Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / Talking w/Dustin ⁨The Sports Card Dad⁩ About Snype, Sponsorships, Adversarial Commenters, and More!

Transcript

Talking w/Dustin ⁨The Sports Card Dad⁩ About Snype, Sponsorships, Adversarial Commenters, and More! · Sports Card Clubhouse

0:01
Hey everybody, it is Mike and I'm excited.
0:03
I'm joined by Honey Bunny today. That's, I've been holding on to
0:08
that joke for a week now, Dustin.
0:10
So and you delivered it perfectly.
0:12
Thank you. You know it's funny because you
0:15
posted your apology video. It was last Monday, maybe
0:19
Tuesday. Something like that, yeah.
0:22
And I had while you were going through that, I was thinking to
0:25
myself, I got to have Dustin on to talk about this.
0:28
And then you mentioned, oh, Honey Bunny is going to be a
0:30
thing forever. And I said, there it is right
0:33
there. I'm going to introduce him as
0:34
Honey Bunny. But obviously it's Dustin.
0:37
Sports car dad Legendary YouTube.
0:39
Thanks for joining me. I don't know about legendary,
0:41
but yeah, thanks Mike. You're you're one of the guys.
0:44
It's funny, over the last couple of nationals, I'm like, I'm
0:46
definitely going to run into Mike at the National.
0:49
And I thought about I should reach out to him beforehand.
0:51
And it's like now, I mean, what we we like hang around the same
0:54
kind of circle of people or like overlapping circles.
0:57
I'll definitely see Mike and I never have for whatever reason.
1:00
And we're we're there for like 3 or 4 days and it just hasn't
1:02
happened. So I'm glad that we're like
1:04
here. Yeah, and we've never spoken
1:06
outside of a Instagram. Private message.
1:08
It's weird, yeah. It's like it's a paradox, but
1:11
here we are. Yeah, so I, I saw you at the
1:14
National and you had a huge entourage and I just couldn't
1:17
breakthrough. Yeah, well, I brought especially
1:20
this last national, I'm like, I need at least 40 or 50 people
1:23
around just to make sure nothing weird happens.
1:25
But no, somebody said that they had just, I was, I don't
1:30
remember what I was doing, but somebody said, oh, I just talked
1:32
to Dustin and I said, what Where is Dustin?
1:34
They said over there. And so I, I walked over, looked
1:36
all around, couldn't find you anywhere.
1:38
So you must have seen me coming and you ducked me.
1:41
It's odd too, because you're from, I think you've said you're
1:44
6 two or six three. So it's like it's not like I
1:47
like I feel like I wouldn't have missed you too.
1:49
Like it just must have been, I don't know, just the the fates.
1:51
It hasn't happened and but it it'll definitely happen next
1:54
national. I'm confident of that.
1:55
Yeah, we'll make it happen. So your video, the apology
2:00
video, which by the way, I thought was very good if if I
2:03
were ever sponsored by somebody that something or and I guess
2:07
actually we'll talk about this, but I assumed all this time that
2:11
you had been sponsored by him, which we'll get to.
2:13
But I thought where you promoted him pretty heavily for the
2:17
couple weeks leading up to snipe launch and snipe collapse.
2:21
You posted a video apologizing to the people who signed up,
2:24
which I thought was great. Talk me through your mindset
2:26
over that few days or even the week leading up to it.
2:30
Leading up to the video or the yeah, it's like going, yeah, OK,
2:36
so yeah, I mean, there's there's, there was so much there
2:40
where it was just, I was in complete shock, to be honest.
2:42
Like the Monday when that site went down, that was just not on
2:46
my radar at all. And again, I, I talked about in
2:48
the video like maybe just completely naive to the fact
2:51
that like the actual website wasn't going to work because
2:56
when I it just kind of going back, we actually just mentioned
2:58
the the National. Let me go back in time a little
3:00
bit. So the first time I saw kind of
3:02
like first hand what Snipe was going to look like was at the
3:05
National. They had a booth set up, Rob and
3:08
his or Rick and his team. They had a booth set up and they
3:12
had kind of like, you know, the website was there and kind of
3:14
you could see some of the functionality there.
3:16
And I and I was like, man, there's actually like a few
3:18
things about the site that I really like.
3:21
I like the fact that you can see the usernames, you know, when
3:23
they're bidding, they're right there.
3:25
I like the chat feature. I know some people weren't too
3:27
crazy about the chat feature, but I was like, you know what,
3:29
that's different, you know, trying something new.
3:32
I like the fact that there, so basically what Rick was offering
3:36
is fulfillment on the back end to where if you're a seller, you
3:40
know, you could sell 50 things and then you could then ship it
3:43
all to Probstein and then he'll handle fulfillment on the back
3:45
end. So I'm like, that actually
3:47
sounds good compared to like, so if we're comparing to like a
3:49
whatnot, you sell 50 items, 50 singles and then you send out 50
3:53
packages. You know, so when I'm looking at
3:56
this thing that's on its face, I was like, this actually looks
3:59
pretty cool. And so I wanted to just kind of
4:00
learn more about it on the back of of the National.
4:04
I started a series, the 20 minutes Wood series where I was
4:07
interviewing, you know, different industry folks.
4:09
And honestly, that was in Part 2 because a lot of people I, I
4:12
only see at the National, I'm like, this is a good way for me
4:14
to stay in touch with people. You know, just have kind of go
4:17
back to more of the interview stuff.
4:19
I'd done this early on in my channel going back in time, and
4:22
I was like, you know, I should do this kind of where I'm
4:24
talking with the Jeff Wilsons and the Ty Wilsons and the Rob
4:27
Varices. And I asked Rick, you know, as
4:29
part of this, like, hey, you want to come on?
4:31
I think this would be kind of like he's somebody that's not
4:33
necessarily front and center on YouTube.
4:35
You don't see him like he's got an Instagram, but it's like this
4:38
is kind of interesting. And then he's building this new
4:40
platform. At the time he said, you know
4:42
what, we're just going to focus on the website, you know, so
4:45
let's let's kind of table that and we'll come back to it.
4:47
And then as time went on after the national couple months
4:50
later, Snipes starting to come to fruition more.
