I would like to talk to people over 25-30 whose rooms are often filled with toys that they started collecting back in the 2000-2010s.Most of us have some reason why we have this addiction to toys. We love having new toys and sometimes even give our favorite toys meaning or hunt for a specific toy because it means a lot to us (saw it in cartoon one time as a kid or saw it in store back then and always wanted to have it and etc.etc.).Let's talk about that, share stories and talk abour our reasons and mamories.Will post my story in first post.
>>11646204I've been questioning myself why i keep collecting and being attached to characters so much. At first i thought i'm just "a toy geek i like nerdy stuff" but it goes much deeper than that.For me, my toys are a kind of obelisks or statues of ancient gods that give me happiness and strength. They have always been like this, since childhood, during difficult periods of my life and now, when my life has become a little better, but I continue to buy them as “a tribute to what gives me happiness”.I had a difficult childhood in the 90s in the post-Soviet snowy abyss, I lived separately from my mother and saw her only on entrance days because she worked several jobs.In the 90s, goods from America began to arrive to us and I was amazed by American figures and especially transformers. They were all the brightest colors, chrome plated, and just looking at them made me happy.And every time my mother returned home on Friday evening, I knew that on Saturday early in the morning we would go shopping, my mother would lead me by the hand, and she would buy me whatever I asked for, and in 100% of cases it was a transformer.I still remember these moments. And this is an incomparable impression. When an incredible world of something you know nothing about opens up for you. Mirades of transformers, beautiful and very different. Some turn into cars, others into birds, others into dinosaurs, tanks, planes, whatever.And there are many of them. Sellers put them on market shelves, where your eyes widen at what you see. You are in incredible euphoria, and like a child living in the midst of an economic crisis, you experience incomparable happiness.I am sure that until my death, buying a toy and, in particular, a transformer will bring me happiness, because all this is closely connected with that explosion of euphoria, closeness with my mother. And most importantly, that strange warm feeling that everything will be fine and at the moment you can do anything.
>>11646209PS:I have never told this story to anyone or written it anywhere on the Internet. This section has always been with me in my online life and I wanted to share it here.Every time I open the box with the transformer, I feel the warmth that I felt when my mother and I returned from the cold street unpacking the goods, she goes to prepare dinner, and I sit in the kitchen with her and fascinated by looking at the packaging with the transformer, thinking exactly how to open it and what to do next, afraid of breaking it.
>>11646204>>11646209There are diffrent types of collectors. If it stirs emotions and memories in you (and it apparently does), then that means you're a sentimental collector. You're more than likely to value what you had in the past than you are to value the things you didn't have. I am a sentimental collector too, which is why I mainly collect vintage. I do get some new stuff here and there, but my collecting drive is in the vintage. Life must have been absolute hell on the east side of the communist iron curtain. I can't imagine why modern democrats want to go back to a Marxist world when there's plenty who lived through it with the horror stories.
>>11646204I guess if it was to be psychoanalyzed for me it's probably just a form of escapism or trying to have control I don't otherwise have in life. The world sucks so instead I make my own world with toys. I have always liked "recreating" things from the real world with like background dioramas and props and drawing and 3D modeling. I guess collecting is just a cope. I don't like thinking about it desu
It gives me a rush of excitement similar to what I felt as a kid. I think I'm just addicted to that feeling. Plus feeling a tangible object is fun and nice pose and look at.
Escapism and I think I inherited it from my mother who was in on the collectible doll craze back in the mid 80's early 90's.
>>11646204It just brings me joy. I am a lifelong collector and I’ve had to purge quite a lot over the years and now I keep just a small display but it just makes me happy. I guess how some old ladies feel about porcelain dolls or certain guys feel about sneakers. At some point during development, the sight of that particular item flipped a switch in our brain and connected it to dopamine, I imagine, like the development of random fetishes.
I guess I'm just trying to fill a void. Growing up I had a lot of toys, but always wanted something I didn't have. My parents were generous but also weird. Like you have a ninja turtle already, you're not getting any more. You have a GI Joe already, you're not getting any more. I guess that left a hunger in me as I collect a lot of those old lines I used to have only one of. It brings me joy and fills that hole in my soul but sometimes I worry that it's like a drug. Like it works its wonder less and less. Also as my collection grows so does my frustration. My frustration because of clutter, because of running out of display space and because of the things owning me more than I own them. It's a weird feeling.
