Darth Vader - Kenner - Vintage Star Wars (1978)
Star Wars Collectible News, Photos, and Reviews

We're Star Wars Fan Sites People! GET OVER IT!

Posted by Chuck | February 19, 2014 at 11:42 AM ET

A big thanks to all our readers who have supported JTA over the years. This year's Toy Fair coverage has been the most successful in our ten years of going to the event. I was sidelined by more freakish weather and Paul was able to hit the frontlines with me running support this time. Now, I feel I must take a page from Paul's notebook and express a rant on the state of Star Wars Fan Sites and the general "I take everything around me for granted" web site viewer... read on at your own risk.

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul (Mandalore) (MS06) - Mission Series

First and foremost, I'd like to thank all the staff (past and present), fans, supporters, sponsors, fellow fan sites, and anyone else who's helped JTA out along the way. This includes my family, who has put up with my Star Wars obsession since day one. You are the reason we have continued to enjoy steady year-to-year growth. You are the reason we are the second highest ranking fan site according to online stat sites such as Alexa.com (we are currently enjoying our highest ranking ever).

Now, on to my rant. I usually leave the rants for Paul, his passion for SW collecting makes them entertaining and attention grabbing. My rant, however, is for the fans of Star Wars collecting in general. You know, the ones who get on the computer daily, visit their favorite fan sites and take for granted that the information that they get to view daily just magically appears for them to enjoy. No, not the ones who have fun with the hobby, like most of our viewers, but the ones that think that they can do a better job, so they make thoughtless and pointless jabs at us fan sites because we don't give 'biased reporting' or 'the guy running the site can't talk like a journalist and insists on treating it like a glorified Facebook page' or 'the blatant and biased critique of the 5 POA figures smack dab in the middle of the "news"...' Yes, they put "news" in quotes because they apparently don't think what we report is news. What is the point of this? I'm going to let everyone in on a little 'secret'. WE ARE NOT JOURNALISTS. WE ARE FANS. We report "news" as we find it. We express our opinions on the hobby. We don't have journalism backgrounds. You want news? Go to CNN. We work on this site EACH AND EVERY DAY so thankless people like that can make disparaging comments in online forums, because frankly that is all they have to contribute to the hobby. Again... WE ARE NOT JOURNALISTS. WE ARE FANS. Star Wars is a part of our life-blood. This is our expression.

We will continue to run this web site how we see fit. If you don't like the way it is done, no one is paying you to come here to read our front page. In fact readers don't pay anything to read our front page! So what gives you the right to complain about what we post? When events like Toy Fair come around fans clamor for news. But guess what? Without us fan sites (you know, the ones that can't talk like journalists) paying out-of-pocket for air fair, hotel, food, time off of work from our real jobs (you don't think this site is our real job do you?), time away from our family, having to take vacation days to provide coverage, dealing with freakish weather every year, and so so much more... the Star Wars collecting community wouldn't have anything to do in February other than complain that they can't find out anything about Star Wars collectibles. Why? Because real news sites with real journalists that do that for their real job don't care about Star Wars collectibles! It's not real news folks! It's about collectibles!

We are very proud of what we have achieved in ten years on the web. We are involved in this site every single day. Aside from maybe the first few months when JTA was just getting started, I challenge you to even find a single day where we did not post some type of news. That is every day for ten years folks! Can anyone else say they have done something every day for ten years besides eating and sleeping?! If you don't like the way I do something, I really don't care! If you don't like the way Paul reports something, then go away and don't come back. I'm very proud of what Paul has done for JTA and the Star Wars community in general. No one else seems to have the stones to post how it is. You want to read what it is going on from a fan's point of view? Stay and hang out with us. Comment in our comments section. HAVE FUN WITH US! You want real news from reporters with journalism backgrounds? Go to CNN, but good luck finding news on the latest Star Wars collectibles.

We have fun using Star Wars "news" to bring fans something daily to banter about, but we also enjoy bringing you in-depth looks at a huge range of Star Wars collectibles. This includes over 3000 Visual Guides! This includes over 1700 reviews! And not just simple little reviews, we're talking detailed write-ups, massive galleries with nearly 20,000 high quality pictures! You read that right. Try finding a review database anywhere else with that kind of content. Our Visual Guides, with all their multi-angled goodness bring you nearly 20,000 MORE images! Yes, we may not be "real" journalists, but we have fun with this hobby and we express our opinions however, whenever, and wherever we want on JTA. The stories on our front page RIGHT NOW have comments totaling more than 1600! Yes, I counted. Go, to any other Star Wars "news" site and find that much involvement. And that is only seven days of "news" folks! Most forums don't even get 1600 posts in a month!

So, no matter what the trolls of the world say, we will keep doing what we enjoy doing. We will do it how we want. We will hate on what products we want to hate on. We will whine about what we want to whine about. If you don't like it, please go away. I promise you, I won't lose sleep over it.

This ends my first rant in 10 years of running JTA. To all you fan sites out there, keep doing things how YOU want to do them. Let your creation be YOUR creative outlet.

To Paul Harrison and anyone else how has enjoyed giving their valuable time here at JTA to bring the thankless masses "news", thanks and keep up the good work!

To all the trolls and whiners, take a hike :-) We don't serve your kind here.

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