Gentry had a video about trying to start the next yo-yo boom that you might enjoy:
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Troll replies, “Officially the yoyo clock was reset upon the arrival of the FAST201” thanks to YoYoFactory…Brilliant!
Yoyodoc said…“A yo-yo that inspires. A yo-yo that helps make moving along the trick ladder a whole lot faster and more fun. It’s dirt cheap for what it can provide as a learning tool. It’s a quality product that wasn’t released before literally hundreds of hours of design considerations and field testing by some of the most experienced people.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Lot of double standards around this yoyo forum.
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Appreciate you reading and replying to my response! We both agree that the imperial is not a good learning yoyo, but the butterfly absolutely is. I just taught a 10 year old who has never played sports (read not much physical coordination or strength) how to get a sleeper going reliably on a Butterfly I gave him. Before the night was over he was doing forward passes.
I do 100% agree that a good stable yoyo is better for learning, but it does not have to be unresponsive. Accessible bearing responsives like the Duncan Freehand One, which are available in stores, is a much better option for learning 1A than starting unresponsive. You’ll get better returns more consistently for better throws, and more tricks.
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What a blast from the past, I loved the Mosquito. It was my first bearing yoyo. I don’t know enough about other starter yoyos to compare, but it certainly managed to hook me! Nice and snappy, but also with a good sleep. I was reluctant to give it up when starting more advanced string tricks.
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I have seen this! It was insightful to hear that all those iconic players came from basically one specific yo-yo boom in the culture. I just wonder what what his big announcement is, and where he’s going with this. Gentry has done a remarkable job contributing so much to the Yo-Yo world and winning top contests simultaneously, I have a lot of confidence in his ability to make something happen. But generating a yo-yo boom? That would be his magnum opus.
I think past Yo-Yo booms tended to arise from a lot of things happening the right way at the right time. Even my wacky suggestion on this topic to replace the Duncan Imperial is just about doing something that requires no additional resources or prolonged efforts from any party… and while I do personally believe it would help create new players without damaging global Yo-Yo sales, I don’t think it would cause a boom. If you want to cause another one of those, you’d ideally want to tip the first dominos for a lot of different things all at once, and one man cannot do that alone. Perhaps Gentry can unify the community and the companies in a way that would actually work. There was usually some luck involved in the timing of past booms, but you can replace some of that with good strategy. Very curious what he’s got up his sleeve.
Well, I don’t think unresponsive is the only option for easier learning than with an Imperial, but I do think that the high performance aspect of unresponsive is one more nice thing on a whole bullet list of reasons why I think a cheap unresponsive model should be the basic Duncan offering. I don’t think I can state the entirety of my thoughts & reasoning any better than I already have in previous posts
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2cents:
Ed makes the strongest argument here. Unresponsive yo-yo is far too difficult to learn without having a “Tyler Severance” figure around to coach you through it. The pop cultural recognition of unresponsive yo-yo just isn’t “there”. If you don’t have someone there to tell you “hey, this yo-yo doesn’t come back up when you tug it, and there’s good reason for that,” then unresponsive yo-yos are immensely confusing. Try to remember back to the time when you were an absolute beginner and watching any sort of advanced yo-yo tricks was like trying to read hieroglyphics… Of course unresponsive yo-yo seems easy to you now, but to someone without any of the muscle memory or the introduction to the concept of a string trick, it is totally foreign and incomprehensible. With responsive yo-yos, the up-and-down motion of throwing and catching a yo-yo is infinitely more intuitive and familiar, hence the success of those yo-yos.
The best companies can do is make their responsive models of higher quality and more usable for string tricks, like what Duncan did with the Butterfly XT. (I am of course biased towards Duncan.) The only other thing I could ask for of companies would be to put instructions for basic string tricks on the packaging, e.g., what YYF did with the F.A.S.T. 201, so that people are at least introduced to the idea of string tricks at all. Once people are introduced to string tricks, it becomes 10x more obvious why such a thing as an unresponsive yo-yo could have any utility whatsoever. To someone who doesn’t know about string tricks, the only possible goal of a yo-yo is to make it come back up, and, to such a person, having to “bind” is just an absolutely convoluted way of making the yo-yo come back up. It is much simpler to such a person (i.e., a person whose sole goal with yo-yo is for it to simply come back up) if a yo-yo is responsive.
