The sincerest form of flattery

That’s what they say about imitation. But I don’t buy it. I propose that we change the axiom to be “Innovation is the sincerest form of flattery”. The way I see it, competition that rests on its laurels and copies me is not respecting me enough. A competitor that re-emerges and innovates in an attempt to stomp me… they must believe I am formidable.  

This goes way back to my early days in the world of BMX freestyle, which coincidentally were also the early days of the sport. I raced BMX, but it was kinda boring, same old same old. Then guys would start doing tricks in between races and it slowly started to grow. I remember a time when there were only about 15 people on earth doing it (one who got a lot of magazine coverage was Fred Blood).  

For a time, my life and the lives around me were consumed with “inventing” new tricks. Doing something on your bike that no one else had ever thought to do. And the sport exploded from there. Everyone was trying all kinds of crazy stuff. But eventually you would start to notice what a friend of mine called “homogenization”. You would go to contests and everyone was doing the same tricks. Maybe they were in different order, but they were all the same.  

Somewhere in between the explosion and the peak, people stopped trying to invent, and just started doing the stuff everyone else did. And for people like me who wanted to do new things, it sucked. Primarily because the judges of contests had formulas for the popular tricks and they couldn’t judge something totally new. 

I remember a trick I was working on, one I thought was brand new. I’d stand on the left side of my bike, go up on the front wheel for a second, and then when the momentum took me back I’d pop the bike on its back wheel, plant one foot on the seat post and jump around the head tube of the bike, and land on the right side. I called it a roundabout. And I hurt my shins and head repeatedly trying to land this trick. Took me about a month to get all the physics worked out to where I could get it 9 out of ten times. I even got into attempting two trips around the bike while still up on one wheel.  

And I went to a contest, and showed it off in the “Jam Circle” (the REAL contest). I landed a double the first time and was hitting singles all day. I was the only one doing it.  

The next contest, 2 weeks later… It was the flavor of the month. I had created, spent my energy, my blood, and truly innovated. And in two weeks time it was used up. The move was utterly pedestrian. They all learned how to do it by watching me. Some one even gave it a new name, a “decade”. But NONE of them had the pain of figuring out when the proper time to apply the rear brakes was, or the shin damage from leaving your pedals set in the wrong position for riding out of it. They just looked at the finished product and copied it, inch by inch. 

And I know there were other people out there trying to invent at the same time. I’m sure that in most of the Freestyle hotbeds there were guys like me trying to push the boundaries. But that was maybe 20 guys on earth. There were a few hundred thousand just waiting for our work on it to be done so they could copy it. 

Eventually, I stopped going to contests and rode to please myself. I would go to contests and sit at the Jam Circle and watch. I never got in them, and some people really wanted me to. By the time I retired I had come up with stuff that sometimes even freaked me out. But barely anyone ever saw it. It was funny to tune into a contest a few years later to see someone “unveil” something I had long forgotten. They had finally stumbled on the same leverage of inertia that I had. That’s what most of these things were born of. You try something, it goes wrong, but felt cool. “I’ma try that again…” Next thing you knew, you had something new and sick.  

I always hated the copying. One of my buddies said that line about the sincerest form of flattery to me once. I didn’t buy it then, I don’t buy it now.  

It’s sad that there is no such thing as innovation any more. And to say that the dearth of good TV, Movies or Music any more is all out of respect for anything is a joke. How many sitcoms about a loveable schlub with wacky parents or in-laws do we REALLY need? How many more 20 page Children’s books can we make into two hour movies? Can someone please explain the difference between Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera? It’s not flattery, its lack of inspiration. It’s honing in on market share. It’s the continued homogenization of everything. And it bores me.  

Dropstars.  

I found them today. Yawn. The official company line is that they are NOT simple cheap knockoffs of an innovative product of a few years ago. And besides, everyone else is doing it right?  

*barf* 

The same package look. The same scale size, the exact same exaggeration of the lines. Everything. Homogenized.  

It was written a few years ago by a wise collector that it was a glorious time to be a collector. With so many offerings from so many different manufacturers that there was something for everyone’s tastes. That’s true, but if in two years all the cars are going to look the same, what’s the difference? Who’s going to be the innovator? Who’s going to offer us something worthy of getting excited? 

Would you blame them if no one stepped up to the plate to innovate? I know first hand the “why bother” mentality. If someone is going to wait for you to put all the effort and time into coming up with something, just so they can hop on the bandwagon and steal your thunder, then it seems useless to try. Especially if the competition has more resources than you. 

It’s interesting to me to read about the Handlers and their distaste with the situation of a certain toy they developed getting stolen out from under them and rushed to market, causing them to change their company strategy to never releasing a toy until toy fair. Seems like they understood the concept of having your energy stolen. I wonder if Eliot Handler thought that imitation was a sincere form of flattery?  

I once read that Burger King’s marketing strategy was to wait for McDonald’s to do the market research, negotiate the real estate, hire contractors to build and open a store. Then Burger King would open one across the street with the same real estate agents and contractors. 

I think that’s what we are seeing in Diecast today. It’s annoying, it’s just plain boring. No one seems eager to innovate on a large scale. And if anyone does, the same things are going to start flowing from elsewhere. Muscle Machines Imports started it, then Jada picked it up, and now Mattel is doing the exact same thing. And the Diecast aisles all look the same. I went into a fully and freshly stocked aisle the other day and was just so bored with everything I saw, I left without buying anything. Ho hum. Same old same old.  

If you want to represent the trend in the “real world”, then try making the cars in the same scale as your regular 1/64^th offerings. Parking a gigantic Range Rover next to a Dairy Delivery just makes the Rover look silly. And don’t tell me it’s not possible to make the scale with the detail. Maisto did it. Think about that. Maisto. Maisto made it happen. I can’t get enough of those Playerz cars. Same with the JGTCC cars… Killer look, great scale, awesome detail. I love that I can park a Supra next to the RC F&F Supra without them looking like a comparison of Pittsburg Pirate era Barry Bonds and current Barry Bonds.  

I guess I am being a little overly harsh towards Mattel. They have been trying to innovate with their love ‘em or hate ‘em hardnoze, crooze, and drop topz. There is some hope with their accelleracers, and I hope Mattel stays with that. Because that is one place where people have always tried to flatter Mattel, but couldn’t. Mattel cars ALWAYS kicked butt on the track. No one could hold a candle to a metal base/metal body heavy car like the Poison Pinto. And with the accelleracers and the Highway 35 cars before them, it looks like Mattel is trying to hold onto their strength. Which is why I feel Dropstarz are irrelevant. Let Jada have the market (Seriously, how many different sticker combinations on a Lexus can you collect?) and focus your efforts on making cars that fly down the tracks. Don’t worry about cross promotion or “Chase cars” or having really cool “teams” of series cars… no. Just put heavy bases and fact wheels on them. 

But do it fast. ‘Cause when you do, someone else will flatter you. Make it so they can’t. Anyone who has rolled a fresh redline with the springy axles knows why Hot Wheels rule.

-43Goalie

Have you missed any Your Take On.... articles? Click Here

Home