“buy what you like” really just means “get better taste in cards”, or at least work on developing that taste.
I have given the same advice to people when they ask me what clothing they should buy/collect with the assumption that if YOU like it, chances are there are lots of prospective buys out there who could/will come to like the same things about that item that made you like it in the first place.
That and like your own posts
and
Are you gatekeeping collecting? That’s just sad bro
Nah, I mean the people who only collect to flex their wealth in unhealthy ways and use it as a source of attention and cause unnecessary issues within the community by using their collection to belittle smaller collectors or people with less discretionary income to spend on their collection. In other words, those sneaker heads/Supreme fools who are deep into flex culture and bought into pokemon just to show off.
There’s a difference between showing off or being proud of your collection and being an absolute jerk within the community. 
It is your decision to look at their collections. My recommendation, stop going on Instagram and you will solve your issue.
+1. They flex because they get attention. If you don’t give them the likes/video views/follow/social media karma button click/etc, eventually they will lose their incentive to keep flexing.
The people I’m referencing are the people who hurt the community and give it a bad name by hurting or invalidating others within the community. I haven’t been on insta for anything except messaging my friend and telling them about events we can go to or things to do during the weekends 
and it’s not like flex culture is just confined or exclusive to insta either. If you’re so up in arms for toxic people in a community, that’s a little… disappointing.
Not saying you’re not a collector or less of one for showing what you get, I like showing people things I buy or get in trades. I just don’t believe you care too much about the hobby if you belittle other collectors’ collections, make fun of them for not having high dollar cards, or invalidate them because they don’t have “enough” money to enjoy the hobby. It’s not gatekeeping to say “you don’t really belong in the hobby if you hurt others within the hobby.” Also, this is an “unpopular opinions” thread in pokemon and I made an unpopular opinion. You are free to just disagree and move on, understanding that this is just an opinion you don’t agree with. Literally no need to waste your time, my time, or the time of anyone else in this thread. I’m just not going to reply any longer because I believe I detailed exactly what I meant and if anything, just DM me if you want to bother me about it.
(Still won’t reply tho)
I kinda like Logan Paul.
For what it’s worth I understand what you’re talking about.
In the past, I collected movie posters. This was a hobby dominated by older adult men in their 40s and 50s with very high paying jobs. Doctors, lawyers, hedge fund managers, etc. It was difficult for me as a late teenager to find a place in this hobby because I just couldn’t really afford the kinds of things the established community on forums were collecting. I carved out a niche collecting posters and ephemera for animated movies and actually had some cool stuff. I had some production sketches, some pre-war lobby cards, etc. Despite not being able to go toe to toe with the bigger collectors who were the norm for the community I was happy and proud of my memorabilia.
Some people were supportive towards me and were always really nice about my pickups. But other people were pretty mean. The dynamic in that community was basically…
So there was a lot of pressure to buy things I didn’t want - Back to the Future, Jaws, Raiders, etc - because these were the posters I was supposed to have to be taken seriously. After I owned a bunch of the “essentials”, people took my animation stuff more seriously because it made me unique. I quietly sold a bunch of my stuff and just acted like I still had it because it’s not like anyone would know.
This pressure to have certain things whether you want them or not hurts hobbies because it creates a high barrier of entry to feel like you belong in it. As lots of parts of Pokémon become more financially demanding to participate in, and as influencers latch on harder to their ownership of certain cards for clout, it can create an impenetrable cloud of anxiety over who the hobby is and isn’t for. If people think you have to be a millionaire to collect Pokémon, many won’t bother. If people think there are things you must have to be taken seriously, they won’t participate.
I ended up leaving the movie poster hobby. I liquidated my stuff and ghosted the communities I was in. I’ve been more at home in trading cards. But since I help outsiders sell their cards, I talk to a lot of people who are not as immersed as I am who have a lot of confusion and apprehension over if they should get involved at all. Whether they want to start a new collection or sell their old one, they worry it’s not worth it because their cards won’t be good enough.