4:53
And then you decided like, oh, OK, let let let's come on and
4:55
talk about it. And he had he did mention the
4:58
affiliate program. And so, yeah, just to kind of
5:00
clarify, it wasn't, it wasn't a traditional sponsorship in the
5:03
sense that I got to pay out, you know, to it to promote the the
5:06
channel. But there was a, you know,
5:08
affiliate sponsorship program that I knew was coming, you
5:11
know, it's part of the website coming.
5:13
So that's where, you know, I announced it as kind of like a,
5:16
a channel partner. It was an affiliate partnership
5:18
essentially, which was was essentially open to everybody.
5:22
You could go onto that site, you could share a listing and be a
5:26
part of kind of that, that affiliate program, you could
5:28
sign up for it. So, you know, but again, like
5:31
what we never got, we never got to any affiliate type type
5:35
anything because it just never, it never panned out, obviously.
5:37
So when the site went down, I was kind of more in like like
5:42
everybody else, like, oh, the, the site went down, you know,
5:45
and, and I assume the site would come back up, you know, I assume
5:48
that like, OK, you know, there's they're obviously having some
5:51
technical issues. I'd seen this happen before.
5:54
I'd seen this happen with I think it was maybe a golden
5:56
auction or maybe it was a fanatics collect.
5:59
You know, I'd seen it happen to where I think I'm pretty sure it
6:02
was golden, you know, to where, you know, he had basically like,
6:06
oh, this auction didn't like it didn't end properly or
6:08
something. So we had to we had to shut it
6:09
down or we had to, you know, relist some things or whatever
6:12
it was. So my initial reaction was OK,
6:16
like new site, something didn't, you know, pop off correctly.
6:20
They're going to fix it. Well, as time started to go on,
6:22
then it was like, what is going on with this?
6:25
And I hadn't heard anything from Rick or his team.
6:29
I did reach out to catch him collectibles, which now people
6:31
he, he's on the Pokémon side. I knew I, I've known Dan a
6:34
little bit. I'm not best buddies with Dan or
6:37
anything, but I've had some communication with him because
6:40
he's a respected Pokémon YouTube and dealer.
6:43
And yeah, guy seems like a really straight shooter.
6:46
I knew that he had product over there.
6:49
You know, that that he had with Rick.
6:51
So I reached out to, to Dan and he basically said, yeah, I
6:54
haven't heard anything, but, but I'm, I'm going to put a video
6:57
out here over the next couple of days just to talk about it.
7:00
So my, my initial thought was I really want to hear from Rick.
7:04
Like I would like to hear from Rick before I dive in.
7:07
I've done this before where I've dived in and I didn't have all
7:09
the information. I'm like, I'm just not going to
7:11
do it this time. I'm going to wait.
7:13
I'm not going to make 10 speculation videos.
7:15
I'm just going to wait and I'm going to see what happens.
7:18
And then of course, you know, we, we got the statement out and
7:20
then I was like, you know, OK, this not, not only is it like
7:24
not working properly now, but now the site's never coming
7:27
back. So, you know, then then it was
7:28
time to kind of react to make a video on it.
7:30
That was kind of a long winded answer to your to your question
7:32
there. No, it was really good.
7:34
So have you heard from Rick yet? I have not other than the same
7:38
statement that everybody else got.
7:40
And frankly I'm not, I'm not reaching out.
7:42
So yeah, understandable. So how has since that video I
7:47
haven't been in your comments section?
7:49
I generally I try to avoid comment sections altogether,
7:52
which I think is very good practice for anybody.
7:55
How has your comment section reacted to that apology video?
7:58
It seemed to me, just by my own personal viewing, like a very
8:03
good, very honest, contrite reaction to what had happened.
8:08
But how have your commenters reacted?
8:11
Overall very positive about it. Yeah, understanding, I would
8:15
say, you know, it's I'm still shocked, I still am to this day,
8:21
that it was the website, you know, that went down.
8:23
I and that was just something that I ever looked such a basic
8:26
thing that that I overlooked. You know, I could understand if
8:31
they just flat out lost a competition like Fanatics
8:33
collector, eBay or whatever. They just couldn't hack it.
8:36
But the site just completely failing, you know, and maybe
8:39
that's something, maybe there was, you know, I, I kind of look
8:41
back at it. Maybe I should have seen, but
8:43
I'm not an I'm not a, an auction expert, you know, as far as how
8:47
they're run. So, you know, just looking back
8:50
there, I don't feel like there's anything I could have done other
8:52
than just never, you know, done it in the first place, I guess.
8:57
But you know, that's, that's kind of where we're at.
8:59
So yeah, no, I, I got for the most part, I think it was, it
9:02
was, you know, understanding now.
9:05
And on my end, it's it's a lesson learned for sure.
9:08
Yeah. And I just want to be clear,
9:10
Dustin was not involved in any of this.
9:12
But I also want to talk about the allegations against
9:15
Probstein's site that came from, I think it's Elite forum.com of
9:19
the back end vulnerabilities where people are able to see
9:24
what appears to be shill bidding by the house by by shill by Rick
9:30
Probstein and associates. What what are your thoughts on
9:33
that and strictly allegations? There's very compelling evidence
9:37
that could be manufactured. We don't know, but what are
9:40
your? Thoughts.
9:41
It doesn't look good, you know, and the problem is is that I
9:44
think like everybody else, we all kind of look at it and we're
9:47
like, well this doesn't look good at all But again, like we
9:50
don't have anything from the other side, you know, we don't
9:52
have anything from Rick. We may never get anything from
9:55
Rick and their team, but, you know, unless he comes out with
9:58
some sort of, you know, statement or, or explanation or
10:01
something, it's hard to comment on it because, yeah, I mean, it
10:04
looks bad. We can speculate for sure.
10:06
I'm not any sort of a tech wizard.
10:08
So, you know, I, you know, I, I can look at it and, and draw a
10:12
conclusion, but I think it's, it's probably what, what
10:15
everybody else is thinking. Like everyone, everyone's got to
10:17
look at it, make their own decisions and figure out, you
10:20
know, kind of come to their own conclusion.
10:22
But if there's no, if there isn't any information from the
10:25
other side, then it just then there's going to be heavy
10:27
speculation, you know, I mean, that's, that's the way it's
10:30
going to go. I.
10:32
I feel like the most damning thing though is his silence.
10:37
He hasn't come out and denied it.
10:41
Yeah. And I would assume that he again
10:44
an assumption, making an assumption that he was advised
10:46
not to, you know, so that's the only reason why you would you
10:50
would not, I guess I mean, I, I don't know.
