The symbol of American yoyoing?

[Yoyo]

Whenever I see Steve with the bleached hair it reminds me of 21 Jump street.

[yoyospirit]

@Shai_Hulud

I meant “in the United States.” I thought that was clear given that you can find “United States” if you look over about a centimeter to the left of “Pedro Flores” on your monitor. And he did invent the modern yo-yo in the U.S., and Duncan bought him out. Why I am debating this with you? It’s history.

Pedro Flores

BTW most historians believe the yo-yo in its earliest form was first developed in China, not Greece, although the ancient Greeks did develop yo-yo like toys.

EDIT: I might be losing it but I think I saw Steve Brown in the “Give us the Finger” commercial (guy with the mohawk?). Anybody know what he looked like back then?

Oooohhh, that probably turned some heads.

[Shai_Hulud]

@Chimera

Yep that’s Steve - why would that be a surprise?

Just comparing what he looked like then to what he looks like now makes me laugh

And the commercial is just so ridiculous.

[unklesteve (Steve Brown)]

@Shai Hulud:

You seem to be under the impression that looking up a bunch of facts that specifically support your own personal bias against intellectual property is somehow beneficial to this forum. It’s not. It should also be noted that facts without context are largely useless, and any statistic can be easily bent to support any ideal…as you’ve proven with your baseless vendetta against Duncan Toys.

I can only assume that your inability to form an empathic connection with other people is the reason that you don’t understand context or the viewpoints of other people. In fact, pretty much everything you’ve posted on this forum indicates that you are only capable of understanding your own limited viewpoint and you have neither respect for nor an understanding of anyone else’s.

Since I have neither the interest nor the time in chasing you around to correct your one-sided view of an industry that you’ve shown little understanding of, I’ll just leave this here:

Hi, people of the YoYoExpert forum. I’m Steve.

Shai Hulud has absolutely zero practical experience in the yoyo industry, and everything that he is telling you is filtered through the perception of someone who admittedly only understands raw facts and has neither empathy nor understanding of larger context nor any inside information about how Duncan Toys or any other yoyo company operates. While his being on the autistic spectrum is no reason to discount him as a person, it does mean that you need to take his incredibly long and seemingly factual posts with the caveat that he has no idea what he’s talking about, and is getting all of his information from Google searches. And since yoyo manufacturers do not lay out all of the details of their business on Google, his version of the story is, at best, deeply flawed.

Do your homework, be skeptical of everything you are told, and please do not put any stock in the version of events put forth by Shai Hulud. He might be a perfectly nice guy and he seems pretty intelligent, but most of what he’s saying is either wrong, or presented in a fashion that is only meant to support his own bias without acknowledging any possibility that he might be wrong. Which he largely is. This is fine, everyone gets to have their own opinion and be right or wrong about things, just be aware that a pile of Google search results doesn’t make anyone’s opinion right. It just means they can use Google.

Thanks.

---

EDIT: Also, that commercial was a bad idea from the start, and I nearly got fired for the amount of complaining I did about being expected to participate in it. I was thrown out of a meeting with the director when I was asked what I thought about the commercial and said “Well, you got the name of the company right.”

[saintrobyn]

@Steve Brown

EDIT: Also, that commercial was a bad idea from the start, and I nearly got fired for the amount of complaining I did about being expected to participate in it. I was thrown out of a meeting with the director when I was asked what I thought about the commercial and said “Well, you got the name of the company right.”

Looking back at it after 15 years have passed, that commercial is hilariously cheesy. That being said, I can see how it would aggrivate the hell out of people at the time.do you know if it was ever played on national TV? Also, how old were you in that commercial?

[naoki]

What I have found in this thread, after reading it carefully, is that there are quite a lot of people here with oversized egos, this is fascinating!

The symbol of American yoyoing is definitely Duncan, it’s BIG, it has patents, it can be found in unexpected places, it has a large variety of models for every level, it has a very decent market beside yoyos.

[unklesteve (Steve Brown)]

@saintrobyn

Looking back at it after 15 years have passed, that commercial is hilariously cheesy. That being said, I can see how it would aggrivate the heck out of people at the time.do you know if it was ever played on national TV? Also, how old were you in that commercial?

It did air on national television, and caused a ruckus from everyone’s favorite media watchdog group, the American Family Association. For the record, the commercial was never pulled…even after this outburst, it continued to run through it’s intended schedule.

