Monday, June 7, 2021

Sour grapes, sure, but not unjustified...

Is this what it's come to? I just want to be clear that I don't care about boxing, Logan Paul, or really even Pokémon, but I am somehow intrigued by the intersection of those things and the out of control speculative collector-ism that only a year of pandemic and the absurdity of internet celebrity can yield. 
Although I do care slightly more about boxing when it
involves an internet celebrity getting punched.
People who think capitalism is circling
the drain need look no further than the
value of Pokémon cards for proof.
Logan Paul, whom you might remember as that Youtube guy who paid millions of dollars for Pokémon cards and-huh? No, you're thinking of Logic, the rapper. There's a distressing number of people paying many times the price of a house for a trading cards. Anyway, Paul, the star of videos of him being a dick to Japanese people, bought some unopened packs, opened them, and found a number of super-rare cards including two holographic Charizard cards worth a total of two million dollars of money.

Above: pretty much the past
twenty years.
Anyway, last night, because the twenty-first century has been an unceasing circus of horror and madness, Paul fought former heavy weight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. in an exhibition match. Paul lost, because he's not a former heavyweight champion (and he even thinks Mayweather may have let him off easy), but the news has been mostly about how he wore one of his Charizard cards, surrounded by diamonds, on a chain around his neck

"Well, at least it's tasteful." 
-No one
Because that's what people do, I guess. My personal feelings about speculative collecting of pop culture nonsense aside, what's even the deal with that? Is owning a holographic Charizard card somehow an accomplishment? Anyone with two million dollars of disposable wealth lying around could have bought the thirty-six blind packs. They shoulndn't, I mean, holy shit, there are way better things one can do with that kind of money, but my point is Paul didn't really do anything. 

Mathematical probability seems like the real hero here, and he didn't wear a TI-86 around his neck. So is wearing the card just about ostentation? Like, get me, I'm rich? 
"Get me, I'm rich!"
-A man wearing thirty people's 
student debt around his neck
Pictured: Floyd Mayweather,
living the dream.
Is it really sour grapes when the person whose success I take issue became famous by thrown dead fish at taxis in Tokyo? Maybe (definitely), but in my defense he did wear a diamond encrusted lanyard containing a children's trading card which we, as a civilization, have agreed should be worth a million dollars, around his neck to a pretend boxing match that people paid to watch. Apart from Mayweather, who got to punch Logan Paul, no one here wins.

I don't think I'm too far off base when I say that everything about this is evidence of our collapse, right? Like, I'm not just imagining it?
Pfft, everyone wants something for nothing. Why don't they get real jobs
like celebrity boxing exhibition matches or Pokémon trading card speculation?

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