Kid and Teen Collectors

[collectorTVShow]

Hi,
I'm looking for kid and teen collectors for an upcoming TV special. We'd love to speak to young people who collect vacuums or other appliances!

It can be a collection that you started on your own, was handed down to you, or that you collect with your family.

We want to know why you started collecting, why you love it, what you've learned, and any unique pieces in your collection.

Please email [email protected] for more info!
Thanks!

 

[myvacsrock]

Speaking from experience...

Do whatever you wish, kids, but be aware of these people and shows. I've had enough back and forth with shows for an army. Make sure you know what you're getting yourself into.

 

[tolivac]

Shouldn't this be in the "Junior" section?

 

[super-sweeper]

It probably should, but you're only allowed in the Junior section if you're a member under the age of 18, this guy isn't even a paid member yet 

 

[myvacsrock]

I can 98% guarantee it is because this person is some PA (production assistant) of some TV Show pilot for a network from Fox or God forbid Discovery/TLC and they're just searching for people to exploit for their collections.

They want you to think it'll be grand, and then the cameras come on and they edit it to make you look ... well... interesting. They know exactly what they're after, I'll give them that!

 

[vintagevaclover]

MyVacsRock,

I sent you an email!

 

[gottahaveahoove]

One must always be careful

getting involved in such projects.  EVERYONE has an agenda.


  We had documentary people follow us around at a convention.  We never really saw a finished product.


  Then,  some TV folks could take a young member into another meeting room , tape them, interview them, etc... during OUR convention.  They'll NEVER even mention the group that started it all for the young collector.


  Then,  of course,  what "new" story could come out of it?  For example: a child is infatuated with the family vacuum,  the neighbors' vac,  etc...  They take them apart,  rebuild, restore, collect, etc.  It's the same old story over and over again.  Anyone could get huffy and exclaim, "He stole my story". What story? That's almost everyone's story.


  So,  just be careful.


 John

 

[cb123]

...What do you expect from the low information, liberal bias media -- fairness!? Please, don't make me laugh!!! Perhaps vomit, but not laugh!!!

 

[eurekaprince]

Maybe we could give the producers the benefit of the doubt? As long as the collectors' parents are monitoring the process from beginning to end, they can make sure that any restrictions they want is on the release form. The Discovery Channel is a pretty legitimate production house and certainly if the video of a young vacuum collector is going on the Youth version of the channel, I can guarantee that the youth will be shown in the best, most educational and respectful light possible. The parents just have to monitor the process from start to finish.

I for one would have been ecstatic as a kid to see another young person on TV fascinated by vacuum cleaners. This is an opportunity to help out so many families who have young cleaner-philes in their home.

 

[bnsd60m9200]

you clearly havent seen these documentaries. they make people who collect anything unusual look like idiots. its called editing..

 

[kirbylux77]

I agree with the concerns expressed above. And I would absolutely NOT trust TLC, they have certainly been involved with their fair share of scandalous productions that have later been cancelled. I'm sure we all remember "Honey Boo Boo" & "19 Kids & Counting", with the scandal surrounding Josh Duggar.

My one main concern, though, is the impact it will have on the child. Let's not forget, Vacuum Collecting certainly isn't a conventional hobby, & one that most other kids think is odd & strange. If you put a child on a TV show like this & showcase them with a hobby like collecting vacuums, it does have the potential to ostracize & isolate a child from their peers, keep them from making new friends & cause them to lose existing friends. Now, is that what we REALLY want for our forum's youth members? I think not. Perhaps the best way for a child to share in this hobby is to participate in a online forum, such as here on Vacuumland & Abbysguide.

Rob

Rob

 

[gottahaveahoove]

Editing can be very good, or not so ...

The people who followed us were trying to get get Bill,  the Kirby guy, and me to get into an argument: Hoover vs Kirby.  We respect each other and would never do that.


  Some kids get on these shows and are fine.  Some get on them and become spoiled brats....


  I'd never advise not to do this.  I'd just echo... be careful.


 

 

[dysonman1]

More than a decade ago, the VCCC (I was a member at that time) at our Louisville convention, were followed for three days by CBS Sunday Morning News (I love liberal bias news shows). They edited it beautifully, really made the old Club look great. Three days edited down to 8 minutes of fun. It was the first time a Dyson was shown on American television (I brought my Dyson collection - no one in America had ever seen one before). The producers did an amazing job showcasing the old Club without making fun of it.

When the Vacuum Cleaner Museum opened, a number of television shows filmed me and the Museum, and edited it for news programs. All did a great job without the innuendo and snickering that it so easily could have delved into. I've not had any bad experiences with documentaries and television shows - but then again - I was an adult when they were filmed.

