Minifig collecting rant

[ShaydDeGrai]

6 minutes ago, MAB said:

Because

... the line for our exclusive giveaway lottery is bigger than the line for your exclusive giveaway.

... I had to wait in line for 7 hours just to get this thing is what makes it special.

 

Sad, but true.  I guess maybe you have to get through a midlife crisis or two first before most people realize there are better things they could have been doing with their lives while they were standing around waiting for a few grams of ABS. 

[greenalfonzo]

My annoyance is when I missed a cool figure, then when I try to buy it, I can't find it for less than $20 or something on bricklink.

[Vindicare]

3 hours ago, MAB said:

Because

... the line for our exclusive giveaway lottery is bigger than the line for your exclusive giveaway.

... I had to wait in line for 7 hours just to get this thing is what makes it special.

 

 

3 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

Sad, but true.  I guess maybe you have to get through a midlife crisis or two first before most people realize there are better things they could have been doing with their lives while they were standing around waiting for a few grams of ABS. 

Veering a bit off topic, but related to what you said. For years I eyeballed the older Grand Opening set(3300003). Never pulled the trigger to buy online & I never did, nor do, seek out these exclusive sets. Years later, I finally had my chance. They were opening a store fairly close to me, San Francisco store, and I was able to go.  

I don’t recall the waiting time, a lot of which was outside waiting for the mall itself to open, but it was a while. Then it was waiting inside the mall in a maze of a snaking line. It was the experience for me. Just being at a grand opening was a personal brag to myself & getting the set, a completely different one, was a great bonus. It’s definitely something I would never do again though. The extent of my waiting now consists of roughly an hour or two waiting outside the store on January 1st for the Modular. 

[ShaydDeGrai]

17 hours ago, Vindicare said:

 

Veering a bit off topic, (..snip..)

I don’t recall the waiting time, a lot of which was outside waiting for the mall itself to open, but it was a while. Then it was waiting inside the mall in a maze of a snaking line. It was the experience for me. Just being at a grand opening was a personal brag to myself & getting the set, a completely different one, was a great bonus. It’s definitely something I would never do again though. The extent of my waiting now consists of roughly an hour or two waiting outside the store on January 1st for the Modular. 

I can appreciate this.  While I think the lines at SDCC (and other, similar venues) are ridiculous - especially when there's no guarantee of reward at the end ("Sorry, the guy who cut into line just ahead of you to chat with his friend just got the last one...") - I _do_ recall from my own experience a handful of times when waiting in the right line at the right time was an experience in and of itself (and a positive one at that).  I'm old enough to recall a time before Star Wars, Harry Potter, the MCU and Game of Thrones; a time when more people had heard of Lord of Flies than The Lord of the Rings; a time when every mall and shopping center had a bookstore and  Sci-Fi and Fantasy were such an obscure genre a lot of those bookstore just lumped them in with general fiction (unlike romances, westerns and spy thrillers that got their own sections).

Back in the day, I'd go to Star Trek and Comic Book conventions and wait in lines for autographs or a chance to take a picture (on actual film of course).  The wait was usually short; a convention could headline people like Leonard Nimoy, Jack Kirby, Ray Bradbury and Doug Trumbull and still all fit in a single function hall at the local Howard Johnson's hotel.  My autograph album was something that I could be secretly proud of (mostly because there was no one to share it with who'd appreciate it the way I did; "Who's Jon Pertwee and why is he dressed so funny?" "You got signed picture of a marionette?" "Why is this Harryhausen guy posing with toys?" etc), but that wasn't the whole story.

Waiting in those lines was a bonding experience.  Science Fiction, Fantasy and Comics were definitely _not_ the the pop culture phenomenon they've become today, and without things like the web to bring like-minded people together, liking any of the above could be a very isolating experience. ( I recall one school bully blew up my Space 1999 lunch box with an M80 because that show was "weird" and "cool" kids have "Happy Days" lunch boxes; in a poll for my school annual in 1977-8, they asked what movie we saw that year would become a classic, I was torn between Star Wars and Close Encounters, the winning film by a wide margin: Saturday Night Fever  - trust me, when you were actively mocked for liking Star Wars by literally everyone you know, it's a sign you're in a different era)   Anyway, I met lots of people in those lines, sometimes we even stayed in touch afterwards.

