Stop Chasing Blind Box Secrets — They’re Nothing Special
Introduction
Guessing and revealing which figurine you’re going to get is half the fun of blind boxes. The other half is when the one teased on the back of the package with only its contour shown comes into your possession. Crosschecking it against the standard versions, you fail to recognize it. Until then, a smile is cracked on your face — you realize it’s a Secret.
Secrets aren’t a specialty of POP MART blind boxes. They lurk in other brands too:
- Beyblade Burst: a 1/72 chance that one or more components are painted in a unique color
- Pokemon TCG: in the form of alternative art, gold filter or Shiny, etc.
- Gachapon: of a character less known, e.g. Amalgamate keychain
Should you covet a Secret, however, brace yourself. It’s abjectly elusive. Instead of a 1/6, you’re betting your moola on a bleak 1/144. Sometimes, that number is even smaller. You ought to brood over why you’d chase them if not for resale value like another parasitic scalper. Too many prematurely rule them as being special, unaware of unthinkable reasons they’re drawn to them.
Time to unbox the true nature of Secrets.
Making the Most Economic Sense Somehow
An answer Secret hunters would like to cling onto is quality. They believe collectible reserved such an atypical position must be well-made in somehow. While quality isn’t exactly an objective matter, money is. Say, a collectible outshines the rest of a set in design. Its manufacturer has all the incentives to maximize its exposure by allowing previews to not miss any potential appreciator.
Reality shows otherwise. They choose to lift up a curtain of mystery. Is that more important than giving people a taste of being a prestigious owner of a magnum opus? Imagine wrapping a valuable family heirloom in a piece of cloth during an auction. Who’d dare bid on it?
As you can see, Secrets don’t entail high quality. They could be another clone with a different color scheme, different dressing or different posture; can you identify the Secret among the dolls below?
There’s a high chance you can’t, at least not unequivocally.
In fact, this proves more adverse than casino gambling. In a casino, you’re guaranteed a chance to turn a profit however unfavorable. In Secret hunting, you don’t even know whether the prize is to your liking. As irrational as consumers can be, none will make over-speculative bets. That is, unless they pay no heed to how their reward will turn out.
Real Secrets of Secrets
Look past a product’s intrinsic factors such as aesthetics and artisanship. In order to understand these zealots’ mentality, we have to delve into extraneous elements, specifically surprise and rareness.
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Surprise is the part and parcel of blind boxes; clinical psychologist Avis Ngan expounded on how unboxing a blind box activates our brain’s reward system:
- Prior to unboxing, excitement towards the unknown induces dopamine release.
- At the moment of unboxing, visual and memory systems become sensitive.
- Finally, the brain emits even more pleasuring agents including dopamine and serotonin to burn the process of unboxing into you.
Secrets follow that principle. Except, the extent of surprise has significantly embiggened. Surprise is dictated by the gap between the prior knowledge and the outcome. For example, you’ve learnt the appearance of each collectible but not which winds up in your box. In the case of Secrets, nothing aside from the outline and the slim possibility to obtain is unraveled, thus evoking more vehement emotion at the end of unboxing.
Rareness is the second trick up the sleeves. It’s a human nature to be attracted to rare objects, from a Lego mini figure painted in chrome gold to Charizard as old as Pokemon TCG itself. An affinity for uncommonness, while innocuous at first, is a precursor to an obsession, where artistic elements get ignored, and precious artwork is used for harvesting reactions online.
Unironically, the selling point of Secrets is psychologically engineered marketing strategies. The hairy adorable figure you smell, hold and see is a tangible asset to obfuscate what you’re truly allured by. It doesn’t take a head-sized handmade Rube Goldberg machine to wow a person.
Rare for the Sake of Being Rare
At the end of the day, it’s undeniable rareness is a special trait in or of itself. Consider the following items:
- Jewelries
- Historical artifacts
- Artwork of a deceased artist
- Handcrafted goods
- Antique toys
Would those still be showered in captivated gazes if duplicates, if any, were as common as sparrows on the streets?
With that, are Secrets any different? The crux is the manner of scarcity. Reconsider the scarce status of the aforementioned items. Diamonds, jade and minerals alike require stringent natural conditions to form, let alone to be cut into gems. Paintings, sculptures, potteries and other forms of crafts can’t be replicated, and granted they could, their marks of age would grant ample distinction. Antiques would’ve been being mass-produced on modern days only if the production lines hadn’t halted. These scarcities are due to force majeure experienced by creators. Absolutely genuine and organic.
On the other hand, why’re some recolored toys produced in a reprehensible number upon their release? That’s an easy one — because producers want it that way. This phenomenon is known as artificial scarcity, where supply of an item is deliberately constricted notwithstanding available resources. Speaking of which, US soft toy company Ty Inc. machinated the said scarcity to trick parents into paying a three-digit premium for what Beanie Babies were worth and inflated a destructive bubble. Rareness here is a disappointing dress-up.
Be that as it may, pettifoggers may love to argue artificial scarcity remains special in its own way. Not wrong. But this notion undermines the whole point of collecting, personality. You’re incorporating a Secret in your collection because corporations assigns their self-serving definition of ‘rare’ to it, because corporations aim to homogenize your collection into their brand. It’s special but not to you.
Lead Your Own Collection
Before making a purchase and rolling another dice, make sure you’re content with what you’re buying. If possible, avoid blind boxes at all cost lest you’re driven to impulsive spending.
Remember, you’re the master of your collection. It’s your vested power to curate it so never succumb to trends nor FOMO. You define what’s special to you.