EDIT: I read above that your goal is to “shorten the bridge”. I agree with this goal. However, the bridge runs between the everyday person and the modern yo-yo community. To me, what you are proposing is akin to burning the bridge entirely and simply teleporting from “normie” to “yo-yoer”, which I think is impossible. But I think the only viable option for doing so is what I propose in the above paragraph; i.e., to introduce people to string tricks early on via responsive, wing-shaped yo-yos.
EDIT EDIT: I think by talking out the above, I have come to realize that the F.A.S.T. 201 is probably the best possible beginner package of products. There must be a high-quality yo-yo and clear instructions to many yo-yo tricks, including basic modern string tricks and a link to a YouTube channel. Call me old-fashioned, but I think this is the optimal model for promoting modern yo-yo to the world.
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I guess the thing is, my perspective on learning binds right out of the gate being not-so-bad is based on firsthand real-world experience giving multiple people unresponsive Yo-Yos to start, not me forgetting what it was like to learn. If anything, I think most of us have poor perspective on what it’s like to start on unresponsive (I certainly did), because that’s not how we learned. A number of people’s positions on the issues with starting out unresponsive are purely hypothetical.
One thing I witnessed that I never would have considered is how much people enjoyed trying to do tricks with the Yo-Yo before they could even achieve the bind. Since the Yo-Yo was so stable and long-spinning, people were able to mess around with everything from rock the baby & pinwheel to trying to land a trapeze on Day 1. There seemed to be a lot of joy just from being able to throw the Yo-Yo and do interesting things with it before it stopped spinning or failed to bind. I have watched people legitimately have fun with the toy for hours without achieving the wind-up at the end. This is what I think a lot of us fail to picture.
An unresponsive Yo-Yo has a lot of play value even while you’re still learning the bind, because it is the most forgiving type of Yo-Yo for actually performing the tricks.
Between the dry bearing, the flared wing shape, and the wide gap/low friction, it can stubbornly spin through tilted, low-power beginner throws, and actually do some fun things right out of the gate. And again, I’m not just proposing a concept that might not hold in reality, I have learned that this can be the case from seeing it happen. Now, I don’t have a ton of data, and I’m aware not everyone is going to take to things the way the adults and teenagers I’m talking about did. I’m just trying to say that I’m not making up wacky concepts without any real world basis.
I also just think binds need to be properly taught by tutorials. Even today I see a lot of tutorials miss the mark on explaining the fastest and most reliable way to quickly achieve a bind. You front mount the Yo-Yo by threading the string manually, and then you pinch the loop and feed it into the gap. You do not need to throw the loop into the gap, cross the strings, or anything like that. That just makes it more likely to snag weirdly or respond in a way that is hard to control. Just pinch the loop and feed it into the gap. You can feed it slowly even, to get a feel for how it starts to create friction and engage the response system. I have found that when an optimal and simple bind is shown to people, it just doesn’t take that long for them to get it. The only skill needed is learning the timing of when to let go of the loop. That’s it.
Also, you put a lot of emphasis on packaging, and how people are going to be exposed to learning how the unresponsive Yo-Yo works. This is why I put emphasis on a packaging strategy in a few of my posts already. Kids & teens these days are very familiar with packaging having a prominent QR code that can be scanned via smartphone to be sent to digital media for the product. If you look at a lot of top toys, QR codes are in full use, and they instantly send your phone screen to the best-case-scenario thing for a new customer to see.