10:52
Yeah, yeah. So Speaking of your comments
10:55
section, one of the one of the things that I notice a lot when
11:00
I do venture into your comments section is.
11:02
It's so happy. You're not all of your kind of
11:10
many of your kind. I would say the overwhelming
11:12
majority of your commenters love you.
11:14
They are very positive about you.
11:16
But there is a semi large number of people who are there to troll
11:22
you and are upset about your your sponsorships and the length
11:27
of time it takes to get to the video.
11:29
Talk about your reaction to those people, 'cause you will
11:32
often have a very kind, I guess, reaction to these people, but I
11:38
feel like it still hurts you, right?
11:41
Well, I, I think that I have to kind of take it with a grain of
11:45
salt because I do think that a lot of the, a lot of the
11:48
comments come from people that have never made content before.
11:51
And so, you know, I take it from that standpoint of, well, maybe
11:54
this person's never actually made content, you know, to where
11:57
they might not understand, might like they've got their
11:59
perspective based off of what they've done or what they know
12:03
or whatever. If you're somebody like you or
12:05
me, I, I'm, I'm almost six years into making content.
12:09
I, I really view sponsorships as OK.
12:13
When I see a channel that's sponsored and there's, there's
12:16
a, some sort of a sponsorship, I'm thinking like way to go for
12:19
that content creator now, unless it's something, you know, Philip
12:22
Morris or, you know, tobacco or whatever.
12:24
Like if it's something I don't like, I'm like, God, that's a
12:25
lame, you can think it's a lame sponsor, but I don't look at
12:29
sponsors and just go like, Oh my God, like I can't believe it,
12:32
you know, took a sponsor, can't believe it in part because, you
12:36
know, people that make content, they put a lot of work into it,
12:39
you know, and it might, it might be like for me, I don't
12:42
necessarily edit a video for four or five hours.
12:44
It might be quicker, you know, than than other people, but I've
12:47
still been doing it pretty much daily for almost 6 years.
12:49
People put time into this, you know, and it's fun work, you
12:52
know, it's work, but it's really fun work.
12:55
But if somebody is able to or chooses to, because you don't
12:59
have to, there's people, I think you mentioned like you, you've
13:01
gotten certainly offers and you've decided not to, whether
13:04
people choose to or not that it's their prerogative.
13:06
But I guess I just, I, I cheer on kind of more of, of, of that
13:10
sort of a thing when I see it because I know that there's work
13:12
that goes into it. Additionally, guess what, you
13:15
know, YouTube when they, you know, you can make a video
13:18
called like 10 reasons why I don't like whatnot.
13:20
And guess what? YouTube will probably add a
13:22
whatnot ad on the front, on the front and the back of that
13:24
video. So like you can literally be
13:26
watching it. I hate whatnot video that has
13:29
whatnot ads all around it. So to me, it's kind of like, and
13:32
that, and we can't control that, you know, that's just whatever.
13:35
Yeah, we, we turn on there's, if there's ads on it, you don't
13:37
know what ads are going to be running on it.
13:39
That that's up to, to YouTube. So I never really understood
13:44
that the push back on it. I I can understand certainly if
13:47
somebody is sponsored by somebody and they're just kind
13:49
of like they're heavily in favor of that company over others.
13:52
I'll use an example on my channel, you know, with PSA, I'm
13:56
sponsored by PSA. And then before that it was SGC.
13:59
I really try to do a good job of, of showcasing that we have,
14:03
in my opinion, four really strong grading companies and,
14:07
and authentication companies in our space.
14:09
You know, some people argue that Beckett is not that anymore, you
14:12
know, or, or some would argue that SGC is no longer that
14:14
anymore. But I, I really like the fact
14:17
that we've got 4 grading companies that are legitimate
14:20
and my, and that's just my opinion.
14:23
And even if I was, you know, sponsored by SGC or PSAI, still
14:26
talk, I talk, I try to, to the best of my ability, you know,
14:29
like if there's a grading company that's just not like
14:31
does something stupid, then fine.
14:33
But for the most part, I am pro third party grading and
14:36
authentication because I was there in 1990 when there wasn't
14:39
any. And it, there was no market,
14:41
there was no confidence in this space.
14:43
And why would there be? Because it was a lot of trust
14:45
me, bro dealers. You think it's bad now, you
14:49
know, imagine the Internet going back in time to that, you know,
14:51
that think, think if it was today's environment without
14:53
third party grading and you really we, we would have all
14:56
sorts of scams to talk about, you know, with fake cards and,
15:00
you know, counterfeit this and that.
15:01
So I'm using third party grading, third party grading as
15:04
one example as far as kind of sponsorships go, and it's all
15:07
and it's a fire, you know, it's, it gets people fired up anyway.
15:10
People are going to get upset with with grading companies and
15:12
rightfully so in certain instances.
15:14
But, you know, to me, you know, I'm that that's an instance
15:18
where I'm, I'm, you know, PSA is a sponsor, but I'm trying to be
15:22
positive about all four of those companies.
15:25
So when you're sponsored by PSA, how comfortable can you get
15:29
criticizing them when they're in the middle of a scandal of some
15:32
sort? For instance, when they
15:32
partnered with Backyard Breaks back and I think April Ish, did
15:36
you talk about that and did you criticize them?
15:40
I don't know if I made a set video on it.
15:42
I can't remember to be honest. And, and, and you know, I don't
15:46
go out of my way to talk badly about any grading companies.
15:49
Actually, to be fair, I don't go out of my way to talk badly
15:52
about any, any companies in the space for the most part, you
15:55
know, for the most part, I don't go out of my way to do that, you
15:58
know, so, but I will say that's also I, I would say that's on
16:02
brand for me for since Day 1, though, And maybe that's
16:06
probably, you know, the, the, the corporate side of people say
16:09
like I was just too corporate. Maybe that is true to some
16:11
degree that I'm just maybe not. I'm not tough enough on, on the
16:15
industry. It could that that could very
16:17
well be compared to other content creators for sure.
16:20
Yeah, I mean, I would say I don't think you need to go out
16:22
of your way to be critical of companies like PSA when they
16:25
partner with backyard brakes. It's pretty low hanging fruit.
16:28
Yeah, yeah, I went, I was more so I focused more on on backyard
16:32
breaks. I, I did make a video about
16:34
about backyard when that happened.
