Every once in a while I sit back in wonderment at my fascination with yoyos. When I look at it purely objectively, I have difficulty explaining my love for them.
I’m not very good at yoyoing
Yoyos have little usefulness outside of yoyoing
They are impressive bits of engineering and manufacturing, but they lack complexity (I am drawn towards elegant complexity)
They are often quite lovely objet d’art, but not to a degree that I want them purely for their decorative properties, nor is my inner artist tempted to learn to design/make them myself
So by just about any measure I would usually use to explain my attraction to a particular hobby, yoyoing shouldn’t really land on my radar. But for some reason I am hooked, and have been for nearly a year and a half at this point.
So why do I love these things (to the point of owning well over 200 of them)?
Because they provide incredible enjoyment, both through the satisfaction of just yoyoing for fun and through self-accomplishment when learning something new. And each one feels at least slightly different from the next.
There’s an inherent quality of a lot of people’s childhoods where they are learning new skills and abilities constantly and it’s very rewarding. This tends to disappear as you age. Yoyoing brings that back a little.
I played with yoyos as a kid too, but back then my only choices were the Imperial, the Butterfly, or the new-fangled ProYo (and yes, I had one of each). I only ever learned the very basics: rock the baby, walk the dog, around the world, and a looping trick or two. Not enough to trigger strong feelings of nostalgia within me now.
I think I am mesmerized by the sheer variety of yoyos available today, even though most of them are very similar to each other. Coupled with the irrational quest for that perfect yoyo that makes every trick easy to master, and I guess it is no wonder my collection is as absurdly large as it is.
Yeah, I’m not sure why exactly yo-yos invoke so much nostalgia for me. I only remember a VERY brief period in grade school where it was a thing for me. I think I only had an imperial, and I don’t remember even learning most of the basics. And it was a very short lived fad at my school. Probably less than a couple of weeks.
I think it’s more about the idea of playing with toys lol.
That’s why I’m so in love with the red/white Duncan Pro Z’s. It just brings me right back to my childhood.
It’s a part of why I collect too. That whole thrill of the hunt.
Remember getting catalogs from big department stores with all the pictures of the toys in them and making wish lists? haha me and my sister would spend many nights pouring over the pages of the newest JCPenny Christmas catalogs dreaming about all the toys.
Thats the kind of feelings I get a tiny bit of when I’m trying to figure out what my next purchase is going to be.
I’m having my own battle with kwijibo. I’m starting to actually land it on and off, but when I do, the string comes from my throw hand middle finger, ends up around the back of my non throw hand, and then does the rest of the double or nothing. The string always ends up around the back of my hand instead of my non throw hand pointer finger. Maybe the alignment of my hands is off?
Tbh I didn’t watch the whole video… I just got to the part where she mentions she hadn’t been following yoyo releases for a while and was overwhelmed by the options and had no idea what most of the yo-yos were.
I’m actually not a huge Ann fan but I won’t elaborate too much, don’t feel like being overly negative about someone I don’t really know enough about to judge one way or another. She’s probably a super nice person but her content gives off typical cliche YouTuber vibes.
After Black Friday I’ll have pretty much every current release I’m after. I plan on slowing down after but I’ll finally be able to focus on picking up the occasional BST deal to complete collection goals or try some different stuff.
I’d love to have a complete Gentry collection. The TiShutter, 66% and the TiWA will probably be the hardest to pick up.
Except for the extent of my Shutter collection, for which my goals are only to have an aqua in each of the four canonical forms: OG Shutter, Shutter, WA Shutter, and Bi-Shutter.
I’ve actually achieved that goal except my Shutter is matte aqua, and I think it should really be normal aqua instead…
The only wide yoyo, that could eeever please me; was a One Drop Kuuuuntooosh