Here’s the original message that the AFA sent out:

[i]TOY MAKER OFFERS ‘ONE-FINGER’ SALUTE TO CHILDREN

Today, the American Family Association criticized Flambeau Corporation,
parent company of Duncan Toy Company, the largest maker and distributor of
yo-yos in the U.S., for it’s newest sales pitch…‘The Finger.’
In a pre-Christmas advertising blitz designed to introduce its new
“Hard-core Series” of yo-yos, Duncan began airing a television commercial
that bounces from one rebellious personality to the next, each floating the
crude gesture of social disrespect into the camera in slow motion. After 17
“one finger salutes”, the announcer tags the 30-second spot, “Give us the
finger, we’ll give you the power.”

ACTION URGED: Contact Flambeau Corporation, parent of the Duncan Toy
Company, and politely express your outrage over their attack on America’s
children.

Flambeau Products Corporation
Duncan Toys Division
President Jason Sauey
15981 Valplast Road
P.O. Box 97
Middlefield, MI 44062
Ph 800-356-8396 (Flambeau Corp.)
Ph 800-232-3474 (Duncan Toys)
Fax 440-632-1581
E-mail: info@yo-yo.com
mailto:info@yo-yo.com

Tim Wildmon, Vice-president of the American Family Association, called it
“negligent” and "irresponsibility of the lowest form. Duncan Toys should be
ashamed of themselves for legitimizing the most antagonistic and obscene
symbol of our society in exchange for a few dollars profit."Wildmon
continued, “For decades, the Duncan yo-yo has been as much of an American
icon as baseball and blue jeans. Today they have deserted their long
established character as a children’s toy maker for a new status - social
renegade. Parents will be outraged to learn that Duncan Toys is subverting
the core moral values they want their children to exercise. By promoting
such behavior, Duncan is defying the trust of those who kept them in
business a generation ago, the parents of today’s customers.”

AFA has called on Duncan Toy Company President Jason Sauey to immediately
recall the offensive commercial before more children learn to associate
anti-social behavior with their product. AFA believes the gesture has long
been associated with provoking violence and that Duncan should realize their
corporate responsibility to children by pulling the spot. “Parents don’t
want their children using the Duncan yo-yo as an excuse for exhibiting an
obscene gesture,” said Wildmon.

The commercial began airing last week on the partially Disney-owned cable
network E! Entertainment channel.[/i]

[frodoslair]

@Shai_Hulud

Also in 2007, legal threats were sent to Jaco Greeff, owner of Radiyoactive, the first African yo-yo company, who closed their store as a result.

It’s true we did receive C&D letters from Nordic (owner of Flambeau, owner of Duncan). What made it particularly ironic, is that at the time, the only products we carried were from Duncan - we apparently “infringed” on their trademarks by using their trademarks to describe their own product. Hilarious.

Credit must be given to Duncan though - a quick email and everything was sorted fairly quickly. We did not have to, as you say, “close their store as a result.”

My feeling, and I could be wrong, is that the guys at Duncan are just as frustrated about the situation as everyone else is. It can’t be easy being owned by a parent company (Flambeau), which in turn is owned by a parent /grandparent company (Nordic). It’s no one’s fault, just the situation as it is.

[da5id]

@frodoslair

It’s true we did receive C&D letters from Nordic (owner of Flambeau, owner of Duncan). What made it particularly ironic, is that at the time, the only products we carried were from Duncan - we apparently “infringed” on their trademarks by using their trademarks to describe their own product. Hilarious.

Credit must be given to Duncan though - a quick email and everything was sorted fairly quickly. We did not have to, as you say, “close their store as a result.”

My feeling, and I could be wrong, is that the guys at Duncan are just as frustrated about the situation as everyone else is. It can’t be easy being owned by a parent company (Flambeau), which in turn is owned by a parent /grandparent company (Nordic). It’s no one’s fault, just the situation as it is.

Is your store still open? What country?

[unklesteve (Steve Brown)]

@frodoslair

It’s true we did receive C&D letters from Nordic (owner of Flambeau, owner of Duncan). What made it particularly ironic, is that at the time, the only products we carried were from Duncan - we apparently “infringed” on their trademarks by using their trademarks to describe their own product. Hilarious.