>>11646209>>11646212based toy bro
>>11646967I just like to collect thingsbeside figure and model kit, I also movies, anime and cartoons (I have over 40 tb)I do it to numb myself and give me clear objective like "build this model for the next 5 hours so I don't have to think" or "try to download every anime recensed on mal, season per season (I did it from 1970 to 2004, need to continue)just so I won't have to think about the mess my life is for a few hours
>>11646204I'm a comic guy but I gave up on the comic books and replaced it with a love of comic book action figures.
My dad has a massive twenty foot table for wargaming in the basement. His entire mancave is an expansion he built onto the house with glass cabinets full of historical miniatures he's spent his entire life painting. When I was a kid we'd sit at the same desk and paint minis while watching movies and just hanging out.He's had a Dianna Troi and a Ringwraith in box for decades and I know he'd buy cool toys for me as a kid just so he'd have an excuse to play with them, too.Now I have my own cabinets of minis and toys and we meet up about once a month to play Conan or Lord of the Rings or something. I'm really lucky to have a cool relationship with my dad and the concept of hoarding dope shit and fussing over displays and fingerprints on the glass is just natural.He's been talking nonstop about the Fallout tv show and wishes he could be the Ghoul in real life, like he keeps trying to quick draw finger guns now when we see each other, so I got him a Ghoul statue for Christmas.
>>11647025What else do you collect?
>>11647025Die Earth Scum>>11646265Coping is a suitable rason, Earthling>>11646212Your rasons sound fully normal, Earthling
>>11646204Both of my parents collect and were collecting GI Joe, dolls, Mego, MOTU, Princesses of Power, etc. long before I was born so I never really had a chance lol. As an only child, they showered me with toys growing up, to the point that I had hundreds, if not closer to a thousand counting mini figures like Pokemon and Digimon. Because of that, I played with toys longer than most kids. I had massive adventures, sometimes with friends or with my parents, but usually alone, up until around when I was starting high school. From there with depression and anxiety flaring up and the imaginative spark put more toward writing, it was a smooth transition to putting the better looking toys on shelves since I'd grown up in a house where that was the norm.Since then, I think my collecting has become an attempt to recapture the happier times of my childhood since I find reality so bleak and dull. Nowadays, my collection is larger than either of my parents' and has gotten to the point where I get rid of a figure whenever I buy a new one. It used to be that I bought figures to memorialize characters and stories I loved, but in recent years I've been buying stuff I merely like. That's led to me running low on space and having 60+ unopened figures. With prices rising, tariffs, and my cooling enthusiasm for the hobby in general I'm likely going to be buying a lot fewer figures going forward.
>all these long overly esoteric posts about the philosophies surrounding toy collectingHoly shit. Why are you all like this? Is it just one doofus talking to himself? I buy toys because I like them. I like little plastic effigies to my favorite characters from my youth. There's nothing beyond that. Why are you idiots so into over analyzing everything lately. Are you that bored?
>>11647178Stop perceiving shallowness as virtue and let others speak for themselves
>>11647178>esotericStop using words you don't understand. OP wanted to share his story behind collecting and is asking others for theirs. If yours is that straightforward, that's fine. Not everyone else's is.
>>11647183We're talking about buying little plastic comic book/army men.>>11647185I'm just saying it's a little weird to be so overly analytical about such trivial things. Especially one of your hobbies. I'll never understand people that take a single aspect of themselves and make it their entire personality. >>11647194Is that what it is? Damn.
>>11647194Ah, yes, the ego boost of posting on a half-dead anonymous Mongolian basket weaving toy forum.
>>11647219Or, it's from people who just want to talk about their hobby with others who enjoy the same thing? It's amazing you don't see the irony of coming into a topic geared toward this type of discussion and call others narcissistic for using more words than you'd like.
>>11646204>Autistic behaviourget them all, have a full set.>Value knowledgeyou know those toys were not cheap and dont like to throw them out or give them away, not knowing if it survives a week.>Design coniseuryou appreciate designs and collecting real art is too expensive.>Creative brain in an ogres bodyyou want to be creative or know you are creative but are limited by your handcraft skills, so you buy characters to decorate dioramas or build Lego because your model kits skill is low.>Good memoriesIt presents good memories or visualize easy to understand things in a complex world.
My uncle had a collection of Disney stuff , wrestling stuff, and merch from shows from the 50s and 60s. Always thought it was cool that his room was filled with stuff it made him happy to look at. He passed away when I was 10, but whenever I'd see stuff I thought he might like it gave me a certain nostalgia. I don't think I would have considered collecting myself but my gf bought me Disney Infinity for my birthday one year and it activated something that had been dormant in my brain.
>my fag blog
>>11647186>>11647227Of course it'd be this retard trying to derail the thread. So sick of the shitposters on this board. Most anons aren't even comfortable posting their toys anymore because of schizo stalkers and now you can't even have an honest conversation without some wild faggot appearing.
