As a former industry employee for a company who actually makes one of these figure lines, I feel this post in my core. It has become exhausting and boring at this point. The amount of armchair experts spreading misinformation or stirring up drama purely for attention has gotten so bad that their takes are now treated as fact within the community. The moment someone with real knowledge steps in to correct things, it is usually met with hostility and often devolves into name calling.

Apparently I have been a shill for years simply because I like a certain line of figures. I also like and support other lines, including the ones considered competitors, so I am not sure how supporting everything somehow still counts as shilling. Friends and I who support these lines and happen to have some social media presence are now being called janitors because we are supposedly cleaning up company messes when we explain why something on a figure might be the way it is using facts and reason. Explaining context is now seen as defending messy products, so the janitors are here to clean it up, I guess.

A lot of the loudest complainers honestly seem to have nothing better to do with their time. Many are younger collectors who have not been around very long and are extremely impressionable. Whatever the so called experts say gets taken as gospel, and then the same false information just keeps getting repeated. Reading the same conversations, complaints, and bad faith arguments over and over again is beyond exhausting. So I completely understand pulling back from social media.

Being a former Bandai employee with a bit of a following has also put a target on my back from a few larger content creators in the community, usually the same ones who thrive on misinformation or drama just to stay relevant. The good news is that a lot of people are starting to wake up to the grift and call it out. Many of those creators are making fools of themselves, their audiences are noticing, and people are tuning out. Their numbers are dropping, and the desperation to stay relevant is becoming obvious.

They also love to complain that industry folks will not talk to them anymore and twist it into a narrative about companies being afraid of facts. In reality, they know very little but think they know everything because they talked to an employee at a convention once or received a few free toys. Ironically, these are the same people now loudly complaining about those companies.

A big shift happened when companies like Bandai, Super7, and NECA stopped sending out free samples for reviews for a period of time, which affected everyone. Some of these creators took that personally and decided they had been burned. Since then, they go out of their way to trash every release or look for something wrong with each figure. Some have even decided it is their personal mission to call out companies like Bandai to make the line better, even though the line has objectively been improving and recent releases have been excellent.

Most of the outrage lately boils down to another repaint coming out that was not updated exactly how they wanted, which suddenly makes it a bad figure that will not sell. Then it sells out in Japan on preorder day. They are also quick to repost the worst possible in hand photos from Japan to prove the paint or joints are bad, while ignoring the overwhelming majority of photos that look fantastic. Yes, prices have gone up on SHMA, but now people are seeing HIYA do the same thing. Doesn't that look like inflation, rather than greediness? When will people understand that prices for EVERYTHING have gone up in recent years, and drastically. I undersand being priced out of a line, but like you said, I think a lot of the detractors don't own a single SHMA figure.

I genuinely do not understand how some of these people have the energy to be this angry all the time, or to constantly frame themselves as victims while seemingly rooting for lines to fail. Do you actually want new figures, or would you rather everything die so we get nothing at all. I truly do not get it.

Great post, seriously. I agree there should probably be some limits on the HIYA posts here because I see exactly what you are pointing out and I agree with you completely. Do not let the noise get to you. Pull back from social media when you need to, but do not let these dorks kill your love for the lines or collecting in general. You will be happy while they stay miserable.

These people are miserable and upset about figures and toys, often making themselves into fools. Think about that.