16:37
I didn't necessarily make the the video.
16:39
I can't remember if I made the video about PSA and backyard,
16:42
but when the whole thing happened with backyard, I did
16:44
make a video specifically about that.
16:46
So, you know, I guess it just depends.
16:50
Do you ever consider taking more of a bigger stance against
16:55
certain companies, or do you feel like it would hurt your
16:59
standing with them in terms of potential sponsorships?
17:02
I don't think about it. I don't put a ton of thought
17:05
into that. I don't, I guess I don't there's
17:09
not a lot. There's, there's not tons of
17:11
companies in this space. You know, there's not.
17:13
If it was up to me, I'd have more of a balance of companies
17:16
that are outside of the hobby. Even though I did take a magic
17:20
spoon sponsorship for a couple of months.
17:21
I even got hell for that. And it's, it's literally cereal,
17:25
you know, So I, I just learned that nothing is going to be
17:27
good, you know, for, for most people, they're just going to,
17:29
they're not going to like it regardless.
17:33
But for me, I, I'm not necessarily thinking like, OK, I
17:36
need to make sure that I keep my mouse shut so that I don't, you
17:39
know, risk any sort of, you know, losing a sponsor or, or
17:44
not being able to gain a sponsor in, in the future.
17:48
Yeah. I I don't really think of it
17:50
from that side. Yeah, so the magic spoon thing
17:54
was interesting. I actually didn't see the magic
17:56
spoon. Somebody else mentioned it to me
17:58
and I was, I was surprised, but also surprised at the blowback
18:01
by it. Like I was in a text group with
18:03
somebody who was like, what is he thinking getting magic spoon?
18:07
And I was like, magic spoon is very strange.
18:09
But why would we be critical of him opening up the door to
18:14
outside sponsorships? Because I have sponsors.
18:17
I like having sponsors. I like, I love doing what I do,
18:20
but I also like making money doing this as I can.
18:23
And for me, you are one of those people who kind of opened the
18:27
door. You took a lot of criticism when
18:29
you started taking sponsors heavily and you almost
18:33
normalized it for us, for the rest of us who are starting to
18:36
take sponsorships. I've done it for a couple years
18:38
now. And the magic spoon thing
18:40
intrigued me because I thought, well, this, this could be the
18:44
opening. And I had a conversation with
18:45
another YouTube who was trying to negotiate deals with a couple
18:50
of non hobby companies. And that, that's the type of
18:53
thing that made me say very interesting.
18:56
So what was the reaction in your comments to Magic Spoon?
18:58
Because I didn't see that either.
19:01
What is cereal have to do with trading cards?
19:03
You know what, you know, this guy will take money from
19:06
anybody, which is funny because I I've not taken money from a
19:10
lot of people too, you know, so I, I don't just take every
19:13
everything. I know that that's like a very,
19:15
that's a very common, you know, state comment that I get.
19:21
And yeah, but I think the main 1 was just like, this doesn't
19:24
really have anything to do with sports cards.
19:25
And that was exactly the damn point of it.
19:27
You know, like that's that's how, you know, I mean that that
19:30
was supposed to be kind of like, hey, well, and the other part
19:33
was I was thinking, this is going to be really fun for me to
19:36
make this advertisement. That's another thing that people
19:38
don't think about too, is part of the content.
19:40
Like if I can get a, a company that I think is actually fun to
19:43
promote, to me, that's just a part of the content, you know,
19:47
so it might be annoying for somebody, but I if I can make a,
19:51
a fun ad, it's almost like I get to make a commercial for
19:53
somebody, you know, And so I was thinking like I could do this
19:56
with cereal and it actually could be kind of fun.
19:58
So, you know, there's, there's probably different layers of
20:02
complexity to this, but you know that that's another part of it
20:04
for me. So have you ever seen how I
20:07
segue into my ads? I've seen you do.
20:11
I'm just trying to think of one. It's because you have Penny
20:13
Sleever, right? Penny Sleever and CIA, Yeah.
20:16
Yeah, I, you know, to be honest, when I listen, when I've heard
20:19
you do the Penny Sleever 1, I feel like it's pretty similar to
20:23
what I do, you know, I mean, like, yeah, I do.
20:27
I don't think there's some huge difference even like with the
20:30
PSA, the $25 off, you know, the promo code, like it takes me
20:34
about 15 seconds, like 10 to 15 seconds, you know, I mean it, it
20:39
depends on it though. So like Magic Spoon takes about
20:41
45 seconds, you know, to get to get that one.
20:44
It is a little bit longer. So it does depend on what we're
20:47
talking about. But for the most part, I mean,
20:49
you know, I try to get them in and out.
20:51
You know, it's not as if I'm, it's not a 5 minute ad or
20:53
anything. I don't know, I don't look at
20:55
yours or I don't look at Neos and think like, well, look at
20:59
what they're doing. That's, you know, that's so much
21:01
different than what I do. I, I just don't, I just, I don't
21:04
see a huge difference. Interesting Alf behind you like
21:08
saying speed it up get this done faster.
21:11
I, I don't know, I mean, and again, maybe I'm just looking at
21:14
it wrong or maybe, you know, it's just my, my point of view.
21:17
But yeah, I, I think it is fun. Funny, though, I've had a lot of
21:20
content creators and I'm not talking about, about, about
21:22
yourself, but there's been a lot of content creators over the
21:25
years that have criticized me that are now taking
21:27
sponsorships. And I love that.
21:29
That makes me smile because I eventually they come out and I'm
21:32
like, oh, there you are. You've shown yourself, you know,
21:36
and I don't say anything to him about it or whatever, but I
21:38
just, it's humorous. I remember when I first got
21:41
started, I've been doing this for about a year or so and I
21:46
started realizing that other Youtubers had sponsorships like
21:51
you and I started thinking to myself, wait a second, how they
21:56
have you can get sponsors on YouTube?
21:58
I had no idea that I could get sponsored on YouTube and so I,
22:04
I, I admired that There's no, I, I don't, I don't, I just don't
22:08
understand the criticism in this space.
22:09
And I wonder if it's in every hobby space where you are
22:13
criticized for taking money from companies.
22:17
And I try to avoid the PS as really my, my preference is no
22:20
PSA and no fanatics money because I love criticizing them.
22:25
That's that's kind of my bread and butter.
22:26
I get that. But the I'll take money from a
22:31
lot of different companies in the right circumstances.
