I always found it funny that everyone’s ‘dreams’ are slipping away and that’s that.
How about you do something about it?
If you dont wanna adapt, that’s on you. Pokemon has brought so much value to my life over the past year and has been a small escape from reality.
For me there is no price tag on that.
That video was a hit job, antidotal at best and hypocritical at least.
I appreciate the attack on me Chris, sorry I don’t “contribute” as much as you.
Overall, I think Bou’s video was great for the hobby. She did do a great job recapping the surge in popularity over the last year, and presented the view of players and casual collectors. The whole point of the video can really be boiled down to “Do content creators have a responsibility for what they create?”. In a hobby now filled with scalpers emptying shelves, should creators whose main audience are traditionally kids be flashing prices and harping on investments? As the 1000th new pokemon investing channel is created harping on " Investing in modern? What should you buy??", are they even giving good advice or just capitalizing on a YouTube algorithm with hype videos?
Pokémon will begin printing things to the ground to catch up. Prices will fall. These scalpers and “investors” will leave. Then who will be left? The casual collectors and players whose voices are not represented right now. It would behoove this community to not forget them. Every “investor” can leave this hobby and it will be fine. When casuals and players feel alienated and leave, that can kill the hobby in the future.
Tl/dr- Video was great, sorry it doesn’t STONKS your cards. Everyone should just be subscribed to Maxmoefoe.
“Pokemon isn’t growing the way I want it to” is a fine, although somewhat pointless, take. It’s okay to be frustrated with the direction of the hobby, the way things have changed, and what you perceive to be an overall negative effect. Everyone hates that there isn’t enough product on store shelves to meet demand. Everyone is frustrated with the fact that many of our collection goals have become unattainable due to price rises. Saying everyone needs to engage with Pokemon with a smile on their face or get out is just as pointless.
What is objectively wrong is the blame-seeking. Unfortunately instead of doing some actual thinking and looking at the underlying market forces, everyone blames “content creators” and “investors” and “scalpers.” The “tru collector” nonsense is just so stupid, where it’s okay if someone buys product from Target to open or keep in their sealed collection, but wrong to buy product from Target if they think that product is going to go up in value in the future. They aren’t judging people by their actions, but whether they’re thinking the right things when they do so. All of the price rises are only possible because of underlying massive demand and limited supply, and blaming the symptoms instead of the cause is pointless and shortsighted.
But truthfully, the reason the video makes so much noise is because it makes people feel validated. It’s a nice soothing balm for the entitled “tru collector” soul. No, you don’t have to adapt to a reality where you may need to pay slightly over MSRP for Pokemon products. You don’t need to change your collection goals. Everything is just a result of “bad people” who are doing “bad things” and if only the bad people stopped doing the bad things, everything would go back to normal. In fact, it will go back to normal, and then all the bad people will get left holding the bag and you, the tru collector, will have the last laugh. It’s simplistic, it’s childish, and it works because people don’t want to acknowledge the reality that things have fundamentally changed. Content creators, “investors,” and “scalpers” are just an easy target to direct all of that pent-up frustration and entitlement upon.
Also - don’t the “players,” for the most part, just buy singles anyways? They reprinted Crobat V in shining fates and now the market price for that card is half of what it used to be… It just doesn’t make sense to use the “players” as a reason to voice frustration when they keep reprinting boss’s orders, professor’s research, crobat, etc. in these sets that attract degenerate zard chasers, who probably dump these cards back into the market via bulk submissions.
I agree with your psychological analysis here to an extent and I very much agree that a percentage of people are just hating on people who frankly ethically out competed them to have bigger collections or a bigger YouTube following rather than looking at their life choices and taking personal responsibility and collecting within their budget or leaving the hobby for a year until prices come back down. This stuff isn’t food and water its cardboard. From my perspective for the most part all these bigger content creators don’t do anything terribly unethical but they still have definitely contributed to the hobby growing and in some cases have made fortunes in the process, which has brought both good and bad things into the space. Some, not all, have done things I don’t like, talk almost only about money instead of the history of the cards, quality of the art etc., exaggerate or in some cases flat out mislead their audiences on the value of their cards, difficulty to grade and give what in my opinion are unrealistic expectations of future growth all while selling the product they are telling you is investable and has great value at a marked up rate knowing that people will pay it because they trust them and or want a continued relationship with the creator. All of this is normal growing pains but that doesn’t mean we all can’t help decrease the toxicity and call out the scams, manipulation and questionable behavior when you come across it and most importantly own up to ones own selfishness and greed. I liked parts of the video and I disliked other parts of the video, but I don’t think she was bad intentioned and I think this is a necessary and predictable conversation that happens when all hobbies boom. I think almost everyone needs to be less defensive and get better at taking criticism. I also don’t think I or anyone else has the authority to be the moral or ethical voice of this hobby. All of us talking about this stuff out in the open is a good thing, which I think is the best thing about the video.
What. Why would someone apologize if that person never did something wrong? That’s just as dumb as saying this is all scalpers fault.
This is reaching points of moral authority that has absolute no sense. Like it or not, the vast majority feels that way. It resonates with the average joe, you can have all the arguments that you want like “that’s the low hanging fruit”, frustration ,etc but at the end that’s the way the common person feels about it. You can even check Bous video, Poke radar (a video with lots of dislikes), danny phantump, cards n all,etc. Those videos thousands of people agree with that sentiment
Instead of invalidating that perspective, you can argue that “thats useless”, i think thats “just entitlement” or whatever because those are opinions that are subjective, it creates a very much needed discussion space.
