Unpopular Yoyo Opinions

[zslane (ClockMonsterLA)]

I have mixed feelings about engravings. I feel that most engravings detract from a yoyo’s aesthetic appeal, which is why I generally favor yoyos with no engravings at all. The engravings I like are elaborate and interesting graphics, like the Mowl Surveillance, and otherwise I’d rather the yoyo be plain.

Yes, engravings that indicate the make and model of the yoyo are useful for identification purposes, but for me aesthetics are more important than easy identification. Engravings that are graphical in nature, like the aforementioned Mowl Surveillance, are no easier to identify than a completely plain yoyo that you must identify from its shape. If I don’t know what those graphics are, then I don’t know what that yoyo is, and I am just as stuck as if the engravings weren’t there to begin with.

Overall I prefer yoyos to be distinctive in their design rather than their markings. Too many yoyos are just “me too” designs which require engravings to differentiate them from all the other yoyos of that design. I’d rather see the marketplace not have to rely on engravings so much, and I’d rather see companies level up their design game instead.

[ChrisFrancz]

I love minimalist engravings…

[Roy_Dodge (Casual Throw)]

You make a lot of good points. I wonder if there might be a way to include engravings in ways the preserve a “clean” appearance. Maybe under the response pads as a common practice so people know where to look in case they need to find out what a particular throw is?

And in a conversation elsewhere, someone mentioned when companies re-release yoyos and players have to micro-analyze design features to figure out which run a throw is. The funny thing is that some of those throws have an engraving but they replicate the old engraving when they could easily include a V2 or something.

While I generally do like minimalist engravings to help ID a yoyo, I do get why folks don’t care for them. So I do wonder about hidden areas on a yoyo where these could be located.

Every month we add at least a few more unengraved yoyos to circulation and we already see the posts about throws from 5+ years ago that folks have trouble ID’ing.

[zslane (ClockMonsterLA)]

The jaded cynic in me sorta feels that any yoyo that can’t be spot identified–engravings or no–by the yoyo community at large (“Hey, can anyone ID this yoyo for me?”) probably isn’t worth identifying.

[ChrisFrancz]

Most current yoyo companies will not exist 10 years from now and 10 years from now 95% of people currently playing with yoyos will have moved on. There’s gonna be a whole lot of guessing going on. Someone should start cataloguing specs (and photos) today. I am sure there’s gonna be a whole lot of debate over a bunch of unengraved yoyos in the collection Doc purchased from Jeff.

[zslane (ClockMonsterLA)]

There’s the Yoyo Wiki. I don’t know if it is still maintained, but it’s a worthy idea.

[MarkD (Mk1 Yoyos)]

I had to add my own company + yoyos to it. It’s not an insignificant amount of work.

[ChrisFrancz]

It’d be cool if there was a Yoyo Yearbook each year that had as comprehensive a listing as possible of yoyos released in a given year.
Company, name of yoyo, designer name, specs, colorway (brief description of colorway), price, date released, etc. This is very possible.

[hobbygod (Dressel Designs)]

This is a great idea.

[ChrisFrancz]

Great pilot episode that left me wanting 10 more minutes of it like what is too much, too little, what is ridiculous (Pyro), what should definitely have an engraving. Go crazy like Andy Rooney on his old segments on 60 Minutes or Peter Griffin on Family Guy with his “This Really Grinds My Gears” segments on the news. I would love fearless editorializing on all things yoyo. For Slightly Unstable I would love it in long form. Did a neighborhood kid steal your hat? Great video!

[Roy_Dodge (Casual Throw)]

Thanks for the feedback. I do think that maybe I hedged a little on the engravings piece and should let loose a little more. I am torn on it, but do lean toward the “engrave more” side of things. Glad you enjoyed the first one. Maybe I will try to find something that fires me up more for episode 2.

[Malachi]

I love that you’re addressing sustainability of a practice. It’s something that is important but most people don’t think about what happens if a practice is continued over time.

Edit: I keeping with the thread topic, if you can’t throw a few loops with a fixie or responsive you don’t really know how to yoyo and if you can’t fingerspin a yoyo that doesn’t have a fingerspin dimple you don’t really know how to finger spin.