I consider this a massive area of untapped potential on the package of any mass-distributed Yo-Yo. You need to have a package that launches people directly to media that makes Yo-Yo tricks look as cool as possible, and shows them how to get started. Ideally there should be a lot of tutorials, similar to the YoYoExpert tutorial series. When I was a kid, my first Yo-Yo came with a printed Yo-Yo trick book that explained and ran through a bunch of tricks I could learn. That book was a huge influence on getting me to keep playing with the toy, because I could perceive what was possible, form goals, and could read the next step to getting there.
A scan-ready QR code is the way to do that today, because at this point, even so much as asking kids to type in a website URL for something like this is a mistake. That’s basically saying “Spend 10 seconds typing this out, and then navigate a website to find something like tutorials or cool videos, if you even know to look for that”. It wasn’t such a problem in the early 2000s, when that was the best you could do. But it’s not good when you are competing with other toy packages that are saying “Use your camera to scan this code, and we will instantly send you to the most relevant media to engage with your new toy”. I would go as far as to say that because we are at this point, offering an unresponsive Yo-Yo first is more feasible than it has ever been. It just has to be properly supported by its package. That would probably also include some amount of classic printed instructions, as there is no reason to not do that, too.
EDIT: missed some typos
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I think a big issue is the perceived value of a yo-yo, and who is actually buying them. My guess is most yo-yos bought at major retailers like Walmart and Target are adults buying them as presents for kids. Most adults think it’s ridiculous to spend more than $10 for a yo-yo. And people are more likely going to pick up something familiar that they can show the kid how it works. So they grab a cheap butterfly. My guess is they would have a lot of returns because people wouldn’t know how to use them.
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My idea here is shooting for a $5 Yo-Yo that is arguably fun to play with immediately, it’s hard to imagine a significant amount of parents standing at the customer service desk in Target asking for their five dollars back because it wouldn’t come back up the string. You’d get that sometimes, but I don’t think that even remotely eliminates the value of mass exposure for unresponsive Yo-Yo play. Most people can’t get Yo-Yos to work and just discard them. I think it would even be valuable for said discarded Yo-Yos sold at garage sales or discovered in old toy bins to be unresponsive!
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I meet an amazing amount of 6-8 year olds who can bind that just learnt it on YouTube.
I don’t gaze at crystal balls too hard. I’m just trying to set up for as many possible futures as I can.
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That doesn’t surprise me. Saw lots of younger kids doing it at the last local contest I attended. I’m Glad Angel2Up has this great bind return tutorial, since a lot of kids are finding him as a first exposure to throwing. He quickly and simply breaks down the easiest way to bind, and covers crucial details. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1nxybAdkzM
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Although giving an unresponsive yoyo (with instructions and help) to a beginner isn’t bad, there’s a certain satisfaction in mastering gravity pull and a sleeper and it’s nice to give them the option of getting interested in looping before setting them down the string trick only path.
There is a lot of value in the yoyos that come with a reaponsive and an unresponsive bearing that are a great compromise and widen a beginners understanding of yoyo while still having the choice there.
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I just think that the satisfaction of mastering the gravity pull isn’t enough to pull people into the hobby very well anymore. I think younger people need to see something that seems really cool and feel like they’re fast on their way to doing that. I also think there’s nothing stopping somebody from deciding to get into looping once they’re into the hobby. It’s just that unresponsive 1A is the most popular form of the hobby, which probably means it holds the widest appeal, which probably means it’s the best thing to show somebody/put in their hands as efficiently as possible. I think the current retail store path to get people into Yo-Yoing doesn’t work well enough, because the pipeline to the hobby’s strongest selling point is too bloated.
I forget what it is, but there’s a term in marketing and sales for sort of “cutting that fat” until the strongest aspect of your product is extremely easy to encounter, and that includes cutting other weaker selling points. You’re only likely to get a potential customer’s attention in the smallest way before it’s gone, so you prioritize making your best selling point the #1 thing that person is exposed to, in every possible way. You then solve the problem of showing them everything else as a secondary effort after that is accomplished. Yo-Yos currently fail to do this in a number of ways.
