The Current, Lamentable State of Hobby Forums

[SacKingsCards]

I feel like I've had this percolating for a couple years (yes, years), but never fully fleshed out what I think is a really sad state for sports card talk, forums, and social media in general. I'll try to keep this focused and intentional, rather than treating it like a rant...sorry if I fail either partially or wholly.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think at this point it's fair to say that there has been a total shift of collectors from forums like Hobby Kings, Blowout, Sports Card Forum, etc. to Instagram. I'm sure the impetus for that is multi-faceted:

1. the influx of investor/flipper/breaker/market focused influence into and consequential emigration of card-focused collectors from the forums leading up to and through the pandemic (namely Blowout, since that was the only one still standing at the time)
2. the modern societal preference for social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit over traditional forums
3. the ability to personalize one's social media experience towards his/her hobby interests (I guess falls under #2?)
4. Probably more, but anything else that comes to mind falls under one of those first two categories

This has had me pondering a couple things (with my basic thoughts on each)
1. Is this bad? Is there a downside to Instagram being the main internet avenue of collector hobby consumption?

I would argue the answer to this is a resounding YES. I think this is frankly awful and sad for collectors and the health of (basketball) card collecting. Kyle touches on this a lot in episode 125 of his podcast on the history of hobby message boards. One of the really good points brought up was that message boards maintained a record and history of the hobby. It's obviously so crucial to be able to look back at past conversations about cards, releases, sets, authenticity, scams, fraud, pricing, markets, trends, etc. I'd highly recommend listening to the episode for more info.

Beyond that, one thing that none of these modern platforms elicit is the long form discussion of forums. If you think about it, is there anything significant that comes from utilizing instagram from a hobby perspective? Of course, you get to see a lot of cards, and efficiently. But is rare that an instagram post includes any information by the poster, and if there are any comments, the few that even contain words rather than emojis won't usually be more than oohs and aahs telling the poster that they have a nice card. Blekh. Such a dearth of anything meaningful or interesting.

2. Does anyone else miss this?
Like, I can't be the only one who feels unfulfilled and bored by Instagram being the only real means of interacting with the hobby online?

3. Should there be a sense of responsibility by (basketball) collectors to invest time and effort into reestablishing forums as a part of hobby culture?
I mean, I'm creating this thread, and doing so on a forum, so obviously I think the answer is yes. But the rationale isn't as ego-centric as it may seem. My rationale comes from looking at the baseball collecting culture. Baseball card collectors are so much more committed and interested in, you know, baseball cards. Do yourself a favor and take some time to peruse the baseball section of Blowout, r/baseballcards on Reddit, or the comments section of some baseball card YouTube videos. All of these are incredibly active, and way more so than the equivalent in basketball cards. Sure, there are probably more baseball card collectors than basketball card ones, but there are surely TONS of basketball card collectors, and for the most part everything outside of Instagram is a relative ghost town. I think the longevity, or even shifting back towards a love of collecting, of collecting basketball cards depends on us being actively involved in discussing cards and our love of them.

As a simple example, on Blowout's baseball card talk section, there are two threads with 222 and 429 replies that are one month and one WEEK old, respectively on the topic of the 2025 Topps Baseball release. I know that Topps flagship baseball is a lot more intricate and nuanced than a Panini Hoops release, for example, but how great would it be to have a place to be able to talk about a basketball release at that depth? Obviously, these are only two of countless threads in the baseball section on Blowout, but I think it indicates a health and passion for collecting by a bunch of baseball card collectors. I think that encourages more people to collect and continue building their passion for collecting.

Anyway, I'm sure there's more I can say, but I think my point is clear (too late, long, and tired for me to revise) and I don't want to beat a dead horse. I'm really interested on some thoughts about these questions and whether or not anyone else shares some of these feelings. Not a small chance I'm just being dramatic. It'd be interesting to have someone with a wider instagram network than myself gather the opinions of a broader audience too, in my opinion.

Happy collecting!

[AbraCalabro]

1. I was actually thinking about this as I began reading the post. I thought back to the crowd that got run off the site and went to IG after Eric got exposed, we know about their history and who they were standing up for, by proxy, standing up for shady dealing. We also know they became some of the biggest talking heads on pod casts, etc. We also know the egregious conflict of interest involving Rat Turner and him grading with PSA, which he runs. We know about various scammers and their markers, so on. We remember a lot of this stuff because we're hobbyists. On IG, it's a safe space for all these people due to complete ignorance as a result of wanting to fit in with the crowds and get attention and sheer human stupidity. They get called out this week and it's all old news next week. You remember more recently, Verona's stolen cards showing up and filth like prizmgawd and hairytrojan (Gerald) not wanting to come to some agreement with Verona? Pretty sure those two knob gobblers are still getting showered with positive attention on IG now. I also think that social media over the years has been shown to attract the lowest common denominator in society, every flimflam artist huckster out there is on social media. There is so much volume on social media, that scandals can fall through the cracks before long, but on the forums, people never forget. Are there cool people on there? Sure, but a lot of interesting accounts stop getting visits after a while and just fade out and also, the exceptions don't change the rules. It's always going to be a self-serving, fast food style, meaningless, vapid display of spending wealth on cards for attention between guys who are trying to shill each other up and rip each other off, then they will go to the National and take a group photo together.

