For Brandon Vu

  1. People send you yoyos all the time for you to make reviews on and you obviously have your preferences, but as a reviewer, how do you differentiate a yoyo that you don’t personally like, from a “bad” yoyo?

  2. You are a properly skilled yoyo reviewer, do you think it is important for a reviewer to be a skilled player for their opinion to be substantial? On which level does the level of skill of a reviewer affect the quality of their commentary?

  3. What was the last time you compared any yoyo to a Draupnir in a review? Is the meme still alive?

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Hi EOS44,

Thanks for the questions!!

  1. Hmmm… excellent question. It’s a blurry line. A Yoyo bad in one context may be exceptional in others. I think if you’re looking for a binary view of Good vs Bad yoyos, you’d have to boil it down to very boring details. Does the Yoyo cut the string when it’s being played with? Does the yoyo vibrate excessively? Does the yoyo have a very uncomfortable shape for no reason? Do the colors on this yoyo fade over time? Does this yoyo spin long enough for me to do what it was designed for?

Very concrete measurements like that are what I would say gives you an indicator of a good/bad yoyo. Even then, some could argue that Yoyos that lack the above still may be “good”. Whenever I praise or critique a yoyo, I try to add the context. So I’ll say it’s not good for “competition”, or this is a “fun” yoyo. I think that’s as close as I’ve come to absolute objectivity.

  1. Firsty, Thank you! I think my stance on this would be, there needs to be some level of skill to appreciate a Yoyo’s subtle nuances. That being said, you don’t need to be a National or World level competitor to pick up on those. I’d say almost all reviewers in the community have more than enough skill to review a yoyo. It’s also awesome to have different perspectives view a yoyo. I would boil it down again to context. Are you looking for your next competition yoyo? Maybe you should watch my videos, or Yoyojoe1’s videos because we both have a large criteria point for competitiveness. Do you want a yoyo for the colours and smoothness? Perhaps someone else is more aligned and in-tune with that. I’d say skill level is less important, Its more about preference. I’d say choose the reviewer who best reflects what you want in a Yoyo.

  2. I still do this all the time. The meme may be forgotten, but it’s definitely not dead HAHA.

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Awesome. Thanks for your insight man.

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