We have all seen them. You are scrolling through social media, enjoying a post about a hobby, be it trading card games, video games, or collecting, and there they are in the comments. The self-appointed maturity police.
Recently, I came across a thread where a creator was sharing their passion for the Pokémon Trading Card Game. Predictably, the bottom-feeders arrived right on schedule. The insults ranged from the entirely unoriginal “Grow up! It’s a kids’ game!” to broken regional dialect and outright aggressive vitriol.
When challenged on the actual economics of the hobby, one detractor sneered that the game only exists “to fleece money out of people who haven’t grown up.”
It is a common, lazy narrative. It is also entirely wrong.
The Myth of the “Modern” Scalper
The idea that market speculation, price gouging, and “fleecing” are modern inventions unique to franchises like Pokémon is historically illiterate. The moment a hobby introduces randomized distribution, varying rarity tiers, and competitive utility, a secondary market is inevitable.
Let us take a trip back to the mid-1990s. Decipher’s Star Trek Customizable Card Game was in its heyday. When the Alternate Universe expansion dropped, it featured the Future Enterprise, the triple-nacelled, cloaked Galaxy-class dreadnought from the series finale. Because it was an Ultra Rare card with a brutal 1:121 pack pull rate, the secondary market went into an absolute frenzy.
Back then, the going rate to buy that single card from independent dealers or comic shops was £60.
Adjusted for inflation, you are looking at well over £100 today for a single piece of cardboard. Before that, older baseball cards in the 1980s and 90s saw adults buying up cases of booster boxes to hoard “rookie cards” and drive speculation through the roof.
Scalping and market manipulation have been baked into the DNA of collecting for generations. It has absolutely nothing to do with the target demographic on the box and everything to do with basic supply and demand economics.
The Irony of the Gatekeeper
There is a brilliant, systemic irony in the psychology of the “Grow Up” brigade. These individuals feel a desperate, unprovoked need to police how other adults spend their disposable income and free time. Yet, the very second they are met with a calm, rational response, their fragile facade immediately shatters.
They instantly devolve into playground-level tantrums, projection, and incomprehensible grammar. In the thread I witnessed, a grown adult genuinely typed the words “ill tell my mommy of you!” in response to being politely corrected. Others resorted to single-word grunts like “Sad” or mangled keyboard mashes.
They scream at others to act like adults, whilst demonstrating the emotional maturity of a toddlers’ playgroup.
A Deeper Strategic Depth
What these cynical outsiders completely miss is the actual substance underneath the colourful branding. Modern games like Pokémon are not just simple pastimes; they are incredibly intricate.
The competitive video game scene (VGC) is essentially high-speed chess, requiring players to manage advanced mathematics, calculate precise damage formulas on the fly, and master complex game theory regarding speed tiers and environmental variables. The TCG requires intense resource management, sequencing, and deck-building theory. It is a space dominated by adults competing internationally for serious prize money.
Final Thoughts
People who do not understand a subculture will always default to shouting “it’s for kids” because tearing something down is much easier than trying to comprehend its depth.
The next time you see someone wasting their limited energy on this earth telling someone else to “grow up” over a hobby, remember that their perspective is tiny, their history is wrong, and their frustration usually comes from a place of pure projection.
Sometimes, the best response you can give them is simply: Jog on.
#Pokemon #TCG #StarTrekCCG #TabletopGaming #Collectibles #PopCulture #InternetTrolls #GamingCommunity