>>11647178>Holy shit. Why are you all like this? Is it just one doofus talking to himself? I buy toys because I like them. I like little plastic effigies to my favorite characters from my youth. There's nothing beyond that.You are clearly too young to start asking philosophical questions at this point of life.You will learn when you grow up.
I think it's from watching a bunch of cool stuff release and then disapear and skyrocket in price from back when I was a wagie without any space. I was compensating for those miss outs for a long time and ended up just buying everything I had even a mild interest in. Now I'm buried in shit I don't actually want riding highs and lows of "wow that shot up" vs "aw they re-released this 10 times and its worthless" as I list it all on eBay and try to get back to my happy place of being able to fit all my possessions into a sedan.
>>11647025Never said I collect those thing, now kys you subhuman rage-baiter
>>11647300I hope those chinks that made the recent Captain Planet figure do a Freakazoid real soon
>>11646204I was born with a congenital disease that made me very sickly as a kid to the point I was always being confined to the hospital a lot and I was miserable. My ma would always bring me small cheap toys from the bazaar to cheer me up, like the Gakken Penbot with an eraser, sharpener and a small sword that doubles as a letter opener, or those Kronoform watches that transform into robots, she got me the F-15 and the race car. Those inspred me a lot, managed to stay in the honor's roll even though I missed a lot of classes. Then she got us our first Transformer, Shrapnel, and I copied the pictures in the catalogue cause I loved to draw. I kept all of my drawings in our bottom drawer and my ma would always proudly show them off to friends, relatives and guests. that really helped boost my own confidence and inspired me to keep drawing. 40 years later I'm in the comics industry and I managed to buy her her own house and my own condo. I still collect Transformers and other small silly novelty Japanese toys because I will never forget what my ma did for me.
>>11647354That was from Dasin, right? Have they put anything new out recently? Feels like I haven't seen anything from them in a long time.
>>11647388>that really helped boost my own confidence and inspired me to keep drawing. 40 years later I'm in the comics industry and I managed to buy her her own house and my own condo.That sounds awesome anon!I'm also 40 and i also work as artist but in video game industry.And my transformers toys inspired me into "video game-like thinking" before i became obsessed with videogames.
>>11647178>>11647214This is just like hate-watching TV shows, pal.No one is forcing you to read this thread.No one is forcing you to post in this thread.>>11647325See above
>>11647388man that robot looks great and very useful for school. I wouldn't take it to my school tho - i would lose it because kids would ask me to use him in non stop.
>>11647492Hey man, I'm just curious why you're all like this so much lately. It's been happening in other threads too.
>>11647525Christmas. it makes some of 4chan user like that anon...
>>11647525NTA, but you're on a toy board, in a thread about self-reflecting on your reason behind collecting. No one's "making it their entire personality", we're just answering OP's question. It's like going to /v/ and clicking on a topic about "How you got into video games" and being surprised that's what they're talking about.
>>11647484Thanks, and good to know you also found a career as an artist. =) My family were not well off my brother and I had to share 4 Transformers growing up but we played them all to death.
My childhood was divided in a series of cross-Atlantic moves (parents' work) and for various reasons I formed few lasting friendships on either side. Most of the time I played alone, had two younger sisters and eventually a brother but until he was old enough it was just me and my plastic soldiers, lego, dinosaurs, etc. most of the time. In my 20s I was mostly ignoring my stuff but couldn't bring myself to get rid of most of it... and then Mega released its first wave of Halo Wars sets. My early love of lego and more recent fondness for Halo and its lore had me hooked from the get-go. Collecting those sets is what eventually brought me to /toy/, seeking fellow enthusiasts to swap stories and discuss the sets and Halo in general. Eventually this rekindled my interest in army men and this is why there's always a (slow but comfy) army men general going, heh.Even today I spend most of my time on my own, though I have more friends now than I ever did at any other time in my life it's still mostly being at work or being at home on my own. Still have soldiers, lego, mega and I justify acquiring more by treating it as a photography hobby. Been using my army men to world-build, with considerable lore and many adventures already put together with more down the road.Life turned me into a loner I guess, and my toys are my most faithful companions, the paints and blank canvases with which I create new worlds.
>>11647496I actally had the redversion. I only brought the Kronoforms to school. Also, the rich kids brought toys like the Takatoku Valkyrie and Bluestreak and Starscream.
>>11647551I had a friend who sold vintage toys and he had one customer who we later found out was a gang enforcer and admitted that Power Rangers toys were the only reason he was still alive.
