I need to write about the events that have transgressed over the last few months, and hopefully you’ll see how crazy the people which you confide in truly are. One of my professors made the relationship that when one acts against their beliefs, they’re crazy. i.e Someone who believes that stealing art is bad yet they produce art with stolen intellectual property on it.(such as a GD bolt, stealie, PH LP, NoNo, BN/PL logo, Mario pins, etc.) In my six month struggle of trying to be accepted into the online lot community, I have been able to identify my own critics as crazy in acting against their original beliefs. I really got into music pins right around January. When I heard that one of my favorite bands, Sound Tribe Sector 9, is coming to Charleston, I decided to design a pin in their honor. This pin was for the song “Equinox” and it also commemorated the concert. At about the same time, I was getting other designs in bulk just to establish myself. I traded 100 or so pins, which mostly consisted of a good mix of Phil Lesh bobble heads, Hunter S. Thompson ‘Gonzo’ pins, String Cheese Incident jellyfish, and Redbeard’s Disco Biscuit stealies. All of these are Big Wooly designs. In trading with people, I obtained a number of controversial pins which include the Murph raptor, colorless Kool-Aid man, and the Pollock NoNo—based on the noses on Phish’s Junta album. Out of all of these pins, the Pollock NoNo proved to be the most controversial one. I call it a NoNo because the use of that image is no different than reproducing the Phish fish logo, LP, or a Nike Swoosh—it is somebody else’s intellectual property.; therefor, I don’t think anyone could legitimately give me grief for trading that pin around. The cause of the grief was the fact that this pin was also selling for around $30. It made me look like a leech, that I entered this scene for the simple sake of making a few bucks off of you. At least that’s what my greatest critics said. There was no satisfying these critics. Although I traded or sold the Pollock Nono to a handful of people, satisfying their demands proved not to be enough. When the accusations initially came out and my news feed and inbox began to blow up with exponentially more messages from strangers than from real customers, I decided that the best way to eliminate this cluster and deal with my customers was to self-impose a ban from Phish Pins and YOPAH until their complaints were resolved. Once I fulfilled the demanded refunds and trade revisions, I reapplied to both groups and was let in. My customers began to vouch for me for doing the right thing, yet this good gesture actually backfired. It provoked a greater public outcry from people whom I’ve never dealt with before. The accusations weren’t about the speculation of reproducing a pin anymore. They were blatantly malicious. These guys began to accuse me of not fulfilling orders by simply not shipping them, and so on. They claimed to know people that I scammed but, really, they didn’t know. The rumors perpetuated and spread into other groups mainly because I was outnumbered. A majority of my customers in general(those who I traded with when I initially entered these pinning groups) didn’t want to publicly get involved in the drama by vouching for me. The few who did vouch for me were accused of being me by my critics. My critics would also hide their comments by flooding the comment threads with their hateful words. To the blind eye, it really looked like NOBODY was vouching for me. At this point, I’d like to thank a few people, including Amish Shah, Stephen Brinson, Michael Miller. There are a few more names that belong here but I know a few of you wish to remain out of this completely. Those are a few of the people who vouched for me early in. Amish is a local friend. Stephen picked up a few of my Phish Phirst pins and followed through with a vouch(which was soon flooded by the critics’ comments). Michael designed the KaDABra pin. When I picked up the OG, I loved it so much that I researched it but couldn’t find anything about the artist for a while. Eventually, Michael’s name emerged and we got in touch. When I asked him where the rest of his work was, he told me that KaDABra was his only pin. He also attributed a lack of funds as to why he hadn’t produced anything since. At that point, I urged him to reproduce a KaDABra 2.0. I suggested that we make better by making it bigger, producing a run of 300 in two different colors, and to have it glow in the dark. Since Michael couldn’t cover production, I fronted him the costs while also lowering the overall production costs. Right about the same time, I also began to use an alias for a few reasons: the sake of spying on my critics, appealing to admins who had ignorantly banned me from their groups, and so on. If I saw an uninformed comment, I’d go back onto my real Facebook and try shed some truth on them. Most of the time, this just made things worse. I wasn’t really incognito with my alias, it was pretty obvious, as clearly, my intent wasn’t to deceive anyone, but to no avail. I created more aliases each time one would get ousted, and those would get ousted too. The only aliases that I’ve used to date are Marklar, Dubi(who’s account name I switched around to different variations of the name), and two Itai accounts. I also have a few pages set up: Epic Pinning, Lucid Pins, Kosher Pin Creations, and of course The Cuddle Puddle—where it all started for me! Even though Epic is technically under The Cuddle Puddle umbrella, they have a dualistic relationship, which is symbolized in the logos. The Cuddle Puddle’s circular design represents different ideas coming together, while the Epic logo is sharp and on-point. I