wanna play cards?
I remember being obsessed with Pokemon cards when the atomic bomb of their presence dropped on our school. I collected and traded them like mad, desperate to hold every sparkly, pink, shiny little creature in my little hands until I couldn't hold anything else. I memorized their names and perceived their rarity based on the amount of bows or bells hanging from their ears and tails, probably much to the distaste of the boys on the playground trying to snag my Rayquaza EX without any Sylveons to tempt me. By the climax of the craze I had amassed a collection of hundreds of the least rare, least important, and most adorable cards in the game. I was rich with cuteness.
My brother didn't understand my compulsion to buy booster packs at the mall GameStop or ask for the expensive limited edition tins for Christmas or my birthday. I wasn't even playing the game, so what was the point? I think, at least in my mind, I was collecting art. While my brother played the game obsessively, he donated his collection (leagues bigger than mine) to me when the fad died down at school. I sleeved all the cards and put them in a binder for safe-keeping, and it's still sitting on my bookshelf in my childhood room. I admire it every once and a while.
It might please you to know I still collect cards! I branched into some other TCGs (Japanese and otherwise) over the years and have a decent collection of decks from games I can't play since I don't know anyone else who plays them and I can't read Japanese (Wixoss, anyone? No?). I also started buying playing card decks as souvenirs for the unique decks I could find in shops on vacation. These decks do get played, and most of them are beat up beyond belief for being thrown into my purse and carried around like good-luck charms. My art collecting compulsion is soothed with my prettier decks (I have one or two that don't get played) and with my growing kpop photocard collection (kept the most pristine of all my cards for fear someone will burn me at the stake for not sleeving them). If only childhood me could hold a Fansign Event Haewon in her hands, knowing she could make an Ebay seller cry by losing it on the playground.
So, why collect cards if you're not going to play them? Why spend an entire childhood amassing a Pokemon collection of the weak ones? Why scour the internet for a piece of paper you're going to sleeve in glittery plastic and stick in a glittery binder? What's the point?
Well, as my childhood self would have proudly told you, it's for fun!
And, besides, who doesn't need a little more sparkle in their life?