The Content Creator Megathread

[sergio]

@null_user

I don’t really like all the hate Carribou is getting. She made some good points and had a well made video. Put the salt shakers away and deal with it.

I think she made some great points.

But the hiprocacy is so clear. She doesn’t include herself in the “bad eggs”. I went through some of her older videos where she literally does the same thing she points out in the video. They’re some of her most viewed videos. If she really felt this way, why doesnt she take them down? Those type of videos substantially grew her channel and bank account.

It’s like the Social Dilemma movie where all these big tech bros were speaking out against the tech that they once helped create (after they made their billions). They knew exactly what they were building.

It’s great that she’s giving a voice to a lot of frustrated people in the hobby, but I don’t agree with her pointing all 10 fingers at everyone but herself.

[mightymax]

@fresco

@null_user

I don’t really like all the hate Carribou is getting. She made some good points and had a well made video. Put the salt shakers away and deal with it.

Worry not, is only like a couple of ppl within this forum, outside here you will hardly find people thinking that way.

lol bro you act like you speak for everyone in pokemon

[chrispy]

@fresco

Worry not, is only like a couple of ppl within this forum, outside here you will hardly find people thinking that way.

If you say shit like “worry not” you’re likely speaking for very few people.

[jacobm9]

@chrispy

Lets compare two things for the record and why I think one sounds entitled and salty, and the other sounds helpful and informative.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fbDy-8CGWg

First we have a video titled “adapt or die” in which someone who has been collecting long-term across multiple hobbies encourages newer collectors how to navigate pricepoints and still find great stuff to fill out their collections.

Next we have the following:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JcplM4ZUFI

Here is a direct quote from @jacobm9 :

"There are so many shareholders in the pokemon franchise and we all have our desires and needs and relationship to pokemon… and so I think trying to frame this conversation in a way that 'how do we do our best to be aware of like… other people’s needs…within the pokemon community and do our best not to step on certain people…You come from this perspective and have an audience of a player while I have an audience where I care a lot about the collectors … I care a lot about the new collectors coming into the hobby. I don’t want them to get scammed. I don’t want them to get manipulated into making risky purchases on credit, all these types of things. Everyone has their sort of passion and things they really care about and understanding where people are coming from and being empathetic with that I think is very important.

I think that some content creators are coming from a place of I want to make people happy and I want to make only positive content and then it becomes this interesting situation of what is positive and is that always helpful and what if people are feeling pretty all negative, is there like a toxic positivity? And I think what can happen here, and my feeling, is that it can be a bit tone-deaf when a bunch of millionaires who have all the cards and all the money and all the connections … you know and this is what I really agreed with…are lecturing people on moving on and growing up or taking a break Adapt or Die. It’s just really GROSS. I think there is a decent argument to be made that there is truth in that and there is truth in that people DO need to adapt… OF COURSE, we ALL need to adapt… But it’s WHO’S SAYING IT and the WAY they’re saying it what offends me on that gut level and I think your video is a great starting point on a conversation around this.:

How do you process this as a collector? If you’ve had to deal with the trials of these situations for decades and learned how to navigate raw emotions and face harsh realities constructively… you should shut up? Let the people who don’t know wtf is going on or how to cope just cry and point fingers? Gatekeep who gets to have a voice? Be offended by those who have managed to put collections together in multiple hobbies and came out with some degree of success? They have “all the cards and all the money” now so they are devoid of empathy and simply rubbing it in our faces?

Nah, this is coddling to crybabies and coming off as a bit of a crybaby yourself. I can’t subscribe to this pattern of reasoning. I fully understand wanting to empathize with others. But gatekeeping who and how people do this is absurd. ABSURD. And here we have a 2 hour video filled with this kind of rhetoric and justifying what was said in the previous video while in some cases doubling down on it.

[/quote]

First of all keep this in mind that I am doing a live stream in front of 1500 people and I am getting constantly yelled at and criticized by tons of people who think I am being too harsh or too soft etc. in the chat and I am talking about a complicated issue without notes about a lot of important people in the hobby who have tons of fans who will gouge my eyes out if I say anything negative about them or say something not negative enough about someone they irrationally hate. Second I am a flawed human being who is going to misspeak and or not say things as well or as balanced as I should and in the effort of trying to connect or find common ground I may be unfair to someone like Scott or another creator in the process. I also was invited on her channel and I am going to try even harder to be as respectful as possible and look for common ground when I am in someone else’s space. Third I defended all of these content creators and talked for 2 and a half hours and you pulled one quote that you disagreed with and decided to characterize my whole argument and the whole video and discussion around the one point in this misleading post.