digress. Anwyays, lets skip ahead. Recently, I established an alias by the name of Marklar. I thought this would be so obvious because who hasn’t seen Southpark? Aren’t most pinners from Colorado? Well, nobody seemed to care about the Marklar profile which was hiding behind a photo of Hunter S. Thompson. I made good deals with people and eventually came up on a great holiday pin idea: Hanonokah. When I dropped the presale, I’d only intended on producing 100 pins in total: 50 gold, 50 silver. I’d also intended on selling only 10 of them and gifting the rest to my friends in college and Atlanta, to some of my family(which has grown significantly recently), and to some friends on the road. I didn’t want to leave anyone out though, I didn’t want this pin to became an inflated product on YOPAH a month from now. As exciting as it was to see my idea being appreciated, selling out was never the purpose. In lieu of this, I increased the production of the gold pins to 75, and the silver ones to 100. I also kept a modest price tag on them, asking for just $9 per pin during the presales, $12 after. (most NoNos in that group sell for $15-$20 and some get really expensive once they sell out). Ethics of pinning; or lack therefor: 1. Artists hoard their own pins just to jack up the immediate demand as well as the price in the foreseeable future. 2. Sellers such as Noah Phence using secondary accounts in order to boost the price of their own listings(all of Noah’s closed eBay listings with one bid on them are perception boosters, and they’re good for feedback too—you can’t research this in YOPAH because he deletes such shady listings as soon as they’re over… you probably shouldn’t allow household members such as the Paletta brothers to bid on their own listings). 3.If someone is suspected of being a fraud, they’re legit; if someone is proven to be a fraud, they’re not legit. I’ve seen too many admins who claim to act ethically break their own standards by making irrationally emotional decisions. How can you openly claim that all members are “innocent until PROVEN guilty” but then act out based on speculation? 4.A common argument which I’d like to dismantle is the numbers argument: That is the assumption that if 100 people call someone a fraud and only two people take that person’s back, then they’re obviously a fraud. NOPE! This argument doesn’t sustain if none of those people can substantiate their claims. Proof isn’t when you copy and paste each other’s comments. Hard proof is the type which shows that a transaction went kaput. 4A.Screenshots of Paypal disputes work, but this approach is only good for sales. 4B. Trading is more complicated. You need proof of how the trade developed, which online usually means a copy of a private conversation. Always ask for tracking in your trades so that in case anything ever does happen, there is a paper trail. If the other person fails to provide tracking and the package is allegedly lost, they owe you. If it’s lost but there’s tracking, you need to harass the local post office. Moving on, I am about to explain how I moved from having an inkling that guys like Noah are crazy to knowing it beyond any reasonable doubt. Although I emphasized that the main problem with the initial Pollock pin is that it made me look like a leech who prayed on the innocent consumer for a quick profit, I was frequently being accused of producing a bunk pin. I was told how that’s the cardinal sin of pinning, and stealing someone’s money is right behind it. Fortunately, I’m not guilty of either. The Pollock NoNo is particularly interesting because whoever made the “OG” did just as the producer of the “bunk”, or “jaundiced” one did, by stealing this artwork directly off of the Junta album. To my knowledge, neither producer was licensed to do this; neither had Pollock’s express-written permission. The only difference is that the OG is surrounded by a lot of the “unethical pinning” qualities which I distinguished earlier. I haven’t seen the second one engulfed in such marketin BS. Anyways, when Noah Phence discovered that the Hanonokah pin was my idea, he put all of his efforts into tarnishing that idea, just like the Nazis burned any Jewish literature or art that they could get their hands on. The day after, he circulated rumors that I bunked some more pins, including the PH Bill Murray pin and a pacman ghost. Are you kidding me? He and another admin of Phish Pins also went as far as to tell me that they are going to reproduce the pin and that they are allowed to because it’s a NoNo so it’s not my property. If that is the case, then I guess that shouldn’t have ever been one of the problems with the Pollock NoNo in the first place. Noah has been so effective in tarnishing my good name because people inadvertently let him. His effectiveness could be attributed to one of Stanley Milgram’s famous ideas. It’s called OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY; in Phish Pins, he is the man in the white jacket. The way he abuses his power in order to perpetuate fear into a group of individuals, which are then transformed into an angry mob through their actions, is sickening. The propaganda which he uses is disgusting, it’s scary. Hitler must be his idle because we are clearly in the presence of a Nazi. I’ve been victimized by Noah’s attacks over the last six months and now that we have gone full-circle with the Hanonokah pin, now that his actions(and not just my beliefs) prove that he’s crazy, I’m glad to come out with this. I give him 1 more month to change. If he can’t, then please stop supporting him. Noah Phence is Naziism.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 22:33:38 +0000
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