Why Are So Many Breakers Losing it Online?

A quick question to start off the newsletter this week: Hey, guys, what are we doing? Huh?

It’s been one helluva month so far for live-streamed crash-outs, as Boston Card Hunter has pointed out. One dude, whose name I won’t share, but I’m sure you can find him if you really wanted to (he’s been getting beat up a bunch online) had three separate meltdowns this past week alone - and countless others over the past year. 

It got to the point where he’s now decided to seek professional help. 

Good on him. But, bro, chill. And this particular streamer isn’t someone who had like 50 followers on WhatNot. This guy had over 51k followers on his channel. 

There have been quite a few others in the past week alone who have crashed out - one dude burned his cards in a fire, another cut up cards with scissors while streaming live on WhatNot. This, along with the whole Packman debacle and the dude from Otia Sports shaming his buyers (even though they were paying over comp on a Cooper Flagg card)...

It’s wild to watch, in a sad way, but I do wonder how much of it is that we’ve gotten into this performative space where the crash-ier you are the more views you get, i.e. the more “famous” (infamous) you become. 

Or, how much is this just the gambling nature of card collecting rearing its ugly head - getting a bunch of young kids who are in over their head and making dumb decisions that result in them losing money they don’t have? 

I’m guessing that’s more of the case than dudes chasing fame, but I hope we just remember to take a deep breath and chill. And if you see someone crashing out like that on a live stream, let’s not fane the flames. Please? 

Anyone else get that email from Leaf where they referred to Cameron Boozer as “Baby Jokic”? That was wild. Still, I suppose when you’ve made 900+ different 1/1 card variations of the young fella then you have to “milk it.” 

He may end up being great, but let’s start by calling him Baby Carlos Boozer before we start comparing him to one of the 10 greatest basketball players of all time. 

2023: Connor Bedard is a generational hockey player. A can’t miss. 

2024: Macklin Celebrini is a generational hockey player. Could be the greatest scorer we see. 

2025: Matthew Schaefer may be the most important and gifted hockey player of this generation. 

2026: Gavin McKenna will transform the game of hockey as we know it. 

2027: Shohei Ohtani is the greatest hockey player to have never played the game. 

2028: Our alien overlord, Supreme Leader X-Goris48gA’s rookie card sells for a jar of oxygen.  

I sadly missed out on the pre-order of the Panini FIFA World Cup Adrenalyn XL Omni Set this week. First, we have to stop with the crazy names. K? Thanks. Second, this set actually looks pretty slick. 

It’s way less hot garbage than the Monopoly Prizm FIFA World Cup set, which is a scalding pile of garbage.

I’m all in on the World Cup sets, generally speaking. I think if you can rip and quick flip, great, but also the top talent guys should hold long term value - or at least they generally have in the past. 

It is straight up silly just how good Lamine Yamal is at 18 years old. Give us all the over-printed Yamal’s, Topps. We want them. We need them. 

It’s absolutely mind-boggling to see that Shohei Ohtani’s market continues to boom. His market is up over 19% in the last 30 days. Konnor Griffin is the only baseball player outpacing him during that span and check in with me in 30 days and I guarantee that Griffin will be in the red and Ohtani will remain in the green. 

Keep an eye on how his BBM cards from 2013 - which some call his true rookie cards - have been performing; they’ve more than tripled in the last 3-to-4 weeks. 

It’s wild. For the price of a “regular” Ohtani autographed card (i.e. not a rookie card) you can get a one-of-a-kind mechanical butt rhino. What is the world coming to?!

I’m still not entirely sure what One Piece is, but I 100% stand behind recommending you watch the live-action show on Netflix. It’s super fun. And since season 2 is scheduled to release this week, I guess I should also call out that OP-15 will hit shelves on April 3rd. Again, whatever that means. 

But the show is great!