However to this specific point I made in the video, I bet if Scott and I sat down we would agree on probably 90 plus percent of things about this hobby, which is probably higher than most people. Although my comment wasn’t meant to only be directed at Scott or even primarily at Scott as I have seen many people making content like this now( although I understand given his latest video that it seemed like I was only talking about him, particularly from those who only or primarily watch his content) I don’t think people with all the cards and all the connections and although not at Scott’s level I include myself in that boat, should be telling people to adapt or die, It is too extreme and unnecessarily inflammatory to people who view this hobby in a very different way. Pokemon has nothing to do with life and death and even using those words even as a joke or a meme is going to be taken out of context and used by other people to do harm.

Scott’s message is likely mostly correct and if heard the right way could certainly help some people but for many it is clearly falling on deaf ears. The problem isn’t even so much that Scott says it, it’s that when he says something like that I then see a hundred people who go on other channels and call people crybabies and just increase all the nonsense. These are human beings who are going through a pandemic, why are people being such jerks to each other honestly the toxicity is freaking tiring. I went on her channel to preach patience, understanding and empathy knowing that I would get a ton of hate for appearing on her channel and sharing my world view, and that likely nothing good would come out of it, but I wanted to try. Everyone seems to be the victim of everyone else constantly.

To put it bluntly if Scott came out to his audience and said be nice to everyone and be patient with everyone, as corny as that sounds I think it would do a lot of good right now to sooth the tensions in the hobby.

In summary, do I think people are in many cases being extremely irrational and taking their hate out on people who don’t deserve it 100 percent, do I agree with Scott’s feelings on a lot of these people 100 percent, do I think Scott has given away tons of free useful info in this video and others for many years that have helped people including myself yes 100, do I think his tone is always productive no.

[ripguyfawkes]

So first of all, thanks for condensing everything youtuber/celebrity-related in one thread.

Secondly, I see some issues with the 2 main arguments that were posted on the last few pages.

1. "It’s not true that there are no options to buy Pokemon stuff, you just have to look closer."
While this is technically true (just go on ebay and buy either singles or sealed modern product for ~1.5x the retail price), it disregards the feasibility for the masses. Not us on efour, not even collectors as a whole. I mean the young casuals and their parents. The huge amount of parents who just walk into a store, see the empty shelf and go home again, or just buy another toy in the store to calm their child. Of course they should just go on ebay to buy stuff, but many people just can’t be bothered. And I do think that these people - ignorant as they are - make up a big part of the overall buyer pool, so empty shelves are a problem. Furthermore, I can also fully understand that many parents will think twice about buying a $80 etb that they checked the price for and it was supposed to be $50. I know many of us are desensitized to numbers like that, but $30 mean A LOT to many households (if you think otherwise, speak to someone belonging to the 70% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck). And because of inflated prices and empty shelves, many young children won’t get in touch with the Pokemon TCG, meaning we won’t get as many new collectors.

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but did people in here start tolerating scalpers? If so I don’t understand why. After all we can all agree (I hope) that people who hoarded toilet paper or disinfectant to flip it for financial gain didn’t do the right thing, and I don’t see a difference between those and someone who storms into a retail store and buys every single etb or whatever Pokemon items they offer to sell them immediately for gains.

2. "Stop complaining about not being able to enjoy the hobby anymore, just buy item XYZ instead."
The witty meme from a few pages aside, I really dislike this stance. Sure, I could buy Hidden Fates shiny Pokemon once Gold Stars become too expensive. But I could also stop collecting Pokemon cards as a whole and collect Digimon cards instead. Or I could quit trading cards in general and just collect Pokemon in the video games instead. Or hell, I could simply print out my favorite cards on cardboard and enjoy my proxies.

There is a reason why none of these “alternatives” are relevant. I’M. NOT. INTERESTED. There is no point in telling someone to change what they like and what they are passionate about, they won’t do it. You can’t tell someone who cares deeply about condition to go for a lesser grade. You can’t tell someone who feels nostalgic seeing English cards to go for Japanese cards. You can’t tell someone to start collecting from an era they have no interest in. There just is no point. Sure, being priced out of something sucks and I don’t know how to solve that problem for the people affected (myself included), but you certainly, 100% won’t solve it by telling someone what to collect and to shut them up if they don’t comply.

[fourthstartcg]

I think the discussion on this topic (direction of the hobby, Caribou video, response with @jacobm9) has clearly run its course. The original discussion was at least somewhat productive but now we’re far beyond that. No minds are being changed and we’re devolving into shit-slinging and trolling instead of a constructive exchange of ideas.

Feel free to post on other content creator topics, but this discussion is done. Posts mentioning it will be removed.

