Consoomers - What's the difference between consooming and collecting? Is there a difference?

[melty]

What do you guys think is the difference in being a collector and being a consoomer? Is there a difference?

Are people who collect things like stamps just old-school consoomers?

What crosses the line for you? Do you collect anything and feel its different from consooming?

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

Wait, the thread about consoomers hits you too hard or are genuine questions?

 

[melty]

Wait, the thread about consoomers hits you too hard or are genuine questions?

The consoomers thread had a lot of people discussing if something is consooming is not, and less talking about crazy consoomers. So this thread is for the discussion.

 

[Fromtheblackdepths]

The consoomers thread had a lot of people discussing if something is consooming is not, and less talking about crazy consoomers. So this thread is for the discussion.

Do you not spend more than $1500 on an object less than 3 inches tall? Do you own different forms of that medium? Do you invest yourself into the community, go to conventions, or have an in-depth idea of what you like? Are you willing to explore what makes the medium interesting;talk to others about it? Can you keep your emotions together when a new product comes out? If not, you're a consumer.

 

[Danny.exe]

Collecting is something you do as a hobby and have more than enough disposable income to support. As a side note, it's often done with more rare or desirable objects, not mass produced crap at every toy and game store.
Consooming is an obsession where you'll give up money that you need for essentials in order to get more product. Tends to be done just because of a brand rather than the quality of what is being sold.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Consoomers are people who consume the newest shit based on hype and brand loyalty. They buy things not because they genuinely like to have something, but they want to be "in with the times" and with the "hip crowd".

A collector is someone who buys stuff based on his own personal tastes. He might be buying something new, he might be buying something old, but it all depends on his own arbitrary desires not related to fitting in with the hip crowd or what the big corporation says.

Sometimes, the two might overlap, but the CONSOOMER does things because the corporate hype machine got to them, whereas the collector collects things regardless of hype.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

The consoomers thread had a lot of people discussing if something is consooming is not, and less talking about crazy consoomers. So this thread is for the discussion.

Ah, in that case:

• Collectors are still consoomers, i mean; paying to collectioning things is still falling in the same spectre, you gonna anyway give more money that the regular public. It's just like wasting money in gacha games.
• Stamps... since i knew about Bob Chandler having a collection about those... i can actually have respect of that hobby. Probably is in the same spectre as the others but i don't consider too "consoomer".
• Like i said earlier, is only delimetral when you spend more money in that rather than... i don't know, self-invest, health or real estate.

Sorry for being rude earlier, with some threads about those things got derailed (the coomer one) i'm more curious about the real objectives of these type of threads.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Ah, in that case:

• Collectors are still consoomers, i mean; paying to collectioning things is still falling in the same spectre, you gonna anyway give more money that the regular public. It's just like wasting money in gacha games.
• Stamps... since i knew about Bob Chandler having a collection about those... i can actually have respect of that hobby. Probably is in the same spectre as the others but i don't consider too "consoomer".
• Like i said earlier, is only delimetral when you spend more money in that rather than... i don't know, self-invest, health or real estate.

Sorry for being rude earlier, with some threads about those things got derailed (the coomer one) i'm more curious about the real objectives of these type of threads.

The definition of "regular public" changes with time. Heck, in the 80s, it was regular for a household to have a collection of toys from different cartoon shows. And just because someone is spending more money for his hobby, doesn't mean he deserves to be lumped into the same group that wants to buy 500 funko pops just because of the hype train.

 

[The Curmudgeon]

I was one of the derailers in the other thread. I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to derail it, but I did because I got defensive. The only collections I have are comics, Mad Magazines, and books. I only buy comics and books that I read, so I don't know if those count as proper collections in the consoomer sense. I'm content with my Mad Magazine collection.

That aside, I actually agree with you guys about consoomers. It's also a fine line between sincere collectors and mindless consoomers. That line is often blurred!

 

[Ita Mori]

What do you guys think is the difference in being a collector and being a consoomer?

A collector has a clear goal, passion, and a bit of moderation. They also care for the products they purchased even as time goes on.
A consoomer exists only to buy whatever the fanciest trailers and hypetrains tell him to, and once said product becomes stale or out-of-fashion, gets discarded or treated with disdain.

One's a museum for a particular thing, the other is a landfill riddled with corporate trash.

 

[DuckofDoom]

To my mind, the difference between a collector and a consoomer is intent and genuine rarity. Consoomers want something because it is new or artificially limited in some way. A collector wants something because it has some sort of significance they don't want lost.