The Caribou video covered some good points but agree she doesn’t understand the dynamics of markets and many of the things she mentioned is rampant in almost every single other market. Bitcoin is a prime example of this type of behaviour she is referring too.
She is wrong in that you can’t blame collectors/speculators or even scalpers for all of the pricing action and what’s currently going on in the market because I’ve seen 100s of cards that have been heavily in favour of the TCG player and as a result the card is 5-10x of the similar rarity card in that set.
Why should TCG players be exempt from responsibility in driving prices up because the cards playable but collectors/speculators can’t when they are purchasing because it fits fundamentals of other cards that are higher in value?
Overall I think she’s getting too much hate even if she is in the wrong in some aspects and should be called out on it in a sensible way. I see certain other youtubers also make ridiculous claims over the years but haven’t been called out or the threads where they do get shut down quickly so let’s take everything in proportion to what the rest of the content creators are doing too.
Great points. There are certainly content creators who are less tasteful, I cringe whenever I see the 8947th open mouth screaming thumbnail and “invest in this now” title. There are also content creators who are misleading and misinforming their audiences, the same with “investors” and “scalpers” as well. I find those investment discords which tell you which cards to buy with handy affiliate links and everything has a 2/5 risk factor especially unpleasant.
But I think it’s important to separate the people who are being genuinely misleading and unscrupulous from people just responding to demand and doing their jobs. Calling people out who make investment videos is not constructive even if it can be cringey at times. People want Pokemon investment content and price talk because that’s what’s hot and gets clicks. People see others making money in Pokemon and want to do it for themselves, so they join the flip lyfe and need to be told what cards to buy. For every person you convince to change their behavior with moralizing statements, someone will just come and take their place because this is what the market dictates right now.
I don’t take issue with that so much as the tone of the video that I described earlier. Instead of having a serious conversation about the negative effects of massive demand and limited supply (as we’re doing here), people blame the symptoms. The genius of it is to convince people that they aren’t failing to adapt to a changing hobby, they’re the true core of the hobby that’s being “ignored,” and things will eventually go back to normal once the people doing the wrong things stop. And validating those feelings has just as big a market today as investment talk.
Are you the guy that was on Pawn Stars?
“the market dictates” = cause and effect.
You can argue people are reacting to the “symptoms” and it’s not a bad point. But how did we get here in the first place? Pokemon prices blowing up had a lot to due with content creators like LP and Gary V … for the financial side of things especially. If they are part of the cause and flipper/scalper mentality than being upset about “symptoms” heavily influenced by them isn’t that irrational. Maybe misplaced anger, sure, but it’s ok to be disappointed and upset about these things. I just think some folks have a hard time putting their thoughts and emotions about the subject into words in a constructive way.
I would also say that a lot of this stuff isn’t “slightly above MSRP.” I think that’s exaggerated.
Hidden fates etb MSRP $50 selling at 125
Shining fates etb MSRP $50 selling at 90.
That’s quite the mark up percentage wise.
For the average person that could be a lot more than they can spend. I see all the time on here “collect lower grades, adjust your goals etc” well it’s modern product. How much lower could you adjust your goals than the newest set? My point with all of this is that it IS a big deal to some people and that should be relevant even if you don’t agree with the way it’s expressed.
I personally have no horse in this race and I’m not shaming anyone for any opinion they have, I love having a diversity of opinions, even ones I vehemently disagree with are important to be heard. Just playing devil’s advocate. None of this is as simple as black and white.
So when I make a video, my favorite videos are just simply showing off recent card pickups. Sadly, they get the least views. The most views come from more dynamic discussion based videos, but I do try REALLY hard to stay away from “invest in this now” type videos because I want to discuss the cards, not the prices so much. People do love seeing the costs for stuff though…
I dislike “open mouth” thumbnails and I dislike “invest in this” videos. Any kind of discussion based video like what Scott does or simple opening of a pack or two is my jam.
Anyone else think videos where creators open more than 2 or 3 vintage packs is too much? I love pack openings, but after a couple packs I have trouble watching sometimes. I feel like just 1 pack would be enough usually.
It’s easy to see why some people enjoy pack openings, especially since vintage packs are out of most people’s reach. But I think pack opening is lazy, uncreative content, though highly effective. A man can only pull so many Imposter Professor Oak cards before becoming jaded on the whole thing.
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”.
And won thumbnail bingo with his video.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JcplM4ZUFI
Live right now with @jacobm9 !
Jeez; Frosted Carribou has a really toxic audience. So much gatekeeping going on in the chat – people questioning if Jake is a “true” collector, people questioning if Leonhart actually likes Pokemon, etc. People need to stop being so damn cynical and paranoid.
Enjoying the conversation, though I wish Jake was slightly more assertive. He argues so passively. His analysis is top-notch as always but he needs to stop being so diplomatic.
Yeah any audience is mostly the product of the type of content you produce. I didn’t follow the chat though. I think Jake does a great job as always to have calm conversations, he always very genuinely reflects on his own content and draws the line from how people perceive it , back to himself and his remarks. I don’t think Caribou did that as well in return regarding her video in this discusison, it was more about how people didn’t get the message and not how that might have been because of how the message was delivered.
Been listening in the background, great conversation. Not reading the chat tho, but i never do in any livestream tbh.
My only gripe with Frosted Caribou is that she is too much in the “player side”, i do understand that is her circle but there are other “not so black and white” areas in the hobby.
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.
