Quitting/putting collecting on pause

Alt said:
One of my social hacks I used to use once I learned it made people open up or "like" me was playing dumb.

Just Cady Heron in math class with Aaron as they regale me with their expertise in Final Fantasy or X-Men.

Wrong.

No.

Not the first appearance

The limit break does not exist.

But I never really cared about correcting because to me I was just happy these people liked the thing. And then I would kind of shuffle in my own expertise and even figure out what kind of foil I should be for this person. Maybe that's masking. I never figured it out.

But that gets really old once you realize most people don't know what the hell they're talking about, and especially when the people who don't know what the hell they're talking about, act like they are the authority figure and use that as leverage against the people they deem lesser.

That I can't abide by.

I remember even in high school the same nerds that would complain that women didn't read comic books or like cartoons, as soon as we met one, instead of welcoming, it would just be this big gatekeeping checkpoint which eventually led to ridiculing and ostracizing.

And then without self-awareness they would wonder how come women didn't share these interests.

As example.
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This is a good point, and something that I've found myself adopting over the years as well. I don't think I was ever insufferable about it (but who knows), but I was definitely that kid that corrected people when they got nerdy facts wrong. It was never out of gatekeeping or "holier-than-thou", it was because I genuinely loved the thing and wanted to connect with someone on it and get them to love it and see it like I did.

As I've gotten older, I realized that it really doesn't matter if they get it wrong or not. The average joe doesn't care about or find it charming when you go Full Nerd on them- they see it as belittling or weird. Every now and then, if someone is still like waaaay off the mark, I may correct them, but thankfully I've learned more subtle or conversational ways of doing so. A lot of times, it comes down to interpretation, and I do genuinely love hearing why or how they got to the conclusion they did, especially if it helps me look at the thing in a new light. Unless they're just really dumb and it's a matter of media illiteracy, but that's a whole other discussion.

My favorite thing, rare as it may be, is when a nerd tries to belittle or one-up a woman in conversation and gets their ass handed to them. Ultimately, we all have our "thing" that we know more about than others, but it's all relative. Put your average nerd in a room with a bunch of sports bros and they're the odd man out. It really doesn't matter one way or the other what "level" fan a person is- what matters is that this thing you love spoke to someone else and gave you something to connect over.

I'll never understand the folks in the collecting world who gatekeep like that. Like....okay? You have more pieces of plastic or cardboard than me, so what? You were more irresponsible with your money, yay for you! Or, considering how much of it comes down to shoddy distribution and pure luck, that doesn't mean you're "better" than me. Especially when you employ a handful of your little lackeys to go track things down for you. That's not impressive. When I was a lot younger, I used to look at guys like that like they were super cool, but now I just go full Bane in that scene with Ben Mendelsohn- "And this gives you power over me?"

My boyfriend keeps trying to get me to join Reddit, and I just have no desire to. Every time I go on it just reminds me why I don't. It's confusing to use/look at, and just full of the worst people with the worst takes.
 
I like to think that I'm smart enough now to tell when someone is genuinely curious or unsure of something, and when they're just trying to get a reaction out of me. I used to respond anyway, just to call them out or try to put them in their place, but I learned very quickly it's a fruitless endeavor. Like all the people I see nowadays wearing MAGA hats or Trump shirts in public (in NY of all places). They want a reaction from you, so the worst thing you can do to them is to just ignore them.
 
RicksNerdLife said:
Psh.

I still have empty shelves that don't have Tiny Toons, Freakzoid, Eek the Cat, Road Rovers, Doug, or Bobby's World action figures on them.

No one knows my pain.
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Duuuude...Tiny Toons would be epic, I haven't thought about that show in quite a while. Man, yeah lol

Doug and Rocco's Modern Life would be outstanding as well. Until recently I would have had Ducktales on here - it's criminal we don't have an articulated Gizmoduck yet - but I think Neca just announced them? Or showed them. Can't wait for those.
 
Misfit said:
The older I get the easier it is for me to see things online that would have once got a reaction out of me and just pass on by. Especially when so much of social media is centered around getting a reaction, be it positive or negative.
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Some of my biggest personal growth was the last six years where I finally killed that urge to respond to social media comments and other forums I'm no longer on. Like Josh says, came from a love and knowledge of the topic and an autistically naive belief that people actually want to learn and are engaging in good faith.

Very rarely, i will still type up some essay and then go. What the hell are you even doing and then just close it out. All too often people don't actually want a response, they just like shouting into the void.
 
Damn. Now I'm thinking of a quote from "The Water Boy"... "Arent all moms the same"??? which isn't probably good in this context.

All I can say is when any of my questionable relatives pass and the family asks for help with the funeral costs... I'm happy to anti up and buy the gravestone... But I've told em... my money my epitaph. I get the last word.

But.. on topic... I peaked years ago... literally was collecting so much stuff so many lines I had to rent storage units that I had displays in...
eventually I decided to refocus and sold a lot of it on eBay... if I broke even I was doing good, but I still like reading at least one comic book a month... and pretty much I focus on ML but mostly because other properties just fizzled out.

Bottom line is if you enjoy it, find a way to carry on, even greatly diminished.
 
I quit some more lines recently. And I didn't have to or anything, I just felt it was time. The older I get the less stuff I want. And don't get me wrong, I have a very large collection of stuff I'd never get rid of. But I don't want to just keep adding so much more and more every month. So, I decided to quit a couple more lines, just because I have such large amounts of the lines I just quit anyways, I thought, do I really HAVE to have any more.

Marvel Legends was one of those lines I just quit. Which was hard at first just out of the habit of being used to buying them. But once I got passed the initial shock, I felt fine and relieved. I have every character I could have ever hoped for them to make. And at this point, I'm just buying most characters over and over again as Hasbro releases new versions.

