A Christmas Tale

by Tony Guo

The holidays sort of make me all gushy… lol.  I love the colder weather and going shopping.  I go to the mall a lot, like at least once a week, but during the holidays it always seems more fun.  May be because I go more friends or because I have more money to spend (not that I made more money, just that I am more loose with spending).  For whatever reason, I enjoy the holidays a lot.  

But let’s get onto magic, since this is a blog about magic and not about gushy things.  Anyways, recently on Christmas Eve, a youtube trader linked me to a youtube video.  The video had my trade binder under a different account.  At that time I was at a starbucks.  I quickly made a video of the video (paradox), which was a good thing, because the next time I checked the link was private.   

Short story, long… I know… reversed.  I was furious someone had copied one of my old trade binders and claiming it was his.  But then I thought, why would someone do this?  My first reaction was the copycat was trying to scam other people.  The description had a wants list and a sub to me request, and probably the piece of evidence I found most damning, a quote saying “I don’t know how youtube works but if you approach me you send first and if I approach you I send first.”  

This was damning, because on youtube, when I post a binder up, it becomes a trading frenzy.  I get upwards of 10-20 requests for trades the day the binder is posted.  And under youtube rules (not mine, I like MOTL more because that’s what I am used to), they would send first.  And they do send first.  I’ve only sent first once and that’s when I asked about a card.  

Point being, I truly believed this youtuber was trying to scam people out of cards.  The evidence stacked up that way.   I posted the video, asked the youtuber who had sent me the link some questions, and went off with friends to go ice skating (which I am very bad at).  I get back, and it was a blood bath.  

After spending at least two hours working it out with the youtuber who had copied the video, we came to an agreement, an apology for name calling in exchange for me removing the title of scammer (putting warning instead) and me removing the detailed description.  

When I was done sorting out this mess, it was already Christmas….  Meaning I got to open presents early!!!!  I feel that everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt.  Here there was a lot of evidence and normally I would have been mean about it… but it being Christmas, I wasn’t.  

Man, I’ve lost touch with all my former sharkiness… lol.