[slippingjimmy]

@fourthstartcg

I think the discussion on this topic (direction of the hobby, Caribou video, response with @jacobm9) has clearly run its course. The original discussion was at least somewhat productive but now we’re far beyond that. No minds are being changed and we’re devolving into shit-slinging and trolling instead of a constructive exchange of ideas.

Feel free to post on other content creator topics, but this discussion is done. Posts mentioning it will be removed.

Would it be too much to ask to link the content creators mentioned in this thread in the first post? Maybe with a link to the thread page where they’ve been discussed?

[ascendedbidoof]

@slippingjimmy, I feel like that would be cumbersome for the mods. If someone was looking for a particular discussion on a content creator I think using the search function would work well.

[fourthstartcg]

Yeah, @ascendedbidoof is right, it would be too much to keep track of. The actual search function (not the search bar but the one at the top) will allow you to search a thread for a specific creator and see all posts on that topic.

[pfm]

@slippingjimmy

@fourthstartcg

I think the discussion on this topic (direction of the hobby, Caribou video, response with @jacobm9) has clearly run its course. The original discussion was at least somewhat productive but now we’re far beyond that. No minds are being changed and we’re devolving into shit-slinging and trolling instead of a constructive exchange of ideas.

Feel free to post on other content creator topics, but this discussion is done. Posts mentioning it will be removed.

Would it be too much to ask to link the content creators mentioned in this thread in the first post? Maybe with a link to the thread page where they’ve been discussed?

If you do the work I will edit the first post and add it for you

[slippingjimmy]

@pfm

@slippingjimmy

Would it be too much to ask to link the content creators mentioned in this thread in the first post? Maybe with a link to the thread page where they’ve been discussed?

If you do the work I will edit the first post and add it for you

Nice, I’ll shoot you a message when I’m done.

[gottaketchumall]

@jcincy101

This thread is like reading a YouTube comment section, so it’s appropriate.

Don’t even get me started on that Z&G guy. He’s acting on his new flipping series like we all have extra baby stuff and $100 empty Pokemon boxes falling out of our closets. I mean I have those things but we all don’t. Let’s get him!

[jcincy101]

@gottaketchumall

@jcincy101

This thread is like reading a YouTube comment section, so it’s appropriate.

Don’t even get me started on that Z&G guy. He’s acting on his new flipping series like we all have extra baby stuff and $100 empty Pokemon boxes falling out of our closets. I mean I have those things but we all don’t. Let’s get him!

Dumb comment of the day

[jacobm9]

Anybody who hates on poliwrath is not a “true collector” in my book #cancelzandg he is destroying the joy in the hobby with his anti blue frog rhetoric.

[joer]

@jacobm9

Anybody who hates on poliwrath is not a “true collector” in my book #cancelzandg he is destroying the joy in the hobby with his anti blue frog rhetoric.

Is it racially insensitive when he calls Wigglytuff a “Pink Fatboy” or is that considered acceptable? lmao

[enigma]

@fourthstartcg

@enigma

I haven’t actively logged on for a while, but I have been lurking offline and reading through many threads/absorbing information/making observations. I’ve learned a lot. Namely, influencers and content creators have much more power over our thoughts and opinions then we give them credit for.

I’ve noticed over the past few months, when a large or reputable influencer in our community presents their own opinions, advice or observations, those same sentiments are suddenly echoed by others on this forum. Dbruze shares his love for Team Up and the Tag Team era - suddenly the tone here towards the SM era shifted to praise Tag Teams. Previously, very rarely did anyone bat an eye. Smpratte made his “adapt or die” video, and suddenly the phrase is used by many on this forum and across YouTube. Jake from Pokenomics mentioned how he enjoys content from “Speeed”, and low and behold, mere hours after that livestream Speeed is mentioned here. These are some of many instances I’ve found of “content creator says x, community repeats x to themselves”.

Whether these opinions are right or wrong is not the point (largely, much of the sentiment being echoed by members here is valid and objectively based). We have to remember that our minds are impressionable - after all, we are only human. Just like many of us value the opinions of the individuals I mentioned above, there are millions of other people in this hobby who value the opinions of others, like Frosted Caribou, TwiceBakedJake, Danny Phantump, etc. Just because we might not value someone’s opinion doesn’t mean others won’t. Listening to many different opinions can help navigate such an unpredictable market.

To come full circle, something Rudy says often is, “You can learn a lot in life just by listening”.

Not really the case. Not only are those instances cherry-picked, it’s like saying “the news reported an event and now everyone is talking about the event…so therefore everyone is brainwashed by the news.” People have loved the Tag Team era for years. No offense to Dbruze, but he didn’t singlehandedly get people to like special arts, or even drive the conversation remotely significantly.

