Episode 29 - TMReviews

Struggle to Understand

Today’s episode is the next in an on-going series I am doing on this podcast on collectibles and community. In this episode of that series, I speak with TMReviews who has a YouTube channel called “TMReviews.” On this channel, TM reviews collectibles and provides discussion and commentary for the community that has developed around those collectibles. Like others who engage in this kind of review and commentary, he deals some with official products but also with unlicensed or third-party products. We discuss how his frugal youth gave him a desire to own certain kinds of collectibles, how he left collecting during his teenage and college years, and why he ultimately returned to collecting. We then discuss why he started his YouTube channel and the problems and promise that have come with it. Finally, we turn to what he considers the most important element in collecting: the community. We speak to how he sees his role within the collecting community, specifically among Transformers collectors, but also how he has gone about cultivating his own community through his YouTube channel. I will repeat here, again, the central argument of this series because it becomes more clear with each subsequent discussion: popular culture and the collectibles that have been developed around them are centerpieces for developing community.

TMReviews can be found here.

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

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