Thank You!

365

That’s the number of days I’ve opened sports card packs over the past year.

I’m sad to announce that I’ll no longer be making videos for this channel.

While I loved the daily routine of opening packs, what I’ll miss most is interacting with the incredible people in the sports card community on social media.

I started this channel during COVID (when I clearly had nothing better to do) after watching too many breaks and unboxing videos where the breaker would hilariously inflate the value of every card they pulled. Worse, they would shout out values higher than the price of the same card in a PSA 10 holder.

This misinformation hurts the sports card community by creating the false perception that collecting cards is a guaranteed way to make a profit. Unfortunately, many people, especially kids, began to think it was an easy money-making opportunity—when, in reality, it’s anything but.

I believe that in 2020, a lot of people got into sports cards not for the joy of collecting or the sentimental value, but with the sole aim of making money. The time it takes to find, sell, and ship cards isn't worth the small returns unless you're doing it purely for fun. And that doesn’t even include the money spent on supplies like card holders, penny sleeves, stamps, and shipping materials.

Over the past year, I spent over $1,000 on 365 packs, opening more than 2,600 cards. Of those, only ~0.35% had a value greater than $10.*

Yes, I know the sports card packs I opened sucked. 

I won’t even try to defend it. I was opening packs like Panini Absolute, Topps Heritage, and Upper Deck Artifacts—just to name a few. But let’s be real: no regular person could just walk into a store and buy Prizm basketball packs at a reasonable price. That’s why I stuck with retail-only and NEVER waited in line to buy cards. I simply grabbed whatever was left on the shelves for us peasants.

Most importantly, I wanted to create a platform dedicated to showing accurate prices for the cards pulled. No more of the "LET’S GOOOO, this is a $5,000 card!" nonsense when the card was actually worth $4.25. To keep things real, I used eBay’s most recent sale price for each card. Sure, it’s not a flawless method for determining value, but I think it gets pretty darn close. Do you have a better way of showing card prices in today’s fast-moving market?

Over the past 365 days, I’ve learned a lot about the sports card community across three social media platforms: TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. I also got to see how each technology adapts and competes with the others.

I began my journey on September 2, 2020, starting with Instagram. Looking back, I’m not really sure why I chose to “do it for the gram” over TikTok or YouTube, other than the fact that my millennial mindset wasn’t ready for a Gen Z fad.

Instagram videos were okay—they allowed me to do what I wanted—but the traction just wasn’t there. My videos averaged around 200 views, 1 comment, and 20 likes each. There was little user engagement, and most interactions were people trying to get me to join their breaks or sell me something.

With TikTok blowing up on people's phones, I held off on joining because I figured I could do the same thing on Instagram Reels (tech copying tech). I started using Reels on October 17, 2020, but my stubbornness in resisting new platforms only delayed the inevitable.

Just 7 days later, with Reels not really improving my views, I finally decided to take my talents to TikTok on October 23, 2020—and that’s when things really started to take off.

TikTok opened my videos to a whole new world of users, and the engagement from the younger crowd was much higher. My first video on TikTok garnered over 15k views, 39 comments, and 843 likes—more than all 51 of my Instagram videos combined.

I’ve never been a big social media person. I haven’t posted on my Facebook wall in over 10 years, and the only posts I get are the annual "Happy Birthday" messages. (I’ve always wondered if those same people would still comment if I removed my birthday from my info section—an experiment for another day.) My personal Instagram is private, and I don’t tweet. These days, the only reason I use social media is to check if a Tinder date is a real person and not a 300lb dude.

But this was different. I was hooked. It was like a drug.

I’d seen documentaries and read studies about how social media can consume lives and impact mental health, but I never believed it could happen to me—until I got a taste of what mass social interaction can do.

After each post, I craved more. If a video didn’t perform as well as the last, or if no one commented, I’d start worrying: "Why did this video flop?" "Are people losing interest?" "Why isn’t anyone engaging?"