22:35
I just haven't yet. And I've I've turned down a lot,
22:38
but that doesn't mean to say that I wouldn't take money from
22:42
those companies that I've turned down.
22:44
You mentioned that you've, you've not taken money from
22:46
certain companies. Under what circumstances would
22:48
you say no? If if it's a product that I'm
22:53
not that, that I'm, I'm not really big believer in, you
22:57
know, I've like with, with Arena club, I'll use it as an example
23:01
with Arena club in particular. That's a tough one.
23:03
I mean, Neo and I have joked about Arena club and it's kind
23:06
of like it's like taking, you know, from a perception
23:10
standpoint, like Philip Morris or something, you know, like
23:12
it's like you will get big blowback.
23:14
You know, I'm like an Arena club, but and it's not to and
23:17
I've talked about this and all the Breakers get all upset with
23:19
me because I'm, you know, talked about like just, I just think
23:22
with with breaking and repacks, we've just gone, we've gone too
23:25
far. I'm not saying that there's not
23:26
a place for those things because there obviously is.
23:28
They're popular as hell, whether I want to use them or not.
23:31
So there's obviously a place for it.
23:33
But when it goes like to the NTH degree and it becomes like, you
23:37
know, every like 9, I don't know what the numbers are, but if
23:39
it's like 7 out of 10 new hobbyists are introduced through
23:42
a break, then I don't know if that's going to be great for us
23:44
all long term. You know, like that, that,
23:46
that's all that I've said about it.
23:48
I just think that we've gone a little bit too far with it.
23:50
But you know, when it comes to, you know, those digital packs,
23:54
and I've seen kind of, you know what, when you open the digital
23:57
pack and, and the return on it seems very consistent.
24:00
You know, the way that it is, it's usually like 40 to 50% on
24:03
it, which, but then when you compare to new products, like
24:06
maybe that's good. I think that's probably why
24:08
they're popular is because if it's like, hey, if I get 30 to
24:10
50% back on my $250, I buy a, you know, a digital pack with
24:15
that's better than me opening up a hobby box.
24:17
And maybe maybe that's why they're so popular.
24:20
But but that's an example where an arena club pays well, you
24:23
know, but I mean that that that would be one example.
24:25
There was another one like the magic spoon.
24:28
So it was an agency that reached out to me about the magic spoon
24:31
sponsorship and they also had a healthy vape, like like healthy,
24:37
you know, vape and it's like, I'll, I'll pass, you know, on
24:40
that. So I mean it, it really just
24:43
depends on what it is, But you know, or if it's, I don't know
24:48
if it's a sales platform or, you know, there's AI grading that
24:50
reached out to me, you know, to, or like, you know, AI pre
24:54
grading and it's just stuff I look at.
24:56
I'm just like, I don't know if it's, you know, if that's
24:58
something that I that I want to do at this point.
25:00
You know, I'm always polite about it, though.
25:01
I'm always just like, hey, you know, maybe in the future, but
25:04
just not right now. It's just not, not a fit.
25:06
The other part is too is if I had, if I feel like I have
25:09
enough stuff, I'm promoting that it might just be that that's
25:12
kind of like I'm good right now, you know, like the timing, the
25:15
timing just isn't right. And that's, and that's kind of
25:17
where I've been, you know, recently is I don't necessarily
25:20
feel the need to add anything, anything new, you know, so and
25:25
then with the snipe stuff, not that that was a it wasn't a
25:27
sponsorship, but it was still an affiliate thing.
25:31
It with that now, now I'm even more so like, well, hell, I'm
25:33
just I'll sit where I'll just sit Pat where I'm where I am.
25:36
I don't, I don't need to add anything new unless it's like,
25:39
you know, Chipotle, you know, or something that's outside the
25:41
hobby or whatever, you know. That's the one that we joke
25:44
about. My friends and I are always
25:45
like, yes, Greg and I. Just yesterday, Greg texted me.
25:48
Look, we got to get Chipotle on for.
25:50
Here. Well, yeah, And then it'll be
25:51
like, see, I told you, you can't trust those guys.
25:53
They're eating burritos, you know, they're eating frigs.
25:55
We're in Chipotle. We can't trust them.
25:57
Man, I love Chipotle. So yeah, thank you for reminding
26:03
me. Arena Club is also on my never
26:04
accept sponsorship lists as well as breaking companies.
26:08
Although I have nothing against breaks at all.
26:10
I just, I don't know, I don't want to encourage.
26:14
I have a lot of kids who watch my channel and I don't want to.
26:19
I don't, I don't do breaks myself and so I don't know
26:22
enough about them to say go and do breaks and have me accept
26:27
sponsorship from them. I also wouldn't take a
26:30
sponsorship from what? Not anymore and I did 3, three
26:33
years ago, maybe 2 1/2 years ago they did sponsor me for a little
26:36
while and then I realized this is not something I want a
26:39
sponsorship from and. Same deal.
26:42
I had them for about 6 months, I think I had them for six months
26:45
and then it was kind of similar. There was just too much coming
26:47
out on it and I was like, yeah, I'm just not going to bother
26:50
with this. Yeah, and the, the person I
26:52
worked with was great. The two or three people, in fact
26:55
I worked with there were amazing.
26:56
But the company itself, I just didn't didn't like it.
27:01
So you, you sometimes will talk about click bait on your videos
27:07
like you, you almost defend click bait or you say what
27:11
you're doing is click bait. And I've never really felt like
27:14
it was straight up click bait. Talk to me about your feelings
27:17
on click bait and your titles and thumbnails.
27:20
Well, First off, I could probably do a better job with
27:22
well, definitely my thumbnails. My thumbnails are very average.
27:25
My titles too. I I hold back on my title
27:28
sometimes. I mean, I, I guess I get, I get
27:31
like, OK, so where I try to correct a commenter on clickbait
27:36
is, and maybe I don't have this right, but I think of clickbait
27:40
is like almost like a bait and switch of like the title is one
27:44
thing and the video is another thing.
27:45
So when, when I title it a certain way and they're like,
27:48
oh, this is not what, you know, basically like this was
27:49
clickbait. I'm like, but this is not, this
27:51
is what the title says. It is like this.
27:53
I didn't maybe I maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit or
27:56
whatever, but it's not as if, you know, I put, I bought
27:59
$100,000 card and then you clicked on the video and it was
28:02
not that I bought $100 card or oh, just kidding.
