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A podcast called Pokémon card collectors immature. A psychologist disagrees
Adult Pokémon collectors have been told to grow up again. According to Página 7, it started on the podcast Sin ofender, where hosts Isidora Gaete and Daniela Ginestar were reacting to a video about immaturity by Argentine influencer Martín Cirio. They ended up labelling people who collect figures and play Pokémon cards as immature. Two of the lines that travelled furthest were "Playing on the PlayStation, great. But going around collecting cards and 'I'll swap you this one', please" and "At some point you have to grow up, it's as if I were still playing with Barbies. Let's mature" (our translations from Spanish). A psychologist has since answered, and her reply is far more thoughtful than the original jab.
The lines that set collectors off
Gaete went further than cards. "Computer games aren't healthy, how could they be healthy," she said. "I think if he plays now and then it isn't important, the issue is when his life revolves around these childish things that don't have much relevance in his day to day."
Then came the bit that really stung anyone who remembers walking round town with a phone held out in front of them. "Remember when hunting Pokémon became fashionable? 40-year-old guys hunting Pokémon during their office lunch, forgive me. I think it's stupid. People with university degrees, people working at respectable companies, in respectable positions, playing this."
We've heard versions of this at family dinners for years. It rarely comes with an argument attached. It's mostly a feeling that adults shouldn't enjoy certain things.
What a psychologist actually means by maturity
Romina León, an academic at the School of Psychology at the Universidad de los Andes, spoke to The Clinic about what maturity is. For her, it involves a person developing skills in how they behave that touch on emotional, cognitive and psychological aspects as a whole.
She pointed to two features in particular. The first is an integrated identity: "a fairly complete knowledge of who they are and who they are not, of their limits and priorities, and that this is consistent over time." The second is tolerance to frustration, accepting that things won't always work out the way you hoped, however much effort or energy you put in. She added that, sadly, many adults never developed that capacity.
On collecting, she didn't wave the criticism away entirely, which we respect. Someone could read an adult collecting Pokémon cards as a sign of "certain cores of immaturity or childish tastes", she said, "and perhaps there is some of that." But her conclusion is clear: collecting Pokémon cards "does not, on its own, make an adult immature." That same collector can be self-regulated, highly tolerant of frustration and have a very defined identity, and therefore be perfectly capable of behaving in an entirely mature way.
Our take from behind the binder
Reading León's definition, we had a little laugh. Frustration tolerance? Try opening a booster box and pulling nothing you wanted. Try losing a card you'd been watching for weeks because someone else got there first. Try receiving a "near mint" card with a corner that says otherwise. This hobby is basically a training course in accepting that effort doesn't guarantee results.
Then there's identity. Most collectors we know can tell you exactly what they chase and, just as importantly, what they don't. One person only wants a single set. Another collects one Pokémon across every era. Someone else plays and doesn't care about value at all. That's knowing your limits and priorities, sustained over years, which is pretty close to what León described.
And self-regulation is the whole game once real money is involved. Collectors set budgets, skip releases, sell duplicates to fund the one card they really want. The ones who don't usually learn fast.
These aren't pocket-money prices
If anyone still thinks this is a playground swap, look at what's moving. Based on the prices we track at PriceSpot, these were among the biggest risers on Cardmarket in our weekly price report for week 44:
- Rayquaza (EX Emerald): from 134.24 € to 466.09 €
- Rayquaza V Alternate Full Art (Evolving Skies): from 412.72 € to 520.03 €
- Dark Blastoise (Legendary Collection): from 344.72 € to 449.07 €
A price tag doesn't make anyone mature, obviously. But people spending hundreds of euros on a single card tend to research condition, compare listings and check whether it's genuine before buying. That's careful adult decision-making, whatever the picture on the front. If you've got old cards in a drawer and wonder how much your Pokémon card is worth, the answer might surprise the people who told you to throw them out. A glance at the most expensive cards today makes the same point.
Minding your own business is the grown-up part
León's sharpest observation wasn't about collectors at all. She said people who are habitually very critical of others also tend to overstep boundaries. Part of maturity, in her words, is being clear that every person has the freedom to decide how to live their own life, and respecting that. "That doesn't mean I have to assume my priorities and my values are universal and must be shared by everyone around me."
We'd sign that. Nobody has to like Pokémon cards. But if a 40-year-old wants to spend lunch sorting a binder, trading with a friend or hunting something on their phone, the only immature thing in that scene is the person sneering at it.
So what are yours worth?
Stories like this always send us back to the binder. If you want to know what you've got, PriceSpot lets you scan your cards for free, one after another, and see what they sell for on Cardmarket in each card's language. Every Monday we also publish the cards rising and falling most, if you like keeping an eye on the market.
News source: Página 7