Luckily, I have an active life and a stable job, so I wasn’t fully consumed by social media, but I began to understand how people could get hooked—especially during the lockdowns, when everyone was stuck inside forever (forever, forever ever?).**

Ehm... okay, I actually don’t know what the main topic was, as I feel like I’ve just rambled through three nexus events into three sacred monologues.

I guess I’ll just share the highest of highs, the lowest of lows, and some other random thoughts that come to mind.

Faith in Humanity!
There are a lot of good people out there. I had genuine conversations with folks, and some of you even offered to send packs to me for free. Not just any packs, but Prizm and other high-end brands!

It’s good to know that there are awesome people out there who genuinely enjoy great*** content without asking for money or trying to sell you stuff.

Unfortunately, I politely declined all offerings. I don’t have a solid reason for that; I just wanted to keep my channel 100% focused on retail finds.

Trolls
One thing I've learned is to never engage with trolls. There are a lot of them out there. Anything you say (no matter how accurate) will only add more fuel to the fire.

There is no hope of reasoning with them, so it's best to ignore them entirely. Once you do, they tend to disappear and move on to someone else.

TikTok vs. Instagram vs. YouTube

• TikTok (started October 23, 2021) - This platform brought me the most views, comments, and likes. It's a great place to build your following.

• Instagram (started September 2, 2021) - Here is where real connections are made. Genuine conversations happen in this space.

• YouTube (started February 14, 2021...sad) - I got into the YouTube game late, as Shorts went into beta in early 2021 (see my earlier tech rant about ‘adapt or die’). YouTube is where the money is, so ultimately, this is where you'll want to be if you're aiming to make big bucks.

Buying/Selling
Buying and selling on social media can be frustrating. It’s 100% based on trust. I sold maybe five cards, but it just took too much time. I probably made a total of $3 (again, see my earlier rant about why sports cards won’t make you rich). I eventually gave up trying to sell. I apologize to those who inquired about buying cards; I simply didn’t have enough time or mental capacity for it anymore.

How to Make It Big
(Haha, I write this as if I’ve made it ‘big’...but I have not.)
When’s the best time to post? How long should my videos be? How can I increase my likes?

I could analyze my most successful video (in terms of views) and dig into all sorts of data analytics (I have a degree in Statistics) to answer these questions, but it wouldn’t mean much. The best advice I can give anyone looking to succeed on social media is to post genuine content...or get lucky.

Fine, here are some other insights I’ve learned over the past year:

• Post Controversial Stuff - I once asked whether a card was a Prizm, Prism, Refractor, x-factor or something along those lines, and it almost sparked a war among commentators trying to figure out what type of card I had just pulled.

• Mispronounce Everything - I mispronounced names on purpose, encouraging them to take the time to comment.****

• Be Innovative - I like to think I have the earliest video of an NBATopShot pack opening from January 23, 2021. Can anyone else find an earlier video of a pack opening for NBA Top Shot?

• Ask [Dumb] Questions - People love being right on the internet. It’s some weird phenomenon. Ask a question, and people will respond, leading to more comments, views, and likes.

I feel like I’m writing one of those ‘how to get more views on TikTok’ type of articles that I know everyone here has once Googled because they, too, hope to become TikTok famous one day.

Conclusion

My gawd, am I in middle school again? I couldn’t think of a way to end this, so I wrote a ‘conclusion’ section. What is this...an essay I’m turning in for lit class?

Anyways, sports cards are becoming too hard to find, girls are starting to enter my life, work is about to take off, and there just aren’t enough hours in the day for me to continue this in its current form. My goal was to do this for 365 days straight.

Today is day 365.

All in all, I’m going to miss this.

Thank you.

May our card values rise forever.

And no, I do not want to buy your cards.

* eBay most recent sale price

**Alright, I admit I did not actually calculate if that is true, and it’s probably not, but you get my point

*** see how I subtly said my content is ‘great’ 

****HAHA jk. I have no idea how to pronounce Okwuegbunam and all hockey players