It’s really a good question. For my analysis I will consider E4 like a peculiar case of social media, because yes there are a lot of informative written content (like wikis, blog…), but there are also discussions and pictures posted. E4 is the only social hub where I actively absorb pokemon cards content right now, thanks to the quality of people here, the slow pace between the post, the absence of an algorithm frying your neurons lol.
Having said that, before social media (yt, ig, fb, reddit) I was collecting what I remembered from my childhood: English/italian cards in played condition, giving also priority to non holos since they didn’t curl in my binder.
Don’t get me wrong, there is an honeymoon phase when socials boost your knowledge of the hobby, but the long term effect imho is not good for a lot of people,
Even not considering the pandemic crazyness, I really think people would be more satisfied with their collection, fomo would be less common, and life more enjoyable overall.
Yes, but probably not as much, if I am being honest. Having other people interested in my hobbies and wanting to talk about them is half the fun for me. I would be mostly fine if Instagram, Youtube, or Facebook went away, but if E4/Discord was gone as well, I don’t know how long/how engaged I would be.
I see the cards from the new sets when Koala posts them in Discord, otherwise, I rarely know/care when a new set drops. I get my news from here and the drama on Discord.
I don’t have the urge to buy and flex my cards, but I could not see myself spending so much if I had the impression I was alone in a shrinking hobby. To be honest, I look at E4 1000x more than I look at my favourite cards that are 5 feet behind me.
While I would like to think so, youtube was an enormous part of me getting back into collecting in 2015. I don’t remember if I actively searched for card openings or if the algorithm threw me a bone, but I somehow ended up falling into the rabbit hole.
I loved watching Gem Mint Pokemon, UnlistedLeaf, WakeRunCollapse, TheCatsMeowth, and a few others that I can’t remember the names of. GMP got me interested in grading; UnlistedLeaf had making pack openings exciting down to a T, which was enough to push me to buy my first booster box, and the other two had incredible openings while being extremely chill, which got me interested in older, Japanese cards.
While I fell out of Pokemon for a while, I was in deep enough during this period that I knew I’d have to come back eventually, and that only happened because I was exposed to what I liked. While I spent countless hours on bulbapedia, social media is an extremely efficient way of learning about new cards while making them feel more fun, because someone else is sharing that passion. Without social media, it’s hard to know if I would have trawled through enough of the internet to reach that critical mass.
First, I love the question. It’s almost rhetorical, and people who read it should keep it in mind (myself included).
If there’s no social media, I think Pokémon, in general, would lose a lot of their market share. Social media drives our passion and allows us to have trading partners all over the world, instead of at school with a few friends (like it was originally intended).
It’s very hard to imagine how my collecting habits would change, but I can say that opening Pokemon cards on the weekends when I was 12 was one of my favorite memories.
I think I’d be more interested in finishing sets in binders, since it can be therapeutic to organize them and they’re relaxing to me.
Anyway, great question, though it’s virtually unanswerable since social media is so baked into this hobby we all love!
Collecting '99-‘02’: a social experience, without social media
Collecting '03-'07: not a social experience, without social media
Collecting '09-'15: not a social experience, enhanced by social media
Collecting '16-: not a social experience, strained by social media
i dont ever post on social media unless discord and this forum count. The worst part of no social media (if you include discord/forum) is that I wouldnt be able to talk to other people interested in the hobby as much.
YouTube could still exist, but there would be no interaction. Just the media on it’s own.
THAT’s another question: If you were left to figure out the hobby based solely on what you see online, without any discourse with fellow community members, what would you do? Would you be a glutton for modern punishment? hmm…
I think as with most things, social media is a tool for me, but I’ve never been keen on following the flexers. Artists benefit from collaboration and ideas… The curious ones, anyways. Hobbyists benefit from inspiration too. SO, if I had no social media, I would certainly be less aware of things in the hobby. I’d be into old JP promos, WotC era, and modern would really be nothing interesting to me outside of my artist collections… which there would be fewer of: No Komiya, Kawayu, Sowsow, Egawa.
So nothing would change except for trophy cards, promos sets like Munch Scream, limited print peripherals like mini binders, and a few austere sets releases like Hyako Poke Yaku and Yu Nagaba. I would also likely be less aware of tools for investing, but ultimately, I’d collect what I like, and I’d probably hjave spent far less on the same things during Covid.
Social media opened my eyes to how I thought I was a pretty much lonesome nerd and that I was the only person as an adult collecting cards! How I was wrong and glady for it!
I don’t have any social media besides E4 so I would still be in the hobby. I strictly collect for my own pleasure, and like you said I’m not at the forefront of new information so I still discover new things organically daily/weekly as I would in the 90’s.
I am def in the minority here as no i would not. One of the main ways I got back into collecting yugioh in 2011 was through youtube. I would spend hours absorbing content and learning about the game, watching openings and such. Collecting pokemon cards did not come until later and only through watching Rusty here and there and that was only vintage ex era cards. Youtube during the pandemic is what got me into modern but not the hype dogs. A seasoned tcg youtube watcher like myself knew that the hypedog content was unwatchable lol.
I definitely would not be collecting without social media and would not be collecting the way I do now if it was not around.
I got back into the hobby by watching youtube videos (thank you PrimetimePokemon) of booster box openings and falling in love with the cards again. I got into serious collecting and grading thanks to E4 and silversnorlax on youtube. I think Pokemon-related social media has become a lot more toxic now than it used to be, but that’s just the function of an evolving and changing hobby. In the past, social media was E4, youtube, maybe the occasional facebook group and instagram post. Now it’s a lot more than that, and I think people today see it as much more of a negative influence than even a few years ago.
I personally very rarely use instagram and facebook, although I still post a lot on youtube and E4. My collecting wouldn’t be very different if those social media sites didn’t exist, and I probably still would be interested in collecting exactly the way I do now without them. But without E4 and youtube, I think I would have lost interest in collecting.
I would be collecting the rare stuff i own is private with only a few people knowing what i own. I dont post anything for attention and the only things ive bought from social media hype i later regreted.
A chunk of what i have i only found from social media but id still be hunting for those items naturally.
You’re in great company here, and we are in great company having you!