I think that people in this community are insulated a lot from what I think of as the “entry level mainstream.” Many of us have been in the hobby for a long time, many are used to the culture of this community specifically, and folks may not know what it’s like for the casual observer who is trying to make sense of all the stimulus. My friend and I spent a lot of time during the pandemic helping people price and make sense of their childhood collections to cash in while the market was hot, and I can’t tell you how many people believed their collections weren’t valuable because they didn’t have a Charizard. Part of this goes all the way back to the beginning of the hobby - where Charizard was the crown jewel of the whole game - but a lot of it also comes from having the idea reinforced that only certain cards matter. This is a mindset that lots of would-be collectors have that is supported by certain flavors of influencing - the flexers. That’s sad. It’s no one person’s fault, and it’s not something any one person can address, but it’s just a fact of the matter.
This is why conduct is so important for growing communities. It’s why it’s so important to have figures who are helpful and humble to balance out the figures who operate more on a more loud and proud show and tell basis. There are people like smpratte and TCAgaming who provide really welcoming and reassuring entry points for beginners. I wonder if they even realize how important it is that they are here to legitimize earnest interest in the hobby and show that even the top dogs of the community are in it because they love it and not to flex for their followers.
I think the reason people are pushing back on you (which I don’t think there is any reason to) is because established collectors are too far removed from that “entry level mainstream” to instantly recognize what you’re trying to say and instead they think you’re being petty and dragging their friends for being proud of their collections. I don’t think this is what you mean and I believe I understand you.
almost spilled my drink, this needs to be in a spoiler that warns people before seeing it
Quote “I just don’t believe you care too much about the hobby if you belittle other collectors’ collections”
Espacially this sentence i like a lot!
Chances are good the personal Collection is twice as well organized and have a cool theme compared to only value by an ultimate flexshamer.
Maybe belittled Collector even steps up with deeper Passion, thats ultimatly result in a cooler Collection. If you truly burn for something you get much further than most
idk about other people but seeing hype collections are so boring. Like okay cool, you spent 100k on pokemon and just bought a bunch of random shit. I can tell you don’t care about any of it. Oh wowww you just bought another 20k charizard? Super cool…
I’d rather see someone’s $100 collection that has a theme and love behind it than see some boring bajillion dollar collection of sealed base and wotc boxes and graded hyper exposed cards
When I see a collection with DAMAGED cards, that’s when I feel a connection.
No hypebeast would ever buy a damaged card. But a kid who took his card everywhere because it was “THE COOLEST”
I like that.
Not only kids, for example, other than collecting old wotc sets, I am building a lotta decks from bw on and stuff and would never pay extra for a NM or graded card
do post BW damaged cards even exist? pack to sleeve is 99.99% of all modern
XY does yeah
Here’s a real unpopular opinion: the endless stream of multi-level marketing complaining is far more widespread, pervasive, and annoying than the tiny handful of people shilling for it. In fact, I’ve literally never seen someone even loosely suggest that multi-level marketing has a remote chance of capturing any meaningful TCG market share—much less dethroning Pokémon. At WORST, I’ve seen people saying “this might be kinda cool, the art is neat, maybe give it a chance?”
Is it a fairly transparent ripoff of Pokémon in some respects? Yeah, sure. But—and I admittedly do not know the creators (nor do most of you, presumably)—I’m not going to assume that it’s just a bad-faith soulless cash grab. I know when I was a little kid I dreamed of starting my own TCG one day like Pokémon and YuGiOh… drew cards freehand and cut them out. If that dream eventually came to fruition and all I read was nonstop hate accusing me of being a grifter, it would crush me.
Also, as far as I can tell, the “aggressive” marketing tactics employed by multi-level marketing are just, like… standard. Sending TCG content creators free stuff, advertising extensively on social media, etc. are all very normal. The only thing I have a problem with is the (AFAIK unproven) instances of potential shill bidding on singles to make them appear instantly desirable and expensive. But then again, over the last year we’ve seen “investors” dump tens of thousands of dollars into a hobby they know nothing about… look at the $300k loss on the TopSun Charizard. It’s certainly within the realm of possibility that the same people doing stuff like this are erroneously gambling on multi-level marketing being the next big thing because they’re new to the TCG market and don’t understand it.
Let multi-level marketing live. It’s mildly annoying at worst.
Though mainly an MTG site, this multi-level marketing review was very fair and informative. www.magiccardinvestor.com/multi-level marketing-cryptid-nation-review/
