Been browsing SB more than I have in years as I fall off of social media in 2020. Which got me wondering. Can you collect toys now days without Instagram? I often think about getting rid of my account but I have no idea how I would know about any lottos or see new sculpts in the works with out it. anyone here actively collecting without social media? Are there any sites or blogs that keep up with the toy world? And could you ever win a lotto without an Instagram displaying your collection
That’s a tough one. Seldom are blogs that keep up with the current slew of releases and lotteries, and many artists don’t advertise much, if at all, outside of their Instagram accounts. You can always save artist IG page URL’s to your browser and check there at your leisure, but some lottos now require Instagram handles as part of the entrance process. I do think collecting without social media is possible, but staying current would seem a bit of a challenge in terms of lotteries.
this was my first idea when I deleted apps off my phone. It is comical how little Instagram/fb will let you do on their site with out being officially logged into an account.
I wish this was possible. I would love nothing more than to delete IG and SB and disappear from the internet forever
99 percent of the stuff I buy comes from mandarake, yja and eBay. Just don’t worry new releases and buy from the secondary market.
It's dangerous how so many artists rely solely on IG now. For all their sales and even as a catalog of their works. If IG pulls the rug out on these people it will be like they never existed at all. And now with the government actually suing to separate IG and FB who the fuck knows what will happen. As an SBer said long ago... If you don't put your toys on instagram do they even really exist?
Luckily I don’t give two shits about new releases, so avoiding IG doesn’t affect my buying at all. I check out eBay (found a few gems there before), I check Mandarake (I’ve found so many great underpriced toys with zero hype there), and of course I buy from here. And I love my collection, it brings me a lot of joy and comfort.
The original joke I used to hear was “If you don’t post your Starbucks on Instagram, did you even really go?” But it’s become pretty prevalent with sofubi in today’s collecting climate. I had a conversation with someone where I speculated that perhaps a good number of collectors wouldn’t chase or spend as much on certain toys, if any at all, if they were strictly instructed by the artists not to post or they’d be blacklisted. That’s purely speculation on my part, and I don’t blanket that across the board. Posting has also become such a centralized tool to attempt at weeding out flippers, which is a catch 22. I know a good handful of friends with rather large collections, but don’t post much of it or none of it at all. Personally, I wouldn’t care all that much if Instagram was taken down. I’d just start my own website to showcase the fun I have with photographing toys, and continue to post here. Anything that’s appropriately fitting for this forum I post here first before IG, anyway. It would be detrimental, heavily, to artists and companies I’d say, and I think it’d be a bummer for the aforementioned to not see collectors enjoy their productions.
I don’t mind IG, but I wouldn’t mind it if it went away or became less prevalent. I think if it did, we’d just see the return of toy blogs and websites, and increased traffic here. Both of which I prefer to Instagram posts any day of the week.
im with @JoeMan - most of my stuff comes from the secondary market. i use instagram primarily for sales because i feel weird ( used to be frowned upon here) hawking my wares personally on this forum. skullbrain kind of died off when tons of people got so antsy and up in arms when people posted live lottos or links to blogs with information on how to enter. it sucks because people just wanted to keep the exclusivity to themselves for a better chance at winning. instagram just puts the info out there for anyone who cares (or doesnt care) - social media sucks but its a necessary evil for me
I disagree. Social media and messaging apps from large corporations are how the majority of people access the internet in the 2020s. If one disappears, another simply takes its place. Hobbyist websites, blogs, and message boards are not going to make a comeback if one of them fails.
Yes, so many people making vinyl toys now, if suddenly 20 people were coming here making threads for their toys and trying to sell them. Plenty here would quickly jump on them for using the board to sell their wares. Is what it is, Skullbrain will never compete with the platforms that are used for promotion and sales, It’s not wanted here, so toy makers won’t come here because the pitch forks come out when they try to sell stuff.
That was an odd time. People getting heated when ANY info about toy releases was posted here and even getting pissed at the old sites that used to share the info like lowbrownie and spanky and man-e-toys plus a few others. I never really thought about the reason but trying to keep their odds higher for drops makes sense. You'd think if you really liked an artist's work you'd want them to get more fans so you know, they could keep making art. Now it's just hilarious since I see some of those same exact bah humbug people using instagram to beg for toys with constant artist reposts and prayer hands before a drop.