The nice thing about having a passion for something that's unpopular (not entirely unlike grown adults playing with construction toys and mini-dolls) is that, typically, when you meet someone who shares that passion, you're very accepting of that person (and they of you) despite whatever differences you may have on other fronts.  Liking sci-fi in a pre-Star Wars era created a lot of fans who were tolerant (or perhaps oblivious) to differences of race, creed, gender, class, sexual preference, etc.; in a world where pop-culture made it feel like it was "us" versus "them", we weren't too picky about who made up the ranks of "us".  It's kinda sad when I see fans today belittling each other as not "true fans" because one likes the "wrong" starship captain or one doesn't play the "right" video game.  As the subculture became mainstream it brought with it all the biases and pettiness of society as a whole.

In becoming the "in crowd" we fractured into an in-fighting, competitive, asocial mob.  We use social media to carry our factions with us wherever we go and hide behind our smart phones to avoid interacting with the stranger standing right next to us, even though we must have something in common with them or we wouldn't be waiting in the same line.

When I look at long lines to get some exclusive bling at ComicCon today, with people staring into their phones for hours and barely acknowledging the people around them except to get into fights when someone saves someone else a place in line and that person returns from the restroom, I wonder, is there any of the old bonding experience left?  Is it really just about the mini-fig?  Or perhaps not even that, is it just an ego trip playing on a sense of competition - to get something others want but don't have?  Is it raw capitalism - feeding a desire to turn a quick buck on eBay by selling something you don't really care about in the first place?  I don't get it; at this point, I just assume I wasn't meant to.

Okay, I realize this is bordering on a "You kids! Stay off my Lawn!" rant and turned your "a bit off topic" aside from a minor tangent to a four lane by-pass - but I'm Older than Dirt, so lets just chalk that one up to senility.  

A bit closer to the topic at hand, I'm still not sure how I feel about mini-figs having posable arms and legs.  My first minifigs were "slabbies" and when the they changed the design, I recall being rather upset (not unlike many folk here when Friends introduced the mini-doll), but that was a long time ago...

 

[jimmynick]

Collecting is collecting... in another life I used seriously to collect stamps, and while I've got some relatively desirable specimens in addition to ones I just think look pretty, I can't get everything I want unless I really want to shell out for it. It would be nice to have substantial or even complete collection of Queen Victoria's issues, but do I want an 1840 tuppeny blue enough to actually buy one? No. Same deal with Mr. Gold and all that jazz.

[Vindicare]

@ShaydDeGrai I get it & agree. The “nerd” thing I was really into in my school days was comic book trading cards, Warhammer 40K & Magic...before it became what it did. There were very few people who I knew who got it, more so with 40K. 

The bonds then seemed stronger, despite now being able to connect with people across the globe. If I was told I would be bonding with people in Europe & beyond for something I loved, I’d think they were nuts. But then there’s the downside, as you mentioned. Mainstream. It’s unfortunate that something that brought us together has simultaneously pushed us apart. 

As to collecting, or getting, that sought after item, I feel some do it to be “first” and just do it for likes instead of the pure joy of collecting(I guess this borders on the in-fighting you mentioned)... I don’t think ill or look down on them for their from of collecting & what motivates them(this goes towards resellers as well), I just feel kinda bad for those folks who genuinely want one because it’s a character they love or what have you, and would cherish it. 

And hey, I’m all about a “get off my lawn” tirade or two. 

[AmperZand]

9 hours ago, jimmynick said:

Collecting is collecting... in another life I used seriously to collect stamps, and while I've got some relatively desirable specimens in addition to ones I just think look pretty, I can't get everything I want unless I really want to shell out for it. It would be nice to have substantial or even complete collection of Queen Victoria's issues, but do I want an 1840 tuppeny blue enough to actually buy one? No. Same deal with Mr. Gold and all that jazz.

Very wise. I long ago learnt not to seek to collect complete collections. You never know when the company will produce or another collector will turn up something unobtainable. Completionism will likely lead to disappointment.