Disclaimer: Please don't take this as a personal offense if this happened to you before. I'm seriously just curious.


Over the past few years, I've observed a frequent pattern with new toy sightings:

1) Someone reports seeing a new figure at retail, with photographic evidence and all.
2) Someone else responds with a variantion of "Saw this at my local Walmart last week. Didn't think it was news."

Snarky responses along the lines of "But you didn't report it. So what?" are met with accusations of being a dick, a smartass or whatever. Sometimes with a kneejerk "Apologies if I don't keep track of every single figure and whether it has been found before or not!"

Now I know the opposite also happens (someone reporting a figure as news even though it has been reported before), but in those cases people are generally more open to corrections ("please delete if old" or "sorry, my bad").

The "saw it before, didn't report it" people seem to be a lot more aggressive and often take criticism of their behavior as a personal offense. Now I know some do it in a slightly guilt-ridden manner ("Whoops.... saw this last week but didn't know it hadn't been reported before!"), but some folks truly come across as braggarts who seem to think that claiming first dibs after the fact will somehow gain them... something.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm seriously not expecting everyone to keep track of every single figure and whether it has been found at retail or not (even though I do in this thread, and everyone is invited to use it for reference if necessary, I don't consider this an obligation).

I honestly just want to understand this mentality. Sure, if you've accidentally missed the opportunity to get a news credit (and seriously, it's not that amazing really) by failing to recognize a new release for what it is, you want to express your frustration.

But what does anyone seriously expect to gain from unapologetically proclaiming that they've seen a figure at retail earlier than the first reported sighting? Is anyone expecting the TFW2005 staff to reassign a news credit to the "saw this first" guy?

The most amusing variation of this happened a while ago when this happened in a thread about new sightings in Russia. As someone else said: "Wow, even the Russians have that 'seen this before' guy!"

Another thing I don't understand is why people only post their first sighting of a figure in their local sightings thread instead of making it more widely known in the News & Rumors forum. Don't you want more people to know that the figure is out in the wild? No wonder people keep asking in the sightings threads if anyone has seen a new figure yet when they don't expect those to be reported on the main page.

 

tl:dr

 

Russians have the toys.

 

I've seen lots of figures first. It makes me feel important and a pioneer of the hobby.

#BETTACOLLEKTA.

Seriously though, I've seen Rescuebots and NuRID One Steps lots of times only to dismiss them and only realising their significance when they pop up as as news. But y'know. I'm a big boy, I can take missing out on a 'noos cred' or three.

 

Some collectors around are just full of themselves. Why is it so important to be the first to report a new wave? Are you getting money out of it (being this the only reason I see relevant to act like that)

 

Sometimes people don't think to do a news story, or they have better things to do with their lives (in reference to your last paragraph) .

 

for a while, i wanted just one news credit. it seemed like a cool thing to have on my side profile, but i'd never want to remove someone else's in order to get mine. but it did become too much effort and i stopped. funny enough i did get one eventually for something i don't even remember!

okay, what does this mean? i see it often, but i can't figure it out.....

 

Tl:dr = Too long. Didn't read

 

Just to be up front, I have once in awhile written, "saw it, didn't think it was news" type of comment. Not being snarky when I do it, more just sort of lackadisically apologizing for not letting people know something they apparently want to know. Not trying to degrade those who are interested in said figure. Like anyone else I have my own view of transformers, but I suppose what's different with me is that I don't concern myself with the greater view of transformers at all or the viewpoint of this website.

As anyone can see from my profile I am not a news credit chaser. On the rare occasion I do find something newsworthy I hand it to a friend of mine in the area to post who likes that sort of thing. Being concerned with who sees what first is just not part of my reality. I honestly don't know who pretends that news on this site actually counts.

So in terms of "understanding my mentality" I would just say I don't take people's opinions on this website into consideration. Not to sound rude but think of it like a college student who uses a library - that student wouldn't be particularly concerned with the librarian of the month or what book is book of the month- that student is there for a more specific purpose in mind - and that's how I see my involvement with this website - more of a reference area and much less of a social interaction thing. I look at all of us here as mostly polite strangers.

 

thank you SOOOOOO very much!!!!

 

I don't necessarily mind people not reporting things because they're don't care enough about it.

I'd like to know why people feel the need to point out they saw it first afterwards, because they do seem to care enough to do that!

If I see tomething new (even if it's secondhand), I just try to get it reported as soon as possible to inform people who want the new figure. I don't care if it's me, Jimbob McMember or TFW2005 Staff #7 doing the reporting. Just as long as it gets reported properly, and the facts are presented correctly. (I do dislike news stories where the person reporting the news doesn't seem to have the faintest idea what the hell they're talking about.)

Again, I even get the "Wow, had I known this was news, I'd have reported it" mentality.

I don't get the semi-aggressive "I already saw this last week!" mentality, sometimes with an underlying "why is something I saw last week (but didn't tell anyone about) considered newsworthy?" subtext.

 

I've seen things before they've been reported, and just shrug my shoulders when I find out it hadn't been reported yet. It really isn't a big deal, but if I know something is new I'll definitely mention it.

 

Your last paragraph made it seem like you do mind, though. Maybe I'm getting the wrong end of the stick.

And I think the last paragraph and the rest of your post are two separate issues.

 

I think its simple one-upmanship in most cases. Some people just cannot tolerate when someone else has something - anything - that they don't. It's sad, but hardly worth concerning oneself with.

Occasionally there does seem to be an element of the personal to it: I once hilariously had someone try to tell me something I posted about a 3P item was not news as they had known it for a while...if they'd bothered to read the thread and not target me, they'd have known it was an ongoing subtopic of the conversation and I was not claiming it was "news" at all.

 

I still don't have a news credit and I feel that my life is unfulfilled til I do.

Or not.

 

 WHAT? There are those who think they deserve something they really didnt earn? Never noticed that on here before.

Is that news? 

 

There are plenty of times where this has happened to me. Of course, i do not get bent out of shape about it either.

 

Ya know, there are times I see something get a lot of fanfare and I think to myself "well sunuvagun- I saw that in Target last week. Coulda gotten a news credit or be first with a long thread or something."
This being a discussion board where people are compelled to post I imagine people actually type it out rather than keep it to themselves.

I try to just scroll past seemingly unhappy content and move on.

 

What? This is the internet noob! Pitchforks and kneejerk reactions or GTFO!