2. Long story short, yes. This forum's attendance sadly reminds me of HK's later days.

3. This is a really interesting point you bring up. If you look at Youtube, you will find that the baseball card guys who make videos make longer, meaningful, information-packed, entertaining videos and they're not all Panini cards. You look at basketball-anything and it's the same influencer retards over and over again, it's almost as bad as Pokemon, but you can find Pokemon videos that are super interesting and I don't even collect that stuff. I.E. look at The Mangini Collection, or Vintage Card Curator. The only halfway decent basketball videos are from 15+ years ago. The majority of basketball is:

I JUST SPENT 100K AT A CARD SHOW AND THEN THIS HAPPENED!!!!!!!!


250K CARD COLLECTION!!!!!!!!! $$$$$$$$$$$$


It's all garbage. There are more ass holes in and out of basketball than a mall bathroom on black Friday.

Another thing to touch on is the cost of basketball, it is monstrously overpriced...and the "culture" that has formed around it is all about money, it's all money-centric under the thinly veiled guise of it being about collecting what you like, really it's a popularity contest between people that have too much money and their devout worshippers. And also scams galore. And, finally, the card manufacturers and the NBA itself, relics that don't match the player, lazy, uninspired and creatively bankrupt design, poor, re-used photography and way too many releases that are plagued with the aforementioned problems. I think it will have to get a LOT worse, before it starts to get better and we need to do more gate keeping, sadly, even that won't help, but this post is way too long by now so I won't elaborate. (the time for gate keeping is long expired)

[SacKingsCards]

1. Yeah, the first thing I thought of when making that point about forums maintaining a record of the hobby was the Ebitz/LeBron RPA scandal. But even beyond the bad actors themselves, there's the databases of altered and fake cards that have been chronicled over the last couple decades. Not to mention just valuable info. Info about cards, sets, print runs, how they were released, collectors' stories and their collections. Do you remember Steve's thread sharing every card in his David Robinson collection by year? That sort of thing is gold and literally impossible via instagram.

2. I missed HK's later days, either because it had already died by the time I started collecting or simply never came across it due to its lack of activity. This and our discord truly are the vibe I miss, but you're right about the fact that I wish they were more active. Not that I can talk because I haven't been the most active personally.

3. I'm so glad you brought up the baseball card scene on YouTube, at least in the vintage community. That's exactly the passion I just can't find in basketball cards outside of Wax Museum. My favorite ones that I've come across are MidLife Sports Cards, 4 Collectors For Collectors, and Splendid Sports Cards. Just to illustrate, MidLife published a video yesterday that has accumulated 1,100 views and 60 comments in 24 hours. Just don't know where you can get that sort of thing in basketball. I guess maybe it has to do with the fact that there's just more flipper and money-focused collectors in basketball than baseball? I don't know.

I agree that basketball is kinda crazy overpriced. It's kinda wild that there's really nothing cheap anymore that's a 1/1, on card, pre-Panini, or a nice patch. Like I'm not paying $300 for an end of the bench Kings Mosaic 1/1. Do you feel that affects engagement online? I suppose it does if it affects the number of collectors.

[AbraCalabro]

One point number 1, just to add to it, there were also less people active in sports cards in general. This was a GOOD THING. More knowledge, less people to rip off, or scam, or game, or shill. If you were doing anything of the sort, you'd get called out and people would blow up your spot online. So it was akin to living in a small town. Whereas now it's an overpopulated, expensive city. The records you touched on where not only more complete, but a lot more high quality - same goes for the content, I.E. Steve's thread. The content now is 95% the garbage that I referenced in my earlier post...all fast paced, good for nothing, ephemeral crap.

Point number 2, basically. I actually checked into the discord a few times in the past week and there has been zero activity, lots of members who just checked in a few times and never really showed up again. HK was 'THE' place to be back in what I'd consider the last golden age of sports cards, mid 2000s, although, I myself only lurked nearing 2009/10 so I'd say I also missed the best of times. I only showed up in time to see that scumbag Rare23Air83 and his minions in the nascent stages of their Jordan card price fixing.

Point number 3, the baseball card scene on YouTube is amazing, especially vintage, but unfortunately for me, I couldn't care any less about vintage..........or baseball lol - even Pokemon seems to have had some vibrant hobbyists making great videos, although I have no clue if that's still the case, or if it's been overrun but the same trash as basketball. Getting back to baseball, you'll see guys who show off the cards and talk about them at length, I just wish I cared about the subject material lol. Also it's not as overpriced / overinflated ... even if I can shell out the money for certain cards, I'm just not going to do it.