I realize I’m posting this largely just to provoke some lively discussion–feel free to also discuss whether this makes me a troll on my own site or not. But in reading the comments on Topless Robot’s post about the Wonder Twins packaging, I came across this incredibly pointed attack on toy collectors. It’s notable because the writer, “ZeroCorpse,” spends a lot of ink really going for the throat here.
While everyone’s entitled to their opinion, I’m going to examine this one line by line.
There are reasons I’m not a toy collector. The biggest is that this is ultimately a waste of money, and not the “investment” most collectors will say it is.
“Investment”? “Most collectors” I know open every toy they get. While some collectors of, say, vintage Star Wars toys might look at them as an investment, I think it’s safe to say the majority of toy collectors these days have no intention of getting rich off them in the long term. The only people making money of toy collecting these days are scalpers who buy the toys in stores and immediately sell them to collectors on eBay who will probably open them once they receive them.
The second is that, while I am a geek, I’m not such a man-child that I still collect action figures. The whole point of action figures was to play with them. Collecting them and leaving them in a box, on a shelf in your home, is the sort of thing that makes people refer to you as “socially awkward” (and that’s being nice).
While some of the fellow toy collectors I know personally are a bit nerdy, I can think of at least one who’s a sports-loving, beer-drinking dude, complete with a man-cave, a keg-erator, Playboy mags in the bathroom and a shelf full of toys–oh, and a wife, in case you were wondering. He’s also one of the most outgoing guys I know.
It’s in the same category as cosplay, in my book. There’s geeky, and then there’s “too far”, and being in your 30s or older and collecting every new action figure on the market is “too far” for me.
What toy collector collects every toy on the market? Most of us collect one or two specific lines, often for nostalgic value.
If you want to collect statues, then collect real statues; Not mass-produced plastic figures. Yes, some of them are well-sculpted. Yes, some of them are very cool. But they’re not classy. They’re childish, and you can’t display them in your home without looking like a social reject.
Not classy? Frank Sinatra collected model trains. Hell, he had an entire building devoted to his toy trains.
I try to straddle the line between “geek” and “capable of being somewhat respected by non-geeks”, and while I am, indeed, very geeky… Well, I’ll never be geeky enough to have this toy sitting on a shelf in my home.
Besides, I’d almost say that toy collecting goes past “geek” into “spaz” territory.
“Spaz”? What does that even mean? My understanding of a “spaz” is someone who’s constantly hyped up and restless, which doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not they collect action figures. Unless you’re going with some sort of archaic 1980s Square Pegs understanding of “spaz,” in which case I can only assume you’re a woman in her late thirties.
It’s a cool toy… But it’s still a toy and I wouldn’t buy it unless it was to tear open the box and let my nephew play with it. Anyone who gets toys and doesn’t play with them is going against the very CONCEPT of what toys are made for!
As someone else in the comments thread on Topless Robot posted, are you sure you’re on the right website, ZC?
Toys are just one more thing people collect, like Hummels or cookie jars or collectible plates or baseball cards or thimbles or stuffed animals or little plastic football helmets or DVDs or cars or artwork. The only people who care about what people collect, and label them “childish” or otherwise, are those who, for some reason, feel the need to give people a hard time for something that makes them happy.