What bothers you about this hobby?

[teggacat]

Something that is completely avoidable that bothers us is watching the largest cel community resource Rubberslug rot internally due to negligence, and by extension, the cel community die a slow and painful death is most disheartening.

Wow, cheers to you too. Obviously, as a many years cel collector I get what you're saying but its really not THAT life ending, I mean Ive been still picking up some decent little cels for reasonable prices and updating on RS, having fun in my own little way, staying far away from those overwhelming scalpers, so yeah, its prob never going to be what it once was in the ole heyday but really, what is?

[cutiebunny]

Something that is completely avoidable that bothers us is watching the largest cel community resource Rubberslug rot internally due to negligence, and by extension, the cel community die a slow and painful death is most disheartening.

Wow, cheers to you too...

I am glad that I wasn't the only one that read Momo's post and said "Wow" under my breath. How are you going to gripe about the cel community dying when you've contributed how much to this board this past year...?

Having organized some of the community events in the past and having been around for the (long?) defunct Beta Awards, I've observed that everyone wants the events of days past but no one wants to take the time out of their life to run them. I get that priorities have changed for many Betarians over the decade+ years of this board's existence, but calling out the community for their lack of participation when you're not participating as well just makes you out to be hypocritical.

I don't think that the cel community is dying but the demographics have certainly changed since some of us old timers started collecting in the 90s and early aughts. There are a lot more French collectors than there were in the 2000s. The entire top floor of Mandarake Nakano was swamped with French collectors when I was there in November. Having been there a handful of times since 2009, this visit stood out because I didn't see any Japanese collectors perusing Mandarake & Twin Angel's shop. There's a lot more collectors from Mainland China now as well. Instead of creating galleries, people post their latest acquisitions to IG. It is what it is.