 

[electrolux137]

~
~

Quite a few years ago, some time in the mid-1990s, I was contacted by national TV show that highlighted collectors of unusual stuff. They wanted to come here and interview me and take videos of my collection.

I agreed to do so, then spent an entire day pulling out the most interesting machines and getting the place ready. The crew got here late afternoon and stayed well into the evening, interviewing me and getting B-roll of my machines.

When the show finally aired, the segment on me lasted about a minute and consisted mostly of the B-roll, interspersed with quick shots of me running some of the machines in fast-motion -- which made me look ridiculous.

I've also seen most, if not all, of the shows done on other collectors, children and adults alike. Generally speaking, the subjects of these shows are made to look odd, strange, eccentric and peculiar. But not in a fun or endearing way, but in a way of poking fun at us, often peppering the interview with snide comments about "sucking and blowing."

Most of us have had the experience of telling someone we collect vacuum cleaners and getting a blank stare and a demeaning response like "...Why?..." --- or, again, comments loaded with sexual innuendo.

I concur with the "No Way!" vote.

 

[cb123]

Just goes to show you can't trust the low information media. Those ideologues will put the spin on it every time!

 

[tolivac]

STAY AWAY!!!

 

[luxlife]

Hasn't there already been enough............

on TV about child vacuum collectors already???? Nothing really new here.

 

[dirtmaster37]

My "outtake" as well....

So,

I was asked many years back to be part of one of the "shows" that Kyle was a part of. I drove to his house, and saw a circus in place of cameras, close-ups and come-ons.

I and another collector were "interviewed" by these people, and were asked all sorts of inane, foolish questions like...."do you guys RACE your vacuums"?? Do you "SLEEP" with you vacuums?? I knew right then and there things were NOT going to be as it seemed to originally be. WHich was a interest piece on a young collector and a few friends who shared the same interests.

Throughout my "segment" of the filming, I kept putting things into proper perspective, and wouldn't "give them" anything they were looking to twist, or mis-inform about. In fact I could see the producers getting visibly upset with me, that I indeed, wasn't a freak, a simpleton, or for that matter and for lack of a better word a "mentally retarded".

The same questions were asked of the other collector as well, and he too gave them NOTHING. We had a big discussion about it all after our "segments were filmed"... They went on to shoot hours of film on Kyle, and to be honest, very little of it was based on fact, or how the scenes actually played out.

The one that upset me the most was their misdirection on the Penncrest Cord Reel convertible. It never happened the way that it was broadcast. I was there at the bottom of the stairs WATCHING the whole thing unfold. They really made a person I consider a good friend look silly, and slow-child-playing like....

When the piece aired, I came back down to watch it with he and his family...I never appeared ONCE...even tho they interviewed me for nearly an hour. Same with the other collector. However, any single thing they could find to twist about Kyle.. you can be SURE that they did so.

Caauuttioon to the wind anyone who thinks of doing this.... Not all rainbow and lollipops...


Chad

 

[dirtmaster37]

Oh yes and one other thing....

I was there for nearly three hours and definitely was filmed, as they showed me the activities on a small monitoring screen after.....so SOMEWHERE in CBS's massive vault of what-not, I sit in perpetuity on film, talking about history and fact..... In that entire time, we ALL mentioned the Vacuum Cleaner Colector Club, AND Vacuumland more than I can count, referring to you all; none more than Kyle.

It was all edited out/not used. So in the reference that "everyone has their agenda"... your quite right. But not in the way one may mean it. CBS had their agenda that day....they weren't looking to expose anything of value or truth, and certainly not a whole club. They were about making someone look foolish, undercut with glimpses of how things ACTUALLY are in our gatherings big and small. No one understands this more than Kyle, them making him look positively delayed. Believe me, one is much better off having little publicity, than a LOT of bad...

Thats my final thought on this...

Chad

 

[delaneymeegan]

A lot of good points about certain organizations using our hobbies to fill their time slot and agenda.

It's important to remember that on a scale the size of television, it isn't personal.

Always go into a media event having a goal in mind. It's just like this Donald trump cartoon. He had a goal for using the media to accomplish a set goal. Frankly I think he's done good.

I'm wondering how one would control the interview ahead of time so that one would know the questions that would be asked. Also, as far as editing. Controlling what will be edited out.

The television media can be good, in that it can bring attention to a subject matter and that can affect change. Sometimes, it affects change in a good way for society, at the expense of a person or individual that is currently there to serve that very cause.

Think of people who were outed in the 80s for having Aids. Rock Hudson for example, I'm sure he didn't want his reputation tainted, but it served a greater good, for the benefit of society, and by recognizing gay people as real.

I think the creepiest thing in this thread is that the producers want to talk with children. ?