"You gotta be in it to win it." Depends on who you follow, but majority of artists willing to offer sale of their toy usually requires your Instagram handle. FWIW, I know a few people who didn't win a lotto until they actually started using IG, posting and commenting versus just having an account. Buying from the secondary market is fine if you can afford it, but for a chance at staying in the know and having the opportunity to snag something at retail, I think it's nearly impossible without social media.
I think it’s more in terms of using Mandarake, eBay and YJA for back collecting older toys, and not so much as a means for the current releases. I do the same as @JoeMan and @michael for a lot of older street figures like BxH, TWIM and Headlock, or random kaiju like Target Earth, Hukkokudo, etc. There isn’t a whole lot of current makers I steadily keep up with, and they’re ones I’d know where to go for info if the presence of social media was eliminated. Intentionally limiting the information of live lotteries and shop drops and auction listings(though this one is a little understandable) on this board to increase your personal chances of coming up is one of the least communal things I’ve ever heard of. And shitty to boot. I’ve seen people say it’s to limit the amount of flippers that will potentially see it, but it sounded like a scapegoat.
Blogging just ain't what it used to be! 10 years ago (time flies) it was a popular method of posting information and images. The fact of the matter is, the way that we use the internet has changed since that time. We also post more often and consume content more often. Certain social platforms help to facilitate that demand. There might be a few good toy blogs / newsfeeds still remaining, but if you want a direct connection to your favorite artists - then Instagram is the place to be. Of course it's possible to collect without Instagram, but not if you need to know about lottos and new / upcoming releases. A decent solution might be to sign up for post notifications for your favorite artists on Instagram. Then you won't have to browse or remember to check Instagram, you'll just be alerted when they post. Potentially somewhat related, and something I think a lot of people might need to hear: If you aren't enjoying social media, then you are using it wrong.
Usually when I’m bored I just click sofubi on Mandarake and just scroll until my eyes hurt. I guess that’s what my original post was asking any other cool places people look for inspiration or see something new in toys? Not everyone has issues with Instagram but like Michael said it’s kind of the only place for artists to share their work which starts to feel like a bummer. At this point you get so many ads you barely see the new sculpts and you lottos anyways. I know websites or blogs can’t fix that problem either with so much work coming out all the time. I guess sometimes it feels like a hobby that only exists on Instagram now which I haven’t fully noticed until I stopped using it.
Not being on Instagram I find it hard to understand its massive success over other image sharing sites. Is it just the huge user numbers and ease of uploading that's made it so successful? Personally, the banal comments that I see whenever I'm directed to an Instagram post don't endear me to the site.
@The Moog I think it is ease of use. That’s the main reason I don’t really use Flickr as much as I might otherwise do- uploading an image from my phone shouldn’t be more than a two step process at this point, and getting the image code (is he actual link with the file name) to share it should be just as easy, but it’s not; and most of the time I’m too lazy to manually load the desktop version of Flickr’s website on my phone, find the picture, click on view/download, then click on “view all sizes” then copy the image. if Flickr wants to compete it needs to be about 4 steps less and much more straightforward to upload and share images.
Some blogs are still worth visiting because they cover some sofubi, I’ll come across things I don’t follow and see on Instagram, for better or worse. I’m most impressed with the toy chronicle and vinyl pulse still. Someone mentioned sofvi.Tokyo, I find that blog content to be about 50% medicom coverage, but it’s ok, they don’t really cover non-Japanese brands. Coverage is a little limited. But it’s possible still to follow a handful of blogs and probably see more things than you would come across on your own on Instagram.
IG was never about the comments, IMO. It was the pictures. It was nice to have a purely visual platform to escape from the bullshit headline factory that most of the rest of the internet/social media has become. Finding and following accounts that were of interest to me was easy, posting was easy, and the general interface was easy/just worked - you could open the app, scroll through all the new photos since the last time you looked, and then come to the end of new content and stop scrolling. Then they fucked with that and introduced weird algorithms so you couldn't be sure you saw all the posts made by the accounts you follow. And they no longer showed up in chronological order. Then they introduced ads every 3-5 photos. And now apparently they've done more fucked up shit to basically turn it into a marketplace? I dunno - I stopped using IG before that was introduced. Now I say: FUCK INSTAGRAM! FUCK FACEBOOK! DELETE THAT SHIT!
I have adblocker and never see ads on IG. For small makers who need to promote and do little more than break even, I think IG is a reasonable trade off. Granted, most the comments are annoying one liners ('dope', 'sick',...). If an account pisses you off, delete it.
