances it is usually public posts IF you are a large established company not a rinky dink flip boss using it in eBay or Insta messages to buyers.
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Personally, I strictly use formal language when selling video games or pokemon cards. In German it goes even further, there is an informal “you” which is “du” (used between friends, family and such) and there is a more formal “you” which is “Sie” (used in businesses, etc.). I just love to keep every transaction solely related to the trade, customers can become very obtrusive once you respond them in an informal way. Just think of some guys who start bombarding you with questions about your collection once you sold them a 50$ card.
So in a way, I use the formal language whenever I trade on behalf of my business and want to keep it business related.
Actual businesses with actual employees don’t regularly respond with “we”. It is such an Instagram flipper idea of what “real businesses do”. When you speak with a customer service rep on eBay, they say, “hi this is ____ how can I help”. Even when they speak about eBay they just say the companies name. I guess it’s more legitimate to say “we” instead of, “charizardballer69 has a strict 69 day return policy”.
The whole “we” thing reminds me of pyramid scheme’s or cults. They tend to overstate possessive terms like “we” or “business”; “can’t talk right now we are headed to the business”, “we have a meeting at the business”, “we are going to do the business with the business”.
Basically it’s extra and trying to over legitimize something that is typically just a guy and his gf flipping cards.
I couldn’t ever bring myself to refer to MY collection as OUR collection, even if I did have co-investors or something of the sort. I’m too personally attached and proud of my collection to ever credit someone else for owning part of it haha.
In our my opinion, it’s herd mentality; People are influenced by their peers and adopt the behavior as well.
Remember last year, when a lot of people in the hobby were full-fledged investors all of a sudden? Exactly the same thing (and probably the same people).
It’s kind of endearing in a way. No harm no foul, I guess.
If you don’t use “We” you aren’t a legitimate business!
Joking aside I have used Instagram to sell in the past and I would hardly consider myself another “charizardballer69” …I can certainly afford to incorporate. Then again, we don’t fancy ourselves a business.
