Our Community Needs to Be Better When Interacting with the Public-Facing Members of Hasbro

I seriously have no desire to write this article, but I feel like I couldn't live with myself if I didn't. These types of articles/videos/posts don't tend to go well on this platform or others like it. The usual cries of "corporate shill" or "protecting your access" tend to follow. It's frustrating, and far from the truth, but short of a livestreamed polygraph, it can't be countered. All I can do is state the only reason I'm writing this is that I see a longstanding wrong, and it bothers me.

I don't have a very big presence on social media. That's not because I'm opposed to it. It's simply because I don't have the time. Between work, personal obligations, and this site, most of my time in a given day is gobbled up. Plus, I consider the Disqus comments here to be a form of social media, and I'd much rather talk with you guys. You're fun. To that point, this article isn't addressing anyone here specifically. I'm addressing the overall collecting community in general, but I do feel that the good folks here can do something positive in response.

Because of my inconsistent presence on the socials, I saw a comment by one of the brand team members (you can guess who) that I initially took as cryptic. It could have meant any number of things given my relative lack of context awareness, one of which was a lot of critical commentary from the community. I soon confirmed that's what it was, but it went well beyond critical. It was personal, largely unfair/unrealistic/uninformed, and borderline abusive. There's no world where this is acceptable. We have an epidemic of shooting the messenger in this community, and it predates the current iteration of the Star Wars Brand Team. The CRAP (and that's what it was) that Patrick repeatedly had to take was frustratingly unfair. People acted like he was in the Hasbro C-suite. He was just the messenger. He's a good person, and always advocated for the fans in good faith.

I've gotten to know some members of the brand team in a professional capacity, and I will reiterate that sentiment: good people who advocate for the community. They're very well aware of what the community wants and/or needs from the product, but due to numerous factors outside of their control, they can't always deliver on those things. They don't act autonomously. There are more restrictions on them than we even know. And I know for a fact that they share our frustrations when those restrictions prevent them from delivering things they know are important to the community. But they are our best advocates within Hasbro. And when things don't go the way we want, we then take out our wrath on them? Way to encourage further advocacy, folks.

I'm not saying we can't be critical of Hasbro. That's perfectly fair. I'm not saying we have to be happy with every decision being made. That would be disingenuous. I'm asking that we not take it out on brand team members who graciously make themselves highly available to the community. Also, there is absolutely zero room for any indignation. None of us "need" these things. No one is going to die if they have to stop collecting TVC or TBS because of the price increase, nor is anyone "owed" the right to collect Star Wars figures at a price they want. This social contract ends at whether or not you partake of the product. I used to bristle at the "they're just toys people" phrase, but I rapidly find myself joining their ranks. We shouldn't be taking these things personally, nor should we be getting personal.

Again, I'm not addressing any of our active members here, so maybe this article is a little silly, but this is the outlet I have for long form writing such as this. The problem is that the negative voices tend to be the loudest. It's always that way. The sound of satisfaction is often silence. So for you good folks who are on social media, any countering of the vitriol would be meaningful. You don't have to directly combat the trolls, but just let the brand team know they're appreciated. If you don't want to stick you neck out on social media individually, that's perfectly understandable, but let the community here know when you see the unfairly negative commentary, and we can rally the troops.

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