So yeah, I’ve been collecting toys especially robot toys my whole life. My biggest was Transformers. Nothing else satisfied me until Power Rangers came along, but I was starting to enter young adolescence, and was trying my best to not in. Then in the mid 90s, I became diabetic. I must’ve had a sort of screw it attitude and I asked for Power Ranger Zords even throughout high school school.. Then 2012 came flooded from a hurricane which wrecked a lot of of my old collection. And a strange way it was a mixed blessing because it kind of freed up more space for the stuff I collect now and even now I’m starting to want to wind down after 2026 because of both room and the prices of things going up.
>>11647183And stop trying to make the depth of a puddle out to be the size on ocean. It isn't.
>>11647640>I had a friend who sold vintage toys and he had one customer who we later found out was a gang enforcer and admitted that Power Rangers toys were the only reason he was still alive.that's like OP's reason to collect but ON STEROIDSBros...I love toys so much...
>>11646204Because i have no friends and toys are the one hobby that keeps me from killing myself but even then i feel like ive become a hoarder and i need to get rid of a fair share of my collection but im too afraid to feel like i betrayed them by giving them away because i genuinely care for my toys. I know i sound fucking insane by saying this too but im going through my own personal issues atm and toys are sometimes the only friends i have, no one else talks to me besides my folks
>>11647890>i betrayed them by giving them away because i genuinely care for my toys. I know i sound fucking insane by saying this too butI feel you. Some toys became really close to me. When my mother was sick and i was looking after her in hospital and then returning home - i was just sleeping on sofe exausted and our house started to look isolated and lonely - i would want to cry. I would bring my favorite toys (not childhood toys but collectable ones i bought myself as a 30+ lvl man) and put them next to sofa and it would make me feel more calm and i would sleep better.I would never get rid ofthem.If those toys were alive like in Toy Story they would be proud they still have use and so important in my life.
>>11647901damn those typos. but you got the idea
God this thread reeks of desperation from all the incels
>>11646237>I can't imagine why modern democrats want to go back to a Marxist worldPlease explain this more.
>>11647178HOLY SHIT THIS!I don't understand these weirdos. Im in my 40's and have decades of figures from various shows I've watched and regularly re-watch, both new and old. I never collected toys as a kid or have memories of toy stores, but always liked the idea of 3D representation of scenes from cartoons and comics. I guess I also appreciate the engineering element more these days.
>>11647918>>11647178Soulessi bet you like anime and star wars
>>11647923Don't feed shitposters. those monkeys junmping from one thread to another and its pretty much just 1-2 guys
>>11647923>>11647927>Anyone with a differing opinions than me is a shit poster. I hate you sensitive little babies.
>>11647933Rat
>>11647937How am I Athena? You people are not only sensitive babies, but retards too.
>>11647963The athenapedo screams in pain
>>11647965You're just as retarded as he is anon. If you can't tell I'm not Athena then you need to lurk moar.
>>11647969You lost Chungus
>>11647918>I never collected toys as a kid or have memories of toy storesWell, there you go. Nothing wrong with starting to collect as an adult, but that explains why you're not as sentimental about the hobby as some of the others ITT who toys have been a major part of their lives since childhood.
>>11646204>I would like to talk to people over 25-30 whose rooms are often filled with toys that they started collecting back in the 2000-2010s.It's similar to playing an old videogame - It brings me back to an earlier era that I remember fondly, and mentally revisiting it brings me some joy. The older I get the less I view modern toys with a lens of "I wish they'd bring back my childhood" and more "I'm glad kids these days get cool stuff". It's nice to take a break from thinking about the issues my adult life is facing and gawk at some AFOL's MOC or work on my own project. Collecting toys and doing things with them can be a nice hobby and gives you something to show other people and talk about. Going to Brickworld during the summer let me talk to other enthusiasts and see some really cool stuff. tl;dr it's good to stay in touch with your long lost inner child and it's also a nice hobby to have
>>11646204My father played with my toys with me on the floor as a child and he was murdered when I was 6 so it's likely some psychological way for me to still connect with him all these years later. Said murder also lead to an ingrained fear of the outside world where playing alone in my room was only place I felt safe so again toys were my source of entertainment.
>>11647970>>11647965>>11647937>he’s doing his old “steal what others call me” trickUnironically, get a new gimmick.
>>11648179This is terrible, anon...im sorry. I wish i could gift you a new cool toy
>>11648198I hope it didn't come off too bloggy, it felt appropriate for the thread. Whatever the reason for collecting as long as it makes you happy that's all that matters. Sadly the happiness part has been dwindling for me. I still like collecting the ones I like, but the happiness isn't there like it used to be.
