Beneath The Outer Shell

i recently posted a blog about the many choices we have today as a result of our overly technological world. that past blog i wrote is in part related to this blog as well.

i was watching Heroes on TV tonight (GREAT show btw) and there was a commercial for the new AT&T influence on Apple's I-POD and it mentioned that there are over 1000 "apps" available on facebook now.

this is a BIG problem with why we may feel dull, bored, and just plain numb in our lives. a LARGE portion of our fun has been stripped from us right beneath our lives.

it all goes back to when baseball cards were popular. the reason baseball cards were really popular at one point (around the early 90's it hit it's peak) was that people used to actually trade their cards with each other because they all had many of the same card sets by the same manufactures. i did some research and found out that at the peak of the baseball card popularity...there were approximately 10,000 baseball card stores in the United States. and today, they are hard to find and failing when you do find one...and the number of shops in 2006 has been estimated to be around 1700, and i think that number is probably much lower today in 2008. MUCH lower.

so what happened? in 2004 there were approximately 90 different baseball card sets to choose and collect from. that's right...90! and then, in 2006, there were only about 40 different baseball card sets due to the unpopularity of most of them. personally...i think if there are over 3 sets per year, you're pushing the industry too far. i used to be in the collection as a child. i still have all of my cards which include rookie cards from Larry Bird, Joe Montana, Jose Canseco (don't laugh), Ken Griffey Jr (yes, the Upper Deck version), and many others that were SURE to be worth BIG money one day. and i paid good face value money at the time for those too!

and then the oversaturation happened. when there are too many card sets to choose from, no one can relate to each other's collections or trade with each other because all of your friends had a different set than you. it took the fun out of it. baseball cards today are nearly worthless for the most part (unless you own the OLD ones from WAY back in the day).

oversaturation is the direct result of the internet and more importantly...technology. i remember having to use a land line phone to call around and look for cards around town and then get directions on the phone and get moving...then i would have my mom drive me to different card shops, card shows, and try and find certain cards i wanted or people who wanted to trade. and if we got lost along the way to the shops, we had to try and find a payphone to call and get better directions. wow. looking back...THAT was the fun part of collecting! the pursuit of completing the collection. see, once you completed your collection of something...you put it away and hardly looked at it. the fun was over at that point and you moved onto the next hobbie or collection to start. with the internet as it is today with ebay and craigslist...you can complete ANY collection of whatever you want to collect in a single day. all at once...or maybe within a week if you weren't lucky. you can find ANYTHING you want if in fact it does exist...and you can find it easier than we would have ever imagined it prior to the internet. if you want every single art plate with unicorns or Jesus on it, or if you want every single koosh ball known to man...you can get ALL of them ALL at once and complete your collection instantly. what's the fun when you can just go to one place, and buy them all at once?

oversaturation has resulted in an overall dullness to hobbies, collecting, and life in general. we can get anything we want at any time without any problem. once again...the pursuit was the fun part. because of technology, we have to find other things to keep our interests going...and it's not easy and we try and find things to do with ourselves. the fun has been pulled and sucked out of us like hungry vampires.

and now, we have facebook with "over 1000 apps" to choose from! wtf? OVER 1000 apps? are you kidding me? what are the chances of you being able to relate to someone with options of over 1000 apps? i felt like 10 apps was too much for facebook...and now...1000? it's simply unbelievable. i am not adding ANY more apps because it's a waste of time when i know the chances of my friends having the same ones i want are not that great. so what have we done? we have once again, taken the fun out of something because technology has has taken over our lives and we cannot control it. technology has a mind of it's own and is so far ahead of us...and we have NO idea where this will go or where it will lead us down the road. the sad thing is...we will not be able to control it...ever...at this pace unless we revert back to a Fight Club mentality of "to hell with technology".

mark this down in your journal...with technology, we mark the end of hobbies and collecting anything as we used to know it. we are now forced to find fun in other things as we have been spoiled with oversaturation of everything.