The Hobby News Feed

By now you've probably heard the news that Twitter is about to be bought out by Elon Musk.  Regardless of your feeling about him, this has the potential to upend how Twitter is used in the hobby, and this has many people scared.  With Elon in charge, we don't know if the man child will decide to add 69 to the end of everyone's handles for fun, or if the man who built Tesla will have some good ideas for the platform.  I have opinions, mostly centered around the idea that being incredibly successful in one realm doesn't always translate to other realms (see Steve Balmer's Clippers, Oprah's TV channel, Isaiah Thomas as a coach, etc.)  There is a conversation to be had about the balance between free speech within a private companies digital space vs. the safety of those effected by said free speech, but I won't start that here. For now I will remain hopeful.

I've had this post percolating in my head for a bit, and the Twitter news made me want to get it down.  I started really trying to integrate into the wider hobby in the past year.  My main focus has been Twitter, but I know there are communities on Tik Tok, Facebook, Reddit, YouTube and other places as well.  I tried YouTube, but just don't have the time.  (Oooh, I'd love to see what's in the box...90 minutes long?  And you don't know what insert that is?)

Twitter is a great place for the hobby community, but it takes a lot of work to curate your timeline to meet your needs.  Some follows just repost contests, some mix in crypto or politics (I save that for my other Twitter), some are selling all the time.  You can easily set up your feed to be the CNBC of the hobby (which cards are going up and down, etc).  There's the grievance corner of the hobby which dunks on every scam, price increase and change in the hobby.  Its a lot to sift through.

Its worth it though, to find those gems in the rough.  I follow a guy who collects basketball cards with refs in the back (@refsintheback).  There are the non-sport collectors who are building the community (@TGNCards).  There is Card Chat every week, trying to find the pulse of the hobby and bring everyone into a space for a moment in time (@yanxchick).

Then, there is the reason I wanted to write this post.  The twitter page that I can't stand and can't live without.  CardPurchaser

CardPurchaser is a twitter user who is rather large in the Twitter hobby sphere.  If you haven't run into him yet, I assume its just a matter of time.  Now, what makes CP special?  CP is a microphone for hobby information.  If you tweet at him, you can probably get retweeted.  If you reply to one of those tweets, you will get a like from CP.  As for original content, mostly links to interesting eBay auctions and boxes drops (slightly behind the news to his Discord subscribers).

Now, you might be wondering why I dislike CP.  I hope he's a nice guy.  I don't care that he has the discord, and show preference there.  I think most of the information is valuable that he posts (in some sort of way).  No, my complaint is that he breaks one of my Twitter "do not follow" rules.  He posts all the time.  Non stop, all day.  I can't keep up with it. So, why has he remained in my feed all this time.  I just haven't found a way to all this info yet without him.  

So, let me breakdown the information you get with CardPurchaser:

Hobby Status

• What boxes are showing up at retail around the country (Walmart has mega boxes now!  Walgreens has cards now!  Hy-Vee has cheap Topps Chrome!)
• What price are some hobby staples going for (Trout RC on ebay, cheapest Topps Hobby box)
• Shipping info (Topps is behind on Topps Now printing, to tape or not tape, eBay packaging)
• Slab info (PSA return time is current this, SGC is now charging this, etc)
• Misc: Topps scratch off codes are not scratching correctly

Community

• Check out this cool card
• What parallel is this?
• What should I do with this card?
• Here's a picture of what I pulled from this box

Hobby Storylines

• Its Zion / Joe Burrow / Wander Franco season
• Walgreens Mystery boxes are coming with these packs
• This scandal is happening.

This leads to my last two complaints about CP.  To be fair, the first one is a me problem.  Its FOMO (Fear of missing out).  There was a retweet a couple weeks ago that someone found 2020 Panini Chronicles boxes at Barnes and Noble and I became mad.  I've been wanting those and they just show up for someone else?  Or the times where people are just posting retail boxes of any kind and I feel I need to run out and get some myself.  Definitely a me problem, but still one I have to deal with though CP.

The last point I'll make is that if I had to guess, I would believe that CP believes he is a fair person.  Retweets whomever, as long as it fits certain criteria which he has laid out multiple times (for example, he doesn't retweet sales).  But with a large audience, he can influence a lot by what he reposts.  

He could only post hits from Topps 2022 boxes and create the illusion that all boxes are bangers, and he could do that unintentionally (most people only look for the microphone for hits).  Someone could have coordinated tweets about 2020 Select packs being hidden in those Walgreens repack boxes, and he could have made that storyline by being manipulated.  

I am not accusing him of these things.  Quite the contrary, I don't think that any of that is true.  I get the sense he wants to be that community megaphone for what's good in the hobby.  But, like Twitter as a whole, heck all news for that matter, you need to diversify to make sure that one voice doesn't carry too much weight.  

Now, I need to log into my Twitter.  I've typed here for a hour so now I'm way behind on CardPurchaser tweets...