I’m sick of hearing millennials whine about how they can’t afford homes. The truth is, everyone in this spoiled generation would be living it up if they hadn’t let older kids trick them into giving up their most valuable Pokémon cards.
The Pokémon Trading Card Game’s original 1999 Base Set provided millennials with the most valuable assets they’ve ever had their hands on. Twenty-five years later, some holographic cards from this set can be worth tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, reports suggest most millennials were hustled out of these holos by older, shrewder children, locking them out of the housing market and lowering the standard of living for their entire generation.
I’ve heard some truly embarrassing anecdotes about millennials who foolishly gave away these golden tickets for little or nothing. One was beaten by an older kid who misrepresented the rules, saying that the winner got to keep the loser’s six prize cards, which included two First Edition Blastoise holos. This millennial later read the rule book and found out that’s not what the prize cards were for, but the older kid wouldn’t give them back.
In another case, a millennial traded a bunch of his Base Set holos after an older kid at a Toys “R” Us Pokémon League told him they were fake because the borders around the artwork didn’t have drop shadows. He later learned that shadowless cards are actually from an earlier print than cards with shadows and are more valuable. Yikes!
Advocates have been calling on local and state governments, Congress, and the president to take action to increase the affordability of housing, saying that an economy based on who was lucky enough to hang on to a bunch of decades-old trading cards isn’t fair.
But why should some dimwit who traded a PSA 10 First Edition Base Set Charizard for one of those Ancients Mew promo cards they gave out with tickets for Pokémon the Movie 2000 be bailed out by someone who played by the rules and kept their holos in a binder until the market was hot?
If millennials want to be taken seriously, it’s time for them to stop acting so entitled and take some responsibility for themselves by learning how to cheat today’s children out of cool collectibles that might become valuable someday.