28:04
It was 100, not 100,000. You know, I mean, or if I do
28:08
something like that, I, I make sure I put like parody in the
28:10
title, you know, to where like it.
28:12
It's if it says parody, then that's a way that you can kind
28:14
of like, yeah, it's like the anti click bait essentially.
28:17
But I don't know though. I mean, trying to, I, I just
28:21
found with some commenters, they're just going to that
28:24
they're going to, they're going to hate it regardless, you know,
28:26
and it, and it does feel like the, it's like a vocal minority.
28:31
You know, if people will, will make comments over and over and
28:34
over again that are negative, You know, whereas like there's
28:37
plenty of people that just they, they like the video, they just
28:39
don't comment because, you know, they don't have time to comment
28:42
or they don't make, you know, they don't make the comment like
28:44
great video. They're not going to put like
28:46
great video every time. You know, I mean, so, and, and,
28:48
you know, so I, I look at it, at it from that lens of like, you
28:51
know, just there's going to be some people that are taking
28:54
their day out on me in the comments section.
28:55
And I just have to deal with that or, or eventually gets to a
28:58
point where I'm like, I'm just going to, I'm going to block
28:59
them because it's just, it doesn't add anything to the
29:02
conversation. Like it's the same like you're
29:05
stupid, you're stupid, you're stupid.
29:06
If it's like you're stupid, comment like 100 times in a row.
29:09
I'm just like, OK, like this is just, you know, we're, we're,
29:11
we're not really going anywhere. Like you know so.
29:14
I'll move them. I yeah, I kind of feel the same
29:17
way. I have people who will just
29:20
almost, well not every video, but frequently comment something
29:23
negative either about me. And I have no problem with
29:26
constructive criticism. I like it.
29:28
I've gotten better because of constructive criticism.
29:30
But if you just say you're stupid, that's not constructive
29:33
in any way. Or you know, calling me a name
29:35
or whatever. But what are you doing watching
29:38
my channel if you hate every video I've put out and there's
29:42
one person who comments 3 or 4 times a week with something
29:46
about how much they hated the video single time.
29:49
Like why? At some point you have to say to
29:51
yourself, why am I wasting my time?
29:52
I've never liked this guy's videos.
29:55
Right. Yeah, there's one guy and I
29:57
think he's consistent because actually I noticed him.
29:59
I don't check a lot of other channels, comment sections, but
30:01
occasionally I will and I'll and I see him and I'm like, OK, this
30:05
is like a thing. I think he might just be doing
30:06
it for attention, but it's he says boring video Bob boring
30:11
video. Yes, Bob Caldron or Bob Bob
30:13
cauldron boring video. And then it's like a tear emoji.
30:16
Teary face, yes. But then I saw that on another
30:19
channel, I'm like, OK, he's just this is just like a thing that
30:22
he that he probably does. So what?
30:23
Whatever you know, but. But why would he do that?
30:26
Like, what does he get from that?
30:27
He's wasting his own time. He's wasting his own life.
30:32
I don't know. You have every year come out
30:36
with a video of wanting, pitching, getting on the YouTube
30:40
sports card. Hall of Fame.
30:41
Tell me about your desire to be in this Hall of Fame.
30:45
It's it's kind of just a fun game at this point.
30:47
I mean, I'm not gonna pretend like, you know, like it's a
30:49
serious thing because it's really not.
30:52
You know, I've gone back and forth with a lot of the guys
30:54
that that do this and stuff and and I think they know that I'm
30:57
trolling them most of the time Now I've I've there's also a
31:01
part of me that does want to win, but I don't want to win
31:03
because I feel like I will have, you know, like I'm done, like I
31:06
can retire from YouTube if I get into this thing.
31:09
It's just kind of a fun like troll thing that that I do, if
31:12
I'm being perfectly honest. But I do respect a lot of a lot
31:16
of the people that are part of it, you know, that put it on
31:17
like, I mean, it's not that I think everyone is like a moron
31:21
that's involved with this thing. I don't, I actually do think
31:23
that it's kind of a cool thing that was set up.
31:25
But I like to just point out some of the, you know, the
31:29
hypocrisies or the, you know, the stuff that I think is like
31:33
insider or what, you know, not insider trading.
31:35
That's not the right term. But like it's just very clicky,
31:39
you know, and it always has been there.
31:40
There's a few different and it's not one click.
31:42
I think it's like a handful of clicks.
31:44
And so I, I like to kind of poke fun at that.
31:46
But so yeah, this year I, I set it up basically where, you know,
31:51
you're asking people that you get, you get 10 votes, just take
31:54
one of those votes and make basically like a, like a roast,
31:58
you know, like a roast to my channel.
32:00
So you're, I'm technically getting a vote, but you're
32:02
getting to basically like shout me down like, you know, I'm, I'm
32:04
a moron or whatever, like you normally would with your
32:06
buddies. You just give me that vote and
32:09
if I get enough votes, if I do get in, then I've got like
32:11
basically like two $500 cards up to $500, a little bit of a
32:15
bounty, you know, a bounty for the for the winners of the best
32:18
roast. So I threw that out there just
32:20
for fun and you know, we'll see what happens.
32:23
I am considering throwing a vote your way and then doing doing a
32:29
mock sports card dad video. That would be awesome.
32:32
That'd be. Fun.
32:33
I think it would be fun. I I do worry though, that I
32:37
don't think you would take offense to it 'cause it would be
32:40
all in fun. But I, I feel like there are
32:42
always those white knight commenters who come in and they
32:45
get upset for other creators. Like anytime I've been critical
32:48
of Jeff Wilson, I'll get a dozen or more Jeff Wilson stands who
32:53
come in and call me names and talk about how amazing Jeff is
32:58
and he's changed their lives. And it's like, come on man, get
33:01
a life. I mean, we, you know, we're
33:04
putting ourselves out there on the Internet, so we're we're
33:06
bound to get people that are for no particular reason other than
33:10
they hate your face, you know, that are going to comment on a
33:12
video. Like it could literally you
33:13
could have said they could agree with every last thing that you
33:16
said and they'll still throw out something like, you know, to
33:18
argue with you. I just accepted that over, you
33:21
know, over time. It's just kind of part of the
33:23
game at this point. But I think going back to that
33:25
YouTube Hall of Fame thing, I hope that people take that is
33:28
like I'm just trying to have fun.
