Quitting/putting collecting on pause

[Xavion2025]

Toy collecting is definitely dying. You can read the room that all the toy companies know it. That's why during terrible economic downturns and huge upswings in costs, they're still cranking out more stuff than ever before. Gotta get us to buy it now while there's still an us to buy it, and worry about what they do without us when the time comes.

It’s inevitable. There’s simply too much overhead. With a line like Marvel Legends, we’ve got to cover Disney’s overhead, Hasbro’s overhead, and the overhead of the big box stores while getting a figure of acceptable quality at an acceptable price. It’s like a big balloon that continues to be filled with air. It’s only a matter of time before it pops.

I think third party and boutique lines like Mafex, SH Figuarts, and figma in Japan are the future of our hobby.

I have a solution for this: We gotta start playing with our toys again. I have a feeling not enough people actually take the time to ENJOY the stuff they have. Imagine if you bought a video game and then just started at the box on a shelf. Your brain knows that's not what that's there for.

I know I don’t spend the time with each individual figure that I used to. I thought buying less figures would change that, but it really hasn’t yet. Maybe that’s because..

I get home and largely just want to vege out. Not even mess with my figures, just sort of sit and watch youtube and decay slowly.

Yep, I do the same thing. I really need to start limiting my You Tube time.

Fuckin' RIGHT? I'm noticing I'm doing the same thing. Looking at where we want to buy in 5 years, in 10 years, and in 20 years. And for me personally, when I start looking that far ahead I also tend to ask myself "how much of this stuff that I'm buying now will I even HAVE in 10 years.... how many action figures in my collection right now did I buy ten years AGO?" And that's when I really start to get down on myself for how impermanent my collections are. If I'm only ever buying stuff to look at for a while and then cycle off, why am I buying so much of it? Can't I be just as happy with one figure that I'm going to sell in 3 years instead of 70 figures I'm going to sell in 3 years?

Maybe the 'right thing to do right now' isn't, you may be surprised to learn, constantly buying stuff I know deep down will not stay with me for as long as the next pair of underwear I buy. Maybe that's just a ridiculous cycle to live in.

I’m still trying to work that out as well. With Marvel (Hasbro) and Star Wars (SHF) it’s just a matter of paring down and making sure that going forward, I only buy figures that will follow me into retirement. It gets a little more complicated with DC, anime, and video game characters because there have been so many different lines covering the same IPs.

ADHD, man. It's a combo-hit of anxiety and needing external sources of dopamine. On my worst days, I can order a toy from Amazon for next day delivery and then drive to EB Games to buy a few Joes because 'tomorrow' isn't fast enough for that dopamine hit that I need to even keep functioning as a human being.

Oh, I know. It’s been like playing Whack a Mole this year between the sleep apnea, the ADHD, the depression, and the anxiety. A med that effectively treated one seemed to exacerbate another. However, I know I’m fortunate in that none of them have been severe enough to keep me from functioning at a decent level in my day to day life. I know there are those that have it far worse than I do. It’s more of a perpetual pain in the ass than anything else, but I think I’m just about there. I get what @jayjonah is saying about meds. I wanted to be off them completely, but if my CPAP machine and a moderate dose of Lexipro can get the job done, that’s a huge win.

 

[altcunningham]

No kidding. When I'm buying to keep my dopamine levels afloat, I'm not making sound decisions. I'm buying out of desperation, which funnels into my unhappiness around toy collecting. The cycle repeats.

In my own life, a year it took years to realise Warcraft and toys were doing that for me with few positives. I'd argue even the community aspect was not good because everyone normalised extreme behaviours or habits and enabled.

One time in 2007 I lost a job, and my guild leader offered to put me on salary so I could cover all my expenses, still get comics, but most importantly they would not lose their tank. It sounded pretty cherry but really it was disgusting. I rejected it because in my head I knew that was just digging a deeper hole. I wasn't sure for what. But I just felt repulsed.

It was only two years ago I got back to drawing after decades away and putting it up against my toy habit, and video games, I realised that was what was missing.

I liked creating. I liked being able to look back on something that I put time into and know that I spent the time. And see the improvement.

