As the title states, I LOVE FUSHIGI!!!

Fushigi Magic Gravity Ball(TM)

Disclaimer: I am not being paid currently or have I been paid in the past by the company that holds the trademark on this prop called Fushigi – Zoom TV Products, LLC

We need to Jump into our Time Machine for the next part of the Story

Well this story starts well before this mythical ball even existed. I sat around with friends of the flow world and we dreamed of the day we could have a clear round flow prop with either a color or metal center(I wanted METAL!!!).

Why you might ask?  Our idea was that when lit correctly this prop would create an illusion inside the illusion. Your movements creates an illusion of a floating round prop on your hand and body, then people would look and they would see that it was floating above your hand MAGICALLY.

THAT’S BRILLIANT I WANT 20

We set out to make this Amazingly Cool Round Object and we failed EPICALLY.  Seriously it was a FAILURE of the Epic Variety.  Luckily that EPIC FAIL resulted in some of the most fantastic swirl round props that you have ever seen.  ART not PROP if you ask me, or maybe Art as Prop, #heheh.

Mythical Swirl Sphere

 

We forgot about the idea as we failed and we all went about our lives.  Then  one day, FUSHIGI hits the airwaves.

HOLY CRAP THAT’S IT. That is what I wanted, and still do. So I order up a bunch and I am HAPPY AS A CLAM.  Of course I have to wait for months but I have waited years so that is no big deal if you ask me.

Side Note –  I know that guy in the video I met him at CJC, #heheh.

I get my prop and I am excited.  So now time to jump forward a bit and I post about this amazing new prop that I had been wanting for years.  I use the word in my post ‘Fushigi’ and automagically it is changed to BANANA as the F word has a new meaning in my community.  HOLY CRAP seriously ‘That’s Bananaz’ #heheh. I can’t type the word on the main forum I use to discuss this round contact prop and must resort to F U S H I G I so the spell check doesn’t make this ‘offensive’ word into Banana.

Now is the part you might not expect

That really made me happy 🙂

People hated what was done so much they rebelled against it. It also made me VERY SAD. The newest people to join my group would be hated simply because they liked a prop and said a word, and I liked this prop BEFORE it had this NAME.  The part that hurts a bit is that people hated me indirectly for having an idea of something I thought would be awesome.

Now you need to know WHY they rebelled against the Fushigi.

Why people hated Fushigi

1. Deceptive Marketing
2. Inferior Product
3. Poorly Produced Instructional DVD
4. Trademarking

So let me start at the end, Trademarking. To make money you need to have a unique product. Watch Shark Tank any week and when a generic product comes out the first questions asked are ‘Do you have a Patent or a Trademark or some other legal protection?’ The reason they say that is without it anyone can make what you did and probably for less. As someone who was the purveyor of Bob’s Balls(Bob Hughes Company) for years I can tell you nothing hurts more than being undercut.  Okay so they got a trademark why is that bad to people. Many consider this an Art Form, which it is, and you shouldn’t profit on art(or at least not until you are dead that is). To me that is BUNK, figure out a way to make it unique and CYA to the 9’s.  Be Original and Sell that by the Gallon, Dozen, BoxTon(TM).

Lets move on to Deceptive Marketing.  The marketing made you think the ball had Magic Properties.  Somehow the Ball was MAGIC and you buy it and AutoMagically you could do it.  A friend of mine said that a kid came up to him and held out his Fushigi and dropped it as he said ‘It’s Broken’ then it hit the ground.  OH CRAP THAT MADE ME LAUGH and CRY!!!  So NOPE the Ball is not ‘MAGICAL’ this is a skill you need to learn. It is like saying ‘Buy our MagicGuiter(TM)’ and you just need to hold it to play like Hendrix(I WISH!!!).  So on this I do blame the company as what you said was a bunch of crap and you paid Pro’s and Semi-Pro’s to make it look easy without putting underneath(Performances by Professionals Your Mileage May Vary).

Jennifaerie put it best by saying ‘The Magic is in You(TM)(©)!!!’

Next up the Poorly Produced Instructions. Being someone who creates instructions(which are poorly produced, #heheh) Mine have low budget look and feel but I think the instruction part is top notch. Zoom made slickly produced crap. I watched the DVD to see if I could learn something and they literally said ‘For my Next Trick you do this and that and Done you get it now.’ Wait you skipped the teaching part. The blind references to non-existent lessons is CRAZY TALK.  ‘In another section on the DVD you can learn X and Y.’  Unfortunately there is no X or Y on the DVD. The funny thing is it cost just as much to produce a horrible DVD as a good one.

On to the last major complaint, the inferior product. I own it, I know it is inferior, BUT it is ‘good enough’. It doesn’t break by dropping 3 feet onto carpet as some of my fragile round objects do. My Fushigi metals does not have a mirror finish.  Still works as a round object does.

My UV one has an off centre center which makes me able to do ‘new’ tricks that I could never do before.  So you take the lemons they gave you and make lemonade.  Not as good as I wanted but they did still make my DREAM ROUND PROP.  Even if it can be a nightmare at times, #heheh.

I don’t think if this prop was perfect they would have stood a fighting chance as they confused the customer and pissed off the group that already existed. So BAD COMPANY BAD!!!!

Zoom TV if you read this you could have been a contender.  I LOVE that a company made money producing a prop. Would have made a WHOLE TON MORE if they did it right. Should have talked to me Zoom you missed that boat.

With all that said, ‘I LOVE FUSHIGI!!!’

What did you just say?

You complain about the whole product and say it is crap and you love it are you CRAZY!!!

Nope not crazy just happy.  Happy an idea I had became a reality.  Happy I can play with this Prop and I can improve it in my head.  I am sure if I invested the Cash and bought 30 I could get a good few and that is not weird to a prop person that tries 17 different clubs before they go out and make one on their own that is better cuz those 17 sux.  Props are fickle and Prop People are fickler.

I LOVE that more people see the Flow Art I love and are exposed to it.  Call it BANANA’s Call it Squishy Salty Crap and I will still DO THIS EVERY DAY, All day if I can.

I LOVE that people dislike Fushigi so much.

Makes me work harder to make people understand what it is really about.  It ain’t about a prop, it is about the people.  It is a skill, an art, a lifestyle.

My only issue is that a community I love has become so bitter again. It happens over and over again and I have learned that most HATE what I LOVE and that is okay to me.

As they say ‘Don’t hate the Player hate the Game’ so ‘Don’t hate the Fushigi Artist hate the Crappy Prop Company’

To me the lesson to be learned here is be more accepting of the NOOBs as you all at some point were a NOOB.  It is not the NOOB’s  fault they were tricked it is our fault for being upset at them for no reason.  It is a word and making it so special creates just another F Word.  So go F yourself F Word here and There and F this and F that.  Wait I like Fushigi so why am I not saying it?

Rich Shumaker – Proud to Own and Use FUSHIGI’s(I mean Bananas)

How do you get off this soap box again?