 

[super-sweeper]

Haha, that is creepy! But I'm sure they have ulterior motives. Maybe TV viewers think it's more interesting to see a child's "unusual" infatuation rather than that of an adult? 

 

[dysonman1]

That's exactly correct. Adults with unusual collections are everywhere. Children with unusual collections are not. Plus, child collectors tend to think they 'know it all' and are very vocal about their viewpoint - even if it is incorrect. They sometimes come off as somewhat 'touched' in a way. This is exactly the angle that producers are looking to exploit.

I know all about child vacuum collectors. Remember they come to the Vacuum Cleaner Museum all the time. We have one 12 year old collector who has his birthday party for the past two years in the 1950's room of the Museum. There is hardly a week go by where I don't meet some parent who tells me his 4 or 5 year old little boy (always a boy) is in love (their words) with vacuums. The parents indulge them with a trip to the Vacuum Cleaner Museum.

A good number of the kids have something that makes them 'not quite right'. Some cannot stand the sound of the machines, but simply want to push them across the floor. Others have a VERY short attention span - to the point that they lose interest in a particular machine they are trying out - within moments of turning it on. The parents are usually very happy though, that their child got to go somewhere there are LOTS of cleaners, and someone who will take the time to talk vacuums with their kid.

My favorites are the ones who are actually in awe of the machines, who listen to me explain them, who are excited to turn them on, and want to learn about them. I always send them home with owners manuals, bags, parts, etc. Many times I've given them one of the duplicate cleaners upstairs in the Mezzanine.

All in all, I have tons of thank you cards from the parents and the children, because in some way, they get to see that collecting vacuums can be a fun and interesting hobby, it's not 'stupid' or 'weird', and if their child really continues to love vacs, they are encouraged to send their child to engineering school so they can change vacuums for the better in their adult life.

 

[delaneymeegan]

WHAT ?



Ah,
What?

There is an actual museum of vacuums (I can understand this) where parents bring their children as if it were a playground (This I'm puzzled and enlightened, and a whole group of emotions) What?

When we say these kids are collecting vacs, are we talking about current models, or mid last century, increasingly rare models, or century old and obscure materials?

I'm just.... WHAT?
Like this is a right of passage. lol.

And why vacuums? Why not garbage disposals, typewriters, adding machines, washing machines, old furnaces, lawnmowers from the 1960s?
I saw an alarm clock from 1980 in an antique store recently. Why not that?
What?

 

[super-sweeper]

Yep, there's the famous vacuum cleaner museum in St.James! Not a playground, but the kids can have fun too if they're careful 

 


I'm certain there's people that collect those sorts of things, or all of them...I'm one of them! 

 

[cb123]

...Am so terribly sorry to hear that Supersweep! If you ever need help with your mania, please call me at 867- 5309!


 

 

[delaneymeegan]

Even though I've collected vacs since I was a teen, 30 years ago, I never really thought that was a big deal because the B-I-G deal was collecting washers, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators, which literally take up a large amount of floor space.

So I'm recently intrigued with the Vac collectors. I'm finding out about the Vac Museum, I've seen vids on YT and to find out there are kids as young as 7 with considerably large collections. WOW !

It's like cool, but ... disappointing, and .... worrisome, and interesting, and....




Did we ever establish what area code 867-5309 is in?
I'm guessing L.A. so 213, 818, 661, or 747?
I want to call Tommy and find out if Jenny ported her number to a Smartphone.

In like 1982, they played this song all the time and my bitchy little cousin ~Jeanie~(weanie) and I agreed we hated it.



http://https//youtu.be/6WTdTwcmxyo

 

[cb123]

Well, me and my sweet cousin (Sunny Dee) both agreed we loved that song over and over and over again!...And I do mean over again!

 

[tolivac]

Collecting vacuums vs washers,dryers,fridges,and other large appliances-those are like collecting cars-you need SPACE for them and the plumbing to use them.I would love to have a HUGE basement and get lots of washers,dryers to put in it.In the South where I am the water tables are high-so basements are impossible.Old machines like those are DIFFICULT to find here-Even finding older vacuums is difficult.In my area when folks buy new machines the old ones are junked.I just remember the washers and vacuums of my past.It just wouldn't be pratical to try to own them-I would like too-but can't because of space limitations and availability to get them.So its vacuums and small appliances I focus on.Have a very small collection of washers.3.

 

[marks_here]

When I drive along the country back roads I see all those items (washer/dryers, refrigerators, deep freezers, dish washers, husks of old cars, campers/trailers . . . oh I'm sorry I didn't know that was your home, school buses) in the yards of people. It's nice they share their collections right in the open so everyone can enjoy! Not going to mention what was swinging on the front porch . . . LOL