33:30
My channel is sure, like sometimes we talk about serious
33:33
topics, but for the most part I'm like, I have a stuffed
33:36
animal that I talked to in my videos.
33:38
So how seriously do you think I'm really taking this?
33:40
You know, like, I mean, I'm, I'm not like I'm really just trying
33:44
to have fun. Yeah, that's what that's what it
33:46
boils down to. This is my like a way that I
33:50
express myself. Yeah, this is kind of like a
33:52
hobby on on in my hobby, you know, I get to express myself on
33:55
here and there's people that have fun with me.
33:57
There's some people that hate it, but there are some people
33:59
that have fun with me. And that's that's it's been
34:01
awesome. But are you legitimately having
34:04
fun? Yeah, yeah, yes, The last couple
34:08
weeks, no. The last couple weeks, no.
34:11
Well, I, I feel like, so I watched almost all of your
34:15
videos for, I don't know, 2022 through 24.
34:19
And I felt, I always felt like you were having fun.
34:22
And in the past year, it feels like there's been a change in
34:24
Dustin. And I don't know if it's yeah.
34:27
Well, I'm glad you're selling me.
34:29
Yeah, it feels like you are having less fun, like the
34:32
criticism has gotten to you more and it just feels like your
34:37
videos are, they're shorter and I don't know, it's hard to
34:43
explain. They just, it feels different to
34:46
me. And I don't watch all of your
34:47
videos like I used to. I've honestly cut way back on
34:49
sports card content altogether. But the ones that I do watch, it
34:52
feels like feels different this year.
34:55
Well, that's good feedback. Yeah, I mean, that's good
34:59
feedback. I'll have to think about it.
35:00
And I guess I'll have to look back too at some of my older
35:02
stuff and to see like, you know what's, Yeah, if there has been
35:05
any, any sort of changes, 2025 has been an interesting year for
35:10
sure. And yeah, maybe, I mean, I have
35:13
had some, I think like everybody, just some personal
35:16
stuff, you know, I've got 4 kids.
35:17
So it's an up, it's a roller coaster with the family.
35:20
So maybe there are some videos where I'm just like, you know,
35:24
I'm kind of in a down spot and I'm making the video and it goes
35:27
out. And yeah, I mean, is it, is it
35:28
topic related or is it just my energy?
35:31
I think you just share energy. OK.
35:34
Yeah, I'll look at that. I'll take a look at that.
35:36
I mean, I've I've been doing more now.
35:39
Are you seeing that with the interviews stuff or is that or
35:42
is it both? I never watch interviews.
35:44
That's not a you thing. It's AI.
35:46
Don't watch interviews. On long form.
35:48
Yeah, it's rare that I'm going to watch something that's longer
35:51
than like 12 or 15 minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:55
I'll have to take a look at it. I am.
35:56
I am looking at kind of, well, I'm always kind of reconfiguring
36:00
content that I want to do. And so, and I am looking at that
36:04
kind of for 2026, like what sorts of topics do I want to hit
36:07
on? Do I want to kind of, you know,
36:09
ironically, as I move into 2026, just with a lot of the, the,
36:13
the, the auction house, the shell billing, the shell bidding
36:16
stuff, I'm going to focus probably less on not that I'm
36:20
some huge dollar, high dollar buyer of cards because I'm not,
36:23
I would say I'm kind of mid tier.
36:24
I've got some nice stuff, you know, that's a little bit more
36:26
expensive, relatively speaking, but I really wanted 2026 to go
36:30
back to the reason why I said it's interesting because you're,
36:34
you're junk wax hero, but like junk wax carts like 80s and 90s,
36:38
but not like graded cards, just literally like filling binders
36:41
of like 1 to $5 cards from my childhood that I really like.
36:45
And it's actually in 2026 focusing more on just the, the
36:48
nostalgia piece as opposed to like still talking about markets
36:51
and still talking about let you know prices moving up and down
36:54
and that's and that stuff. But as far as my actual
36:57
collection goes and my collecting goes, doing a little
36:59
bit more of kind of the low dollar stuff and just enjoying
37:02
that and just, you know, just seeing how that goes, you know,
37:05
and, and focusing more just kind of refocusing a little bit.
37:09
You still have your Jordan 84 star.
37:11
Yeah. I want to say do I remember
37:14
correctly you paid like 5500 for that?
37:17
No, I paid 8000 for it. Little like 8200.
37:20
Yeah, it's. Got to be worth almost double
37:22
that now. Well, so it's a 55.
37:26
It's it's actually so a six just sold on Golden for 47,000.
37:31
So. Yeah, so it's gone.
37:33
It's it's definitely more, but I bought it.
37:35
I mean, we're coming up on, I bought about 20 months ago.
37:39
So it was like definitely, you know, before everything started
37:42
to rise. It's definitely gone up quite a
37:44
bit. But I would say like of all my
37:47
trading cards, that that's one where it's, it's gone up a lot,
37:50
you know, but a lot of other cards are just kind of where
37:52
they, where they stand. And I don't necessarily when I'm
37:55
looking at cards like at the national, I bought a 52 tops
37:57
maize and, and a one, you know, and I got it for 2200 bucks.
38:02
Like my expectation is not that that's going to be like a $5000
38:05
card next year. You know, I, I, it'll probably
38:07
sit in that zone for, I mean, it might sit in that zone for a
38:09
long time, but that I, if I'm going to spend like that sort of
38:13
money, it's more of like, I want an iconic card.
38:15
I want something that I really like, want to own and enjoy
38:17
owning and just less focus on like does this have upside and
38:22
you know, and, and that sort of thing, you know, or just like
38:24
really rare non sports stuff. Like I've got some nice rare non
38:27
sports stuff and it's a fraction of rare sports card.
38:31
So. When I, when I first got back
38:34
into the hobby, of course, PSA wasn't creating the star Jordan
38:37
and I was at a card show in Portland, ME of all places, and
38:40
somebody had one of those raw and they were trying to sell it
38:43
for $900. And I, I didn't have $900 to
38:46
spend on a card at the time, but I remember looking at it and
38:49
being like, that would be amazing.
38:52
But of course there were a lot of counterfeits.
38:54
It wasn't graded. And I wonder now what happened
38:57
to that card? Like what has he graded it since
39:00
then? Was it legitimate?
39:01
Was it, was it real? That's the thing.