And I know firsthand that most people in my life don't give a s*** no matter how cool the action figure is. But they always take time to ask about my sketchbook, or look at my portfolio, or draw them something. There's no way in hell I could impress a woman that I probably would want to impress with PlayStation trophies or Warcraft raid achievements. But guitar, writing, public speaking... These are all things I know have worked.

So it's different for everyone, but for me, I just slowly replaced those dopamine hits with wanting to draw or write or record things on my guitar again. And even now when I'm like oh I have time I should play some video games, there's always something that says " or you could be improving in X". So we'll get my hour or two in because I do think it is important to have mental resets and then I want to do something else productive.

And I absolutely think that's why I've had a turnaround on toys the past few years. But I don't forsake it. There's a lot of stuff that is cool. I just really need to know that whoever is in my life can make sense of why I have it, especially the people that are always telling me they wish they had my skills or talents.

It's brutal but that's how I have to keep myself straight.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

So it's different for everyone, but for me, I just slowly replaced those dopamine hits with wanting to draw or write or record things on my guitar again.

But alt... what if I'm a talentless hack?

 

[altcunningham]

But alt... what if I'm a talentless hack?

Just based on interactions in the Lounge and D&D I don't think that's true. I'm very curious to see what it would like with you running a tabletop game or reading a story you've written, especially based off your film criticism. There's a lot that aligns and there's a lot that intrigues.

And even if you were just baking brownies or small woodworking for yourself, in addition to collecting toys, I think it's still the trick to manipulating and retraining the brain shit behind all this.

Especially when you want to talk, spending and anxiety. Obviously the two become a snake eating itself if you're not mindful. And I know we like to joke in the hobby that hey, at least we're not doing hard drugs or drinking, but even the heaviest drinkers I know are not spending what I spend in a week on third party figures. So if we are just talking about a coping mechanism, I bet cases could be made about every vice or hobby.

I just think the trick is having something healthy. That way, even when you feel down, you've still got something tangible to point to. Even dioramas or action figure photography are adding "action" and "achievement" to flip through.

Edit: The flip side of photography even - I know I'm not alone in seeing cool shots and thinking. Yeah I need the army build hand ninjas, too. And then I don't do anything with them. I have to recognise there's no point because I'm not actually going to do that. And that's a step.

 

[altcunningham]

But alt... what if I'm a talentless hack?

Also!

Not talent.

It's time invested. That is all any of it ever is. Sure, there's a variable ceiling, but I think "talent" is such a gatekeep because it makes people feel like it's something they weren't born with or that they just wouldn't be capable of.

Fuck that. It's time and effort. Everybody can create.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

Just based on interactions in the Lounge and D&D I don't think that's true. I'm very curious to see what it would like with you running a tabletop game or reading a story you've written, especially based off your film criticism. There's a lot that aligns and there's a lot that intrigues.

You're a sweetheart.

And even if you were just baking brownies or small woodworking for yourself, in addition to collecting toys, I think it's still the trick to manipulating and retraining the brain shit behind all this.
...
I just think the trick is having something healthy. That way, even when you feel down, you've still got something tangible to point to. Even dioramas or action figure photography are adding "action" and "achievement" to flip through.

Definitely.

I don't think our hobby is explicit consumerism as long as you're doing something with it. That something could be toy photography, diorama building/customizing, or thoughtfully arranging/curating your display. I even think that having in-depth conversations here is part of that. We have conversations here that regularly stick with me for days. Not infrequently, I'll say to my wife, "The other day on the forum, X came up..." and we launch into a discussion of our own based on what was posted here.

It's time invested. That is all any of it ever is. Sure, there's a variable ceiling, but I think "talent" is such a gatekeep because it makes people feel like it's something they weren't born with or that they just wouldn't be capable of.

While I believe in some degree of inherent talent (my body was never able to catch passes like Jaxon Smith-Njigba or block shots like Victor Wembanyama), there aren't as many natural-born savants as we think. Most talented people worked their asses off to get where they are. (Or had a rich uncle to make sure their hard work found an audience.)