[zslane (ClockMonsterLA)]

@Malachi

if you can’t throw a few loops with a fixie or responsive you don’t really know how to yoyo

Isn’t that kinda like saying if you can’t read sheet music then you don’t really know how to music (i.e., you aren’t really a musician)?

I have a feeling that this is not merely an unpopular opinion, but a factually incorrect one. But feel free to convince me otherwise.

[ChrisFrancz]

That’s like what I say to bicycle riders: If you can’t pop a few wheelies or do some simple ramp jumps you don’t really know how to ride a bicycle.

[zslane (ClockMonsterLA)]

As a kid I tirelessly tried to master popping and riding a wheelie. Just couldn’t make it happen. Oh, sure, I could pop it, but I couldn’t ride on the back wheel for more than a few feet.

However, years later, I rode my 10-speed to high school (7 miles each way) every day for more than three years. I was very good at integrating safely with traffic. I can confidently say I knew how to ride a bicycle, despite never mastering the “wheelie”.

[ChrisFrancz]

I was being sarcastic / ludicrous about bicycle skills…

[Malachi]

No, there are plenty of people who can make music without reading traditional notation (or any notation at all, in some cases). From my point of view, your comparison would be valid if I said, “You don’t know how to yoyo if you can’t learn a yoyo trick ‘from a book’ or ‘from a video’ (or some other specific format for representing the information)”.

What I am trying to say is that, for me, responsive play and looping are fundamental parts of what the yoyo has been, traditionally, and what yoyoing is for me personally. They aren’t part of 1A anymore, but they’re still a skills baseline just above being able to do a gravity pull and throw a sleeper. The reason I call loops out specifically is that they aren’t part of 1A, so there seems to be a generation of players who don’t bother with learning how to do them (at least a little bit, I’m not asking for a world record here, just being competent enough to bust out 2 or 3 loops).

I don’t know if I can be factually incorrect about an opinion and I willingly concede that it would be easy and perfectly valid to build a definition of “really knowing how to yoyo” that is purely based on 1A, 3A, 4A, or 5A (or other styles/sub-styles) that would not meet my criteria. Or even a simpler/minimal version that wouldn’t meet it either.

For example, “if you can’t do a gravity pull, you don’t really know how to yoyo.”

I would argue that there has to be some baseline for what yoyoing is and I would put it at least a little bit above “throwing a sleeper”.

And yeah, this type of reasoning can be a slippery slope into No True Scotsman, but how would you define the baseline for “knowing how to yoyo”? Or it is anyone that can pick one up (e.g. any infant can yoyo if you hand it to them)?

And, full disclosure, I have been playing with yoyos off and on for many years, but I kind of fell away from it around the year 2000 and didn’t pick it up again until 2016 (I think). Prior to picking the hobby back up, I never understood how to actually throw loops because I did not understand the flip part. I could throw what seemed to be a loop but was basically more like a planet hop, so when I tried to loop it a second time it would usually fail because things were now backwards. So, for most of my life, I would say I didn’t really know how to yoyo even though I was very much into the hobby.

[zslane (ClockMonsterLA)]

I guess the point of my analogy is that it has become a matter of play style. Reading music is relevant to musicians depending on their chosen style of music. Just like looping is relevant to yoyoers depending on their chosen style of yoyoing. For a very long time, it was believed that nobody could be a “real” musician without a solid foundation in music theory and the ability to read sheet music (a lead sheet at the very least). It’s the same argument you are making with regards to looping and being a “real” yoyoer.

[gregoryfromearth (Gregory Braun)]

I’m right there with you on the first half…

[Malachi]

Again, I see where you are coming from but I believe that for almost everything, a decision has to be made either implicitly or explicitly as to what the baseline for a set of skills is.

Either that, or everyone is a “real” musician and everyone is a “real” yoyoer and also a “real” heart surgeon and also a “real” engineer…

I think, to have words that mean things, you have to draw a line somewhere. Am I a musician because I own a banjo, trombone, didgeridoo, and piano, or am I not a musician because I can’t/don’t play them, etc?

You clearly don’t agree with where I draw that line for yoyo (hence the unpopular opinion), so I want to know, where would you draw it?