Whether we like it or not, 1A string tricks are the strongest sell we have. From a marketing and sales standpoint, it needs to be given as much priority as possible, even if those of us entrenched in the hobby cringe at how forced that seems. You do not play all the songs from a band’s new album on the radio and let people find the song they like best, you pick the “best” song and go nuts putting it out there. Is it annoying? Yes. Does it ignore people’s different taste and preferences? Yes. Does it ignore the value of other songs on the album? Yes. Does it most effectively grow the popularity of the band? Yes. If you pull in thousands more 1A players and grow the hobby, I’m betting you’ll get more 2A players in the long run than the current “linear” format does.
With all of that said, I do 100% like the idea of including a slim/lubed responsive bearing and a regular/dry unresponsive bearing. There’s absolutely no downside to that, functionally. But it does bring into question, can you sell a plastic unresponsive with two bearings for $5? Because this is supposed to be the new shelf warmer Yo-Yo, not another ideal starter kit that sits on Yo-Yo websites.
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A while back my niece saw me throwing and was fascinated. Just so you aren’t picturing a young beginner here, she is in her 30s. I gave her a Hertz03 and tried to teach her to bind. I was reminded of my own frustration in the beginning. She just couldn’t get it. I was disappointed with my own ability to explain something that is as much about feel as it is about technique. I pointed her to online videos. She still just didn’t get it. “I just want it to come back to me like the one I had when I was a kid” I suggested a responsive but at that point she had just had enough. I thought I was giving her a fun distraction, but I gave her a paperweight instead. What would have happened if I had given her a responsive in the beginning?
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So many good valid opinions and experiences here.
I tried to craft people’s experiences once but now I tend to let water flow.
Want a classic responsive? Sure, here.
Want a modern unresponsive? There you go.
I don’t see people sticking more either way. If I did maybe I’d try more influence.
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Well that’s the sad part, I think this is definitely going to happen sometimes if someone starts out on unresponsive. For that reason, I don’t think my position is going to ever go as far as “We should be starting people off on unresponsive always, at Yo-Yo learning clubs and on websites like YoYoExpert”, because once you already have somebody engaging with the hobby that much, you might as well hand them a responsive Yo-Yo. Unless they explicitly want to engage with unresponsive.
My case for starting out on unresponsive here genuinely only applies to justifying replacing the single Yo-Yo variety sold at Walmart and Target. The one Yo-Yo that has the power to reach extreme levels of exposure… exposure that I believe should be spent on the strongest selling point Yo-Yos have today (see the post I made right before yours). But if those big retail stores would so much as stock two different Yo-Yos, I’d just say “Try to sell a responsive model and an unresponsive model”.
But it’s pretty clear that right now at least, those stores just want to order one general Yo-Yo model to offer at all times (aside from all manner of no-name licensed responsive Yo-Yos that come and go). So this idea is built around working within that constraint.
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Well, quite frankly I think your approach is already ideal, I really don’t think Yo-Yo companies should stop offering responsive models in general. I feel like that would be a very bad idea. Once people are browsing a selection of Yo-Yos for sale, or buying a “starter pack” with more than one model, you have to figure options are better than a forceful push one direction.
I would hate to see the fun upsides of responsive become lost completely, but I’m not sure if that’s possible. The classic Yo-Yo is too… classic. I feel like there will be some valuable interest so long as the Earth continues to spin, ha
And some people just want a yoyo that goes up and down and absolutely nothing more. Nothing wrong with that.
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It would be interesting to run an experiment out in the wild with 50 people.
Have 2 yoyos, a responsive and unresponsive. Make sure they are cheap plastics that were well designed.
Show them 3 basic responsive tricks, and 3 basic unresponsive tricks.
Let them play with both. Explain to them that the unresponsive bind is key to the world of unresponsive and their is a great tutorial on YouTube.
Have a questionnaire with the 5 questions we need answers to the most.
Would be interesting to see which they prefer.
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