39:03
And how much was it? So it was probably a
39:06
counterfeit, but I don't know. Who knows?
39:10
Yeah, those, they're interesting.
39:12
You know, it's, yeah. For $900, it might have been an
39:14
absolute steal or it could have just been a counterfeit, you
39:17
know, who knows? You know, it's like with, with
39:19
86 Fleers, my buddy that, that IA buddy that I grew up with his
39:24
dad so randomly, I haven't talked to him in years.
39:27
And, and last year he texted me and he had like 1086 Fleer
39:32
Jordans, you know, like raw, like in his hands.
39:34
And randomly his dad started a card shop like five years ago,
39:38
retired executive and, and retired and was like, I'm going
39:41
to open up a card store. And this is like pre pandemic,
39:43
you know, like 5-6 years ago and just hit it at a perfect time to
39:47
where he did really well. But I was like, Eric, you, how
39:50
did you get all these 86 Flirs? And he's like, oh, they're all
39:53
replicas, you know, like they're all like that.
39:54
They're not real. I'm like, OK, you know, so you,
39:57
you never know, but yeah. I have, I have two of them that
40:01
are counterfeits because somebody included in an order
40:05
once I ordered a few Jordans off of like Facebook marketplace or
40:09
something. Way long, long ago.
40:12
And they just threw in this account and they said here's a
40:14
counterfeit Jordan. And then a viewer mailed me a
40:18
counterfeit Jordan 86 Fleer anonymously with no note.
40:21
And it was, it's really torn up. And I was like, is, is this
40:24
real? But then he finally emailed me
40:26
and said I meant to include a note in there that is a
40:29
counterfeit. So I have like if something ever
40:32
happens to me I have a note for my wife of what to do with
40:35
everything and one of the notes is the two 1986 Fleer Jordans
40:39
are counterfeits because I don't want her to.
40:41
She doesn't know anything about cards, but I don't want her
40:43
presenting them to whoever is comes to buy my cards as
40:47
legitimate. Yeah, and I think that, you
40:50
know, not that any of the stuff that we've been talking about
40:52
over the last few months kind of with, you know, with show
40:55
bidding and counterfeit cards, that stuff, it's like an
40:57
everyday occurrence. Not that it's anything new at
40:59
all in 2025. But I just feel kind of
41:03
honestly, I don't know if it's just beaten.
41:05
I don't know if beaten down is the right word, you know, phrase
41:07
for it. But I just feel kind of like,
41:09
man, I just need to relax on this.
41:11
Like I just need to enjoy what I've got, you know, like that.
41:14
That's the other part is like, I have a really good collection.
41:16
I know you do like do you know, what do I need to vastly add
41:20
that? You know, that's so important,
41:22
you know, at this stage. And that's why I thought of
41:24
like, man, I need to have more $1.00 mail days and be happy
41:28
with that and be happy with, you know, 1992 flier Jordan, you
41:32
know, whatever that that I used to just love getting like that.
41:34
I would be excited about getting in a pack.
41:36
I've actually thought about like as part of content too, just
41:39
buying a lot of junk wax boxes, buying 8 or, you know, opening
41:43
88 tops football on the channel and looking for Bo Jackson, you
41:47
know, and they're, they're $50 a box or $80 a box or whatever
41:49
they are, but you know, showing that you can actually enjoy
41:52
yourself without, you know, having to spend huge money on
41:56
new product. And yeah, I've been, I've been
42:00
buying a lot of early Red Sox refractors.
42:03
So the players that I love, mostly they're like 2 to $30.
42:09
And so instead of building up this, I love my collection.
42:12
It's the perfect collection for me.
42:15
I'm trying to save more money to putting them towards family
42:19
things, which I'll probably talk more about at some point in the
42:22
semi near future. And then buying spending instead
42:27
of spending X number of dollars a month, I'm spending 1/4 of X
42:32
and still getting things that I love and can appreciate and can
42:36
get displayed in my office here as I build out this office.
42:40
Yeah, it's the, it's definitely a shift in mindset.
42:44
Yeah. And we're in the situation where
42:45
I don't, I don't know all about your family life, but I believe
42:47
you said you have kids and I've got kids, we've got wives.
42:50
You know, I mean, there's, there's a lot of competing
42:52
priorities, you know, out out there in the world.
42:55
And the world's a weird place right now, frankly.
42:57
Like all the way around you, you'd kind of look out and it's
42:59
like, you know, maybe I just need to hold on to some cash.
43:02
Maybe I need to just, you know, kind of just have fun, like
43:05
figure out ways to have fun that that don't break the bank.
43:07
I think that's going to be kind of that that's where 2026 is.
43:10
That's, that's how it's looking for me.
43:12
Yeah. Me too.
43:15
But Dustin, thank you for joining.
43:17
Anything you want to say before we wrap up?
43:19
No, I appreciate you having me on.
43:21
I need to have you on my channel too.
43:22
This is like we're always, everybody's so busy, everybody's
43:25
trying to juggle everything. And I know that I'm due to have
43:27
you on my channel too. But yeah, I appreciate you
43:29
having me on and talking about the, the sponsorship stuff.
43:32
It's always, you know, kind of, I guess it's controversial.
43:35
I we've talked about it. I don't know why it is.
43:37
And, and frankly, I hope that it's not moving forward.
43:39
I mean, I would love for every, you know, all the content
43:43
creators are really putting time in and really enjoying it and
43:45
really have passion. And I hope that they there's
43:48
more companies that come in outside of the hobby that are
43:50
willing to, you know, to throw, throw some money at, you know,
43:53
guys talking about cardboard. I think that, I mean, I just
43:55
don't see the downside in that at all.
43:58
I'll always try to work harder. It just kind of, as you kind of
44:01
mentioned, you know, trying to get the the the time down, you
44:04
know, trying to trying to deliver in a timely manner so
44:07
that it's so that the viewer doesn't feel like it's just a
44:10
gigantic ad. I'm always working to try to get
44:12
better at that. So for people that have written
44:13
me off that might be seeing me here, I'm working at it.
44:16
Just don't give up on me. Don't give up on me.
44:19
But yeah, now I enjoy your, I enjoy your channel and the
44:21
different shows you guys have going on.
44:23
Thank you. All right, thanks for joining
44:25
me, Dustin. This was great.
44:26
And we will wrap this up now. Thanks everybody for watching.
44:30
Thanks, Mike.