So, I have a friend. He’s learning how to yo-yo and by this time he can do boingy-boing. He’s going up the YYE trick list of course. The issue is, he reached the point where he thinks he knows almost everything about yo-yos.
I.E: Today, I noticed his Striker was vibing and decided to ask if I can test it. It vibed way more than when he got it at Nationals. I told him that he said that “SPYY Sucked” and he “should’ve gotten a Yoyojam instead.” I told him that something was wrong with the yo-yo on the inside. He responds “How could there be something wrong inside? Nothing is showing outside, isn’t a yo-yo just the halves, bearing and string?”
By this time I thought he should know better than to say a company is better than the other. I also thought he reached the point where he knows how a yo-yo works and can’t say it’s the companies fault for selling him a yo-yo. He thinks that SPYY yo-yos are meant start extremely vibing after a few weeks. He’s reaching a point where he puts a wall around him and believes that other companies suck compared to Yoyojam or Yoyofactory, or Duncan because until Nats, he’s never heard of those other companies like Rec Rev, or SPYY, or CLYW.
I then tell him that something was going bad and if he wanted me to clean the bearing and have my engineer type friend to attempt to fix it. His reply “Nah, I might just throw it away if it’s going bad.”
So, what can I do to open his eyes and wipe away the ignorance? I’m just afraid that he’ll become one of those players that believe other companies suck because he’s never heard of them. I’m also afraid that he will start educating other throwers that he meets (whom are beginners) with the wrong type of information, or when he meets other throwers, he’s going to look like a complete idiot and look like a jerk arguing what he believe is fact.
First it is going to be hard when someone has their mind set on something. We are programmed with advertising from a young age about popularity and so forth. Some of these other great and amazing companies that go off of word of mouth and a strong community following do not spend a ton of money on advertising because they do not need to in order to be successful.
All you can do is just share other views and try to open his mind, if he doesn’t want to, there really is nothing your going to be able to do. It is going to have to come from him. just my thoughts
Friends should be able to disagree. I wouldn’t try and convince him of anything, just share your point of view and not worry about it. Experience is the best teacher and he may just be frustrated or a little bored with yoyoing at the moment. If he feels he knows everything he needs to about yoyoing maybe he’s gone as far as he’s going to go with it.
Many people enjoy the initial learning curve, it’s just awesome to see your skills jump, but then when it gets more difficult and those new skills are learned more slowly, they lose interest.
I don’t know maybe this is a case when you have to decide if it’s more important to keep a good relationship with a friend or try to win a debate over something that should be fun.
you should say " if you’re going to just throw it away then can i have it?" then fix it and use it when he’s around talking about how great it is, then when he wants if back give it to him, but make him promise to stop being so ignant
Personally, I would try to fix the wiggly SPYY in front of him. Remove gunk, clean up the response area, install new pads, and tune the axle.
But only after your friend knows exactly how wiggly the yo-yo is now. This is so they can tell the difference between the old, wiggly yo-yo, and the (same) new, fixed yo-yo.
This may humble them into expanding their thinking. But maybe not.
Doing the same thing with a yo-yo from one of the brands he does not “trust” might help open his mind further.
But most likely, he will stick to their prejudices, keep buying yo-yos from the companies they like, and not learn what you already know until they spend lots of money, play for years, try yo-yos by other companies with an open mind, and finally expand their horizons.
And maybe only teach him new tricks while using this same Striker.
If he wants to trash his SPYY, PM me and I’ll gladly give it a new home where it won’t be a victim of ignorance.
Why don’t you have him come to the YYE forum. He needs to calm down and learn.
There’s always someone better. There’s always someone smarter. And there’s always something to learn.
I came into this 6 months ago. I’ve learned a lot, and I still have much more to learn. I’m not moving through the trick list very fast, and I’m not very good, but I’ve got an open mind and a willingness to learn. I came in knowing Duncan, then was quickly overwhelmed by all the brands, models and technology. But I stick around and I learn.
Just because one hasn’t heard of a brand before doesn’t necessarily mean anything. People not in audio don’t know of many of the brands I use. Even those in the industry, when I tell them my amps and speakers for my mains, they are “huh?”. There’s all sorts of brands you’ve never heard of in the WAN industry(wide area networking). YoYo is more obscure because it’s one of those areas where you need to make a minimal effort to find an entry point, such as finding a yoyo forum and then sign up for it.
Knowledge is power. Educate him. It’s not about showing him up, but to show him that “he still has a LOT to learn”.
Spyy+vibe don’t belong in the same sentence unless the word “doesn’t” is in between them. Just contact spyy, they will be able to replace it and you won’t need to tinker.
no need to call spyy is it’s not their fault. Fix it then let him try it. If he’s like “what happened?” just tell him. He’ll figure it out sooner or later.
If he didn’t do anything wrong to the yoyo then he should at least contact spyy, although it is highly unlikely that he didn’t do any thing wrong to it.
Well, he does tend to get disrespectful… I mean careless with his stuff. I think it happened when he just tossed the Striker aside on concrete when I called him over.