For example, someone collecting star wars action figures from the 70s and 80s is actually preserving something that has been played with and would otherwise end up in some landfill eventually. They aren't being produced any more and many have been destroyed or damaged over the decades. Contrast that with someone "collecting" all the latest MCU action figures. They aren't preserving anything, because they are currently being produced in massive numbers, any rarity is entirely up to the manufacturer at this point.

I've no interest in action figures myself, but I have a hell of a lot more respect for someone who seeks out a rare toy from the 70s than someone preordering every "limited edition" avengers toy.

 

[Dandelion Eyes]

I think to most people the difference is based on their subjective views of dignity. And if with with stamps and toys it's pretty clear cut, what about minifigures, that you have to build and paint yourself? What about knives and guns?

So to me it's more about the degree of your involvement in this hobby, how much you actively do. You collect stamps, but you just order them from a catalog that your post sends you? You're a consoomer. But if you have penfriends in different countries so that you can exchange local stamps, and you have to unglue them from letters, now you're a collector. Same thing with toys: if you, I dunno, hunt down some rare Hot Wheels car that was released 40 years ago, and then repair and repaint it yourself, you're not a consoomer anymore.

 

[Mr. A. L. Mao]

It's hard to pin down, but you know it when you see it. Possible qualifications:

• Little or no artistic merit or utility to the items in question
• Cheap, gimmicky, mass produced (perfect for quick dopamine hits)
• Items shilled by soulless corporate entities
• Not age appropriate (GROWN ADULTS COLLECTING PLASTIC FIGURES OF SUPER HEROES)
• No history or further knowledge to be gained about them, no depth like a "real" hobby would have
• No lasting value (would anybody in their right mind buy this from you)
• Rarity
• Used as a substitution for a real personality

IMO, this leaves a lot of room for collections that may not have much utility (stamps, coin collections, etc.) but which have merits like history, rarity, or lasting value to balance that out.

 

[Kero]

To just be upfront and say what we all really mean, a consoomer is someone who buys worthless mass produced junk that was created purely for profit / has no artistic value.

You can start the argument over subjectivity but c’mon. A dude who spends 20k on funko pops is not the same as someone who buys 19th century automata.

 

[Beautiful Border]

The definition of "regular public" changes with time. Heck, in the 80s, it was regular for a household to have a collection of toys from different cartoon shows. And just because someone is spending more money for his hobby, doesn't mean he deserves to be lumped into the same group that wants to buy 500 funko pops just because of the hype train.

The big difference is that those toys were being bought by parents for their kids to play with, which is an entirely different context from an adult buying toys for themselves and then never taking them out the box. I'm sure people like that existed at the time, by the mid-90s it was at least well-known enough for the bad guy in Toy Story 2 to be one (which is a good indication of how such people were seen by the regular public).

 

[Sperghetti]

I personally don’t limit consooming to just objects. I consider it to be the whole “consume product, get excited for next product” mentality, where the focus is more on obsessively acquiring or experiencing whatever the latest thing is, and either ignoring or mentally discarding older stuff. I think the concept can apply to anything from objects to TV shows to video games, as long as the emphasis is more on participating in the hype-saturated culture than on actually enjoying the content/object itself.

I tend to think of collectors more as people who can also be obsessive, but tend enjoy the object of their hobby for its own sake. Collectors also aren't afraid to specialize or limit themselves to a particular niche, and often prefer to in the interest of preserving their budget, time, and space.

So for the example of stamps, I'd consider you stamp consoomer if all you did was just grab every single new design the USPS produces, and that was your only goal. I presume most stamp collectors, though, tend to focus on seeking out stamps from particular countries, time periods, artwork, etc.

 

[Maurice Caine]

Do you not spend more than $1500 on an object less than 3 inches tall? Do you own different forms of that medium? Do you invest yourself into the community, go to conventions, or have an in-depth idea of what you like? Are you willing to explore what makes the medium interesting;talk to others about it? Can you keep your emotions together when a new product comes out? If not, you're a consumer.

I have never spent more than $100 on a single purchase.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

I think when you're a 41 year old buying up Harry Potter toys at a department store and it's not for a child, then you're a consoomer.

This is my neighbor. She has an entire room full of HP memorabilia, multiple book releases (which is fine I guess as those can be valuable), but then a whole bunch of other stupid shit.

I guess a consoomer makes you feel...sad.

 

[Kero]

I have never spent more than $100 on a single purchase.

If that ain’t worth the tipped fedora I don’t know what is

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

A collector chooses.

A consoomer obeys.