I just felt like "I'm good" when I really thought about it.

Masters of the Universe and Star Wars are the main, modern things I will be collecting now. Masters of the Universe has always been the most important thing and property to me. And with this movie coming out, it's such a fun and amazing time to be a fan of MOTU. So, I will be buying and continuing to buy things like Origins, Masterverse, Chronicles, The Kids Core line, and anything really Mattel throws at us.

For Star Wars, I'll be doing Black Series and Jazwares Micro Galaxy Squadron. I have always loved Star Wars so much, and these modern toys are the best looking there has been. So, I have to continue there as well. And I'm always willing to pick up vintage toys when I see them.

But Ninja Turtles, Marvel, Lord of the Rings, Transformers, GI Joe, be it modern or vintage, whatever the property I like, I just have enough to be happy and content. And there are plenty of things I need to trim back and get rid of.

Just as I recently assessed my entire collection again after deciding some things to get rid of, I was overwhelmed by how much there is. And as I add to it every month with new product from Hasbro, Mattel, BBTS, and various companies over various lines and properties, I was just like, damn!
So, prioritizing yet again what's most important, condensing again, and once again just feeling a bit better and like a bit more weight of collecting is being lifted off my shoulders, and I'm having more fun and feeling more at ease.

The one thing coming up that may add a third property back to my modern toy collecting, is the upcoming Mattel DC. I'm intrigued by the collector stuff next year, and I really like how fun the kid stuff looks for this year. So, it may end up MOTU, Star Wars, and DC. Which is still massively less than even what I was just doing a year ago, and insanely less than a few years ago.

But if I can resist DC, I might. How much more DC do I need? I have SO many DC toys from Mattel, DCC, DC Direct, Mezco, McFarlane, Kenner, ToyBiz, I mean you name it.

And while I love DC, it's not like MOTU and Star Wars to me where I am obsessed. So, just continuing to make adjustments, and feeling better, and just feeling more freedom and fun in simplifying things after a lifetime of collecting.
 
Got out of GI Joe Classified last year myself, and bought the wife and I some electric bikes with the money made from the sale.

Do I miss the line sometimes? Eh, sure. Sometimes.

But overall, the stress of space, prices going up (110 bucks for that Despoiler set???), and interests in more important things to me outweigh that "miss".

Plus, the bikes are fun as hell. Much better investment. And it's something we get to do together versus my selfish little hobby.
 
Super Camel said:
Just as I recently assessed my entire collection again after deciding some things to get rid of, I was overwhelmed by how much there is. And as I add to it every month with new product from Hasbro, Mattel, BBTS, and various companies over various lines and properties, I was just like, damn!
So, prioritizing yet again what's most important, condensing again, and once again just feeling a bit better and like a bit more weight of collecting is being lifted off my shoulders, and I'm having more fun and feeling more at ease.
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I've done a first sort through of the stuff I had in storage, and have about 6 boxes of things to sell, but I also realized how MUCH I have.

I know I have do a more thorough pare down, and that includes just tossing crap I had kept for custom projects (pieces for dioramas or set pieces, etc).

I've also decided I'm going to thin out some of my Mezco figures. There are a few that I have gotten other versions of that I like better, and it'll free up space with all those boxes having to be stored somewhere.
 
When I first started tracking my toy purchases in 2017, I put them in a Google doc. Several years later, I moved to a spreadsheet. For whatever reason, I never moved those initial purchases to the spreadsheet. I did that today.

This could probably be its own thread, but holy shit, prices are insane now. I mostly didn't notice because I was barely scraping by on my salary back then. I notice it less now because I make more, but seeing those numbers on paper is enough to turn your hair white.
 
I mean to keep things in perspective, If when ML prices where $7 and you thought that was affordable because you made like $50k ... one might say your salary would need to have quadrupled to $200k to feel the same way with todays prices.

When I did an initial scale down... I want to say I recouped $20k which surprised me as, said by others, sometimes you dont realize what your spending when its $20 here and there.

I started getting really into 1/6th scale military figures... darn aniverisy GI joes were a gateway for that... companies like drastic plastic and Dragon in Dreams and others were really stepping it up in the 2000's ... better portraits accessories and uniforms... I have a large number of Ally and Axis WWII historical figures that now, especially regarding the axis figures for obvious reasons, I dont want to display and dont know what to do with. So they are boxed and out of sight.
 
I think most of our collective time in this hobby was defined by two key questions:

“Do I want it?” and “Can I afford it?”

“Is it worth it?” is a relatively new question for many of us in the post pandemic era. If the price of a product continues to go up while the quality remains the same (or erodes), then by definition, value continues to go down.

It’s hard to feel good about a purchase if you don’t feel like you’re getting good value. You can’t just want it. You’ve got to REALLY want it.
 
Another thing that worked really well for me was just deciding to buy the BAF parts loose, or just spring for the whole completed BAF. Even if it meant I spent a little more in the long run. Buying figures just for the BAF parts, of which I did plenty of, only led to more figures sitting around unused. Since most of the time they were newer, and other folks wanted the BAF as well, it meant they went unsold, and just took up space. Less boxes to throw away, less piles of junk, etc. Plus it helped me really ask myself how much I actually wanted said BAF. Enough to track down the pieces online, perhaps paying as much or more than I would have otherwise? There's really only been a couple here recently (the BTAS ones) that I'm bummed to have missed out on, but hopefully with time, those'll get cheaper to buy secondhand.

Don't get me wrong- I do love BAFs. They're often characters we wouldn't otherwise get, and it does give a bit more bang for your buck, but it is, at its core, a dangerous practice if left unchecked.
 
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