Credit must be given to Duncan though - a quick email and everything was sorted fairly quickly. We did not have to, as you say, “close their store as a result.”

My feeling, and I could be wrong, is that the guys at Duncan are just as frustrated about the situation as everyone else is. It can’t be easy being owned by a parent company (Flambeau), which in turn is owned by a parent /grandparent company (Nordic). It’s no one’s fault, just the situation as it is.

As I recall, ALL of Duncan’s online retailers at the time got that same C&D letter. Even better, I think one got sent to Duncan. Yep. Flambeau’s auto-lawyers actually sent a cease and desist letter to their own division, requesting that stop using their own trademarks.

It’s hard to imagine anyone looking back at that with anything other than general amusement. The whole thing was just so laughably stupid.

[Motley07]

@Steve Brown

I think we can all agree that of all the pros in the world who would still have the patience for this place, ME being one of the last ones standing is something no one saw coming.

André, mark this date! LOL

You Sir. I Salute!

[yoyoavenger]

@Shai_Hulud

I meant “in the United States.” I thought that was clear given that you can find “United States” if you look over about a centimeter to the left of “Pedro Flores” on your monitor. And he did invent the modern yo-yo in the U.S., and Duncan bought him out. Why I am debating this with you? It’s history.

Pedro Flores

BTW most historians believe the yo-yo in its earliest form was first developed in China, not Greece, although the ancient Greeks did develop yo-yo like toys.

EDIT: I might be losing it but I think I saw Steve Brown in the “Give us the Finger” commercial (guy with the mohawk?). Anybody know what he looked like back then?

anything else is just A TOY

[Shai_Hulud]

@Steve Brown

@Shai Hulud:

You seem to be under the impression that looking up a bunch of facts that specifically support your own personal bias against intellectual property is somehow beneficial to this forum. It’s not. It should also be noted that facts without context are largely useless, and any statistic can be easily bent to support any ideal…as you’ve proven with your baseless vendetta against Duncan Toys.

I can only assume that your inability to form an empathic connection with other people is the reason that you don’t understand context or the viewpoints of other people. In fact, pretty much everything you’ve posted on this forum indicates that you are only capable of understanding your own limited viewpoint and you have neither respect for nor an understanding of anyone else’s.

Since I have neither the interest nor the time in chasing you around to correct your one-sided view of an industry that you’ve shown little understanding of, I’ll just leave this here:

Hi, people of the YoYoExpert forum. I’m Steve.

Shai Hulud has absolutely zero practical experience in the yoyo industry, and everything that he is telling you is filtered through the perception of someone who admittedly only understands raw facts and has neither empathy nor understanding of larger context nor any inside information about how Duncan Toys or any other yoyo company operates. While his being on the autistic spectrum is no reason to discount him as a person, it does mean that you need to take his incredibly long and seemingly factual posts with the caveat that he has no idea what he’s talking about, and is getting all of his information from Google searches. And since yoyo manufacturers do not lay out all of the details of their business on Google, his version of the story is, at best, deeply flawed.

Do your homework, be skeptical of everything you are told, and please do not put any stock in the version of events put forth by Shai Hulud. He might be a perfectly nice guy and he seems pretty intelligent, but most of what he’s saying is either wrong, or presented in a fashion that is only meant to support his own bias without acknowledging any possibility that he might be wrong. Which he largely is. This is fine, everyone gets to have their own opinion and be right or wrong about things, just be aware that a pile of Google search results doesn’t make anyone’s opinion right. It just means they can use Google.

Thanks.

---

EDIT: Also, that commercial was a bad idea from the start, and I nearly got fired for the amount of complaining I did about being expected to participate in it. I was thrown out of a meeting with the director when I was asked what I thought about the commercial and said “Well, you got the name of the company right.”

For the record this is way meaner than anything I ever posted. You basically call autistic people sociopaths who can only understand raw facts without appreciation of the larger context. If I don’t have the larger context of Duncan Toys, like you do, it’s not due to any character flaws like you would have people believe, but simply because I never worked there. They’re not a particularly open company so I do my own research. And yes, I use search engines. Sorry I don’t know 500 people in the yo-yo industry like you do.