I made a video in May 2020 about needing to be quick to adapt your collection goals or risk getting left behind entirely, but because I’m not a big creator people don’t pay much heed to my stuff and it doesn’t get a lot of views. Same with posts here on the forum, people have been talking about this need to adapt for YEARS when they get priced out of things. It has flown under the radar because big people are only now promoting it, but it’s been a strong attitude here on the forum and among the wider collecting community.

I understand the skepticism towards some parts of this market, but to come up with these conspiracy-lite, post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacious arguments about how everything is just a giant market echo chamber are just not productive nor grounded in reality.

I’m not claiming anyone is brainwashing others or trying to come up with conspiracies; apologies if it came off that way. Let it be clear I am not skeptical towards the intent of any of the individuals I listed above - their contributions to the hobby go without saying. Nowhere did I say the market is an echo chamber, it isn’t. But social media DOES make it very easy for people to form their own echo chambers, which is important to keep in mind when discussing the impact content creators have.

Also, the examples I gave were just to demonstrate how influencers can bring thoughts we all have to the forefront of our minds. If content creators show their appreciation for a product, liking/owning that product becomes the “cool” and “popular” thing to do. If a content creator voices sentiment similar to those held by their audience, that will validate an audience’s feelings. That’s just the power high social status can bring, no conspiracies there.

I was merely giving my observations as to what I found by just listening over the past couple months. Anyone is free to do what they want with those observations. Could you chalk it all up to an unlikely series of perfectly timed coincidences? Sure, but you can’t deny the human mind is highly impressionable and we are all only human.

[PokemonClassics]

Mods feel free to remove if necessary:

I think this whole conversation has proven how much passion and interest exist within the hobby and how diverse our community actually is. Personally, I’ve enjoyed hearing everyone’s take on the state of the hobby and firmly believe that the members of this forum have done some amazing things to grow the hobby, regardless of our individual feelings on this specific subject. While growing pains are certainly inevitable, I think it’s part of maturing as a hobby and something each one of us should reflect upon as we continue to play a small, but important role in shaping this hobby for future generations to enjoy. On that note, I’m really looking forward to the next E4 community event, especially with Worlds being cancelled the last couple years. In the meantime, has anyone ever considered hosting a regular round-table discussion (video-conference). I know we have Discord, but maybe there is a demand out there for something more formal and structured . . . just an idea for carrying these conversations in a venue with more nuance than a message board.

[cooltrainertony]

@PokemonClassics

Mods feel free to remove if necessary:

I think this whole conversation has proven how much passion and interest exist within the hobby and how diverse our community actually is. Personally, I’ve enjoyed hearing everyone’s take on the state of the hobby and firmly believe that the members of this forum have done some amazing things to grow the hobby, regardless of our individual feelings on this specific subject. While growing pains are certainly inevitable, I think it’s part of maturing as a hobby and something each one of us should reflect upon as we continue to play a small, but important role in shaping this hobby for future generations to enjoy. On that note, I’m really looking forward to the next E4 community event, especially with Worlds being cancelled the last couple years. In the meantime, has anyone ever considered hosting a regular round-table discussion (video-conference). I know we have Discord, but maybe there is a demand out there for something more formal and structured . . . just an idea for carrying these conversations in a venue with more nuance than a message board.

You need to be in the inner circle to attend those unfortunately

[PokemonClassics]

@cooltrainertony

@PokemonClassics

Mods feel free to remove if necessary:

I think this whole conversation has proven how much passion and interest exist within the hobby and how diverse our community actually is. Personally, I’ve enjoyed hearing everyone’s take on the state of the hobby and firmly believe that the members of this forum have done some amazing things to grow the hobby, regardless of our individual feelings on this specific subject. While growing pains are certainly inevitable, I think it’s part of maturing as a hobby and something each one of us should reflect upon as we continue to play a small, but important role in shaping this hobby for future generations to enjoy. On that note, I’m really looking forward to the next E4 community event, especially with Worlds being cancelled the last couple years. In the meantime, has anyone ever considered hosting a regular round-table discussion (video-conference). I know we have Discord, but maybe there is a demand out there for something more formal and structured . . . just an idea for carrying these conversations in a venue with more nuance than a message board.

You need to be in the inner circle to attend those unfortunately

How much is the subscription . . . or is it a blood sacrifice?

[kingboo64]

@PokemonClassics

@cooltrainertony

You need to be in the inner circle to attend those unfortunately

How much is the subscription . . . or is it a blood sacrifice?

Nah you gotta have an illustrator or a psa 10 1st edition zard to be in the club