I am the most skeptical person you are likely to encounter. I am also one of the most intelligent people you are likely to encounter. I realize how arrogant that sounds, but I have an IQ of 178, which puts me around the 1 in 8 million level. I only bring this up because you’ve disparaged both me as a person and my intellect for the crimes of having minority opinions (perhaps less informed than they could be, but there are far worse people on this site in that regard) and a developmental disorder.

I should never have mentioned anything about being autistic. I’ve posted on numerous forums. This is the first where I’ve mentioned it and my experience here has been far more negative than anywhere else. Differences in opinion are not tolerated, and there are people like you (and others) who have brought up my disability to support the notion that not only are your opinions correct, but that mine cannot be by nature of who I am, which is incredibly offensive.

You may know more about the yo-yo industry than I do because of how you’ve spent your life (bravo on that), but it doesn’t mean you’re the only person who can talk about it, it doesn’t make you intelligent, and it certainly doesn’t give you the right to be a bigot.

It’s hard enough for me to venture into new social arenas without having possibly the most respected person on this forum tearing me down. You are abusing your influence to spread hateful ideas. It is shameful and hurtful.

[Gambit]

… and so yet another YYE forum topic succumbs to the natural progression of:

Topic > Offtopic > Debate > Personal Attacks > Thread Deleted

See y’all at the next one! ;D

[Totalartist]

^Interesting, but don’t forget all the steps:

Topic > Off topic > no mod splits topic or scrubs it (actually an omission) > debate ensues off topic > someone can dish it out > someone can’t take it when it comes back > someone who has no part in the debate at all instigates with a drama post that has nothing to do with the topic and in turn bump the thread they are supposedly “so tired of seeing and reading” > argument continues when people ignore the instigator > or instead, one or both parties in the debate attack the instigator > someone cries to a mod friend > thread deleted

Now, that was all off topic too, but at this point, who cares anyway?

[Gambit]

@TotalArtist

^Interesting, but don’t forget all the steps:

Topic > Off topic > no mod splits topic or scrubs it (actually an omission) > debate ensues off topic > someone can dish it out > someone can’t take it when it comes back > someone who has no part in the debate at all instigates with a drama post that has nothing to do with the topic and in turn bump the thread they are supposedly “so tired of seeing and reading” > argument continues when people ignore the instigator > or instead, one or both parties in the debate attack the instigator > someone cries to a mod friend > thread deleted

Now, that was all off topic too, but at this point, who cares anyway?

Hahaha, that entertained me greatly.

It’s always a bit of a ‘catch 22’ situation with these forums. On the one hand, it’d be nice if everyone got along and stopped arguing so often… but on the other hand it’s usually the controversial topics and debates that make for the most interesting reading.

For all it’s imperfections, this thread had a lot of very interesting and educational information.

Perhaps if the topic was “The symbol of Canadian yoyoing” we’d all have been really nice and polite to each other…

[dirty_birdy]

@Gambit

Perhaps if the topic was “The symbol of Canadian yoyoing” we’d all have been really nice and polite to each other…

Correction…“the symbol of Canadian spintops”

Now see what you’ve gone and started?

db

[Gambit]

@dirty_birdy

Correction…“the symbol of Canadian spintops”

Now see what you’ve gone and started?

db

Sir, you daaare to question my knowledge of Canadian Patents!?! Prepare to feel the THUNDERRR!!!

I blame Duncan.

[dirty_birdy]

@Gambit

Sir, you daaare to question my knowledge of Canadian Patents!?! Prepare to feel the THUNDERRR!!!

Well, I was actually referring to trademarks here, not patents…but, if you must, bring on the THUNDERRR!!! It should be entertaining, at the very least!

db

[Gambit]

@dirty_birdy

Well, I was actually referring to trademarks here, not patents…but, if you must, bring on the THUNDERRR!!! It should be entertaining, at the very least!

I’ve only met one Canadian my entire life. I told him I loved his American accent… he wasn’t impressed. Apparently they sound different and don’t like it when you confuse them.

I loosely know the National Anthem purely from hearing Ralph sing it on the simpsons. “OOohhh CaaAAaannaAaaDDddaaaa!!”

So ends my knowledge of all things Canada. ;D

At any rate, none of this really affects me at all! I live in the UK, where neither patent nor trademark can hold back our non-existent yoyo companies! Fear our hypothetical innovation! Cower before our theoretically unrestrained workmanship!