There’s a certain level of sensitivity that comes with seeing a perceived outsider produce creative work about your world.
Like rabid “Star Wars” fans with disdain for prequels or modern franchise additions such as “The Last Jedi,” expressing endless skepticism over handing their beloved franchise over to new stewards, collectors are no less precious when it comes to content claiming to represent the hobby.
Frankly, when I was told Complex would be producing a new series centered around celebrity collections, I was not optimistic.
Complex is a massive media brand — it was purchased for $108.6 million by Ntwrk from Buzzfeed earlier this year — and has an enormous audience, numbering around 25 million subscribers combined between YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok (not to mention the substantial footprint of its website and newsletters).
Big brands jumping into comparatively niche subcultures such as collectibles is usually a recipe for disaster, alienating core audiences in favor of watered-down or uninspired content aimed at the general population.
From life-sized dinosaurs to a retro movie theater, @DaveBautista's sprawling Florida compound has it all.
— Complex (@Complex) September 12, 2024
Watch as he shows off his prized vintage lunch box collection and talks about the true meaning of being a collector on the premiere episode of On Display. pic.twitter.com/rzL9bOR8mj
This holds true especially for collectors, highly passionate and often extraordinarily knowledgeable, they sniff out a lack of authenticity a mile away.
But after watching Complex’s pilot episode of “On Display,” hosted by one of the company’s most recognizable face, Joe La Puma, my concerns evaporated.
As La Puma tours Dave Bautista’s extraordinary collection of lunch boxes, they dive deep into the pieces and stories behind them, as well as collector psychology, in ways that come off as truly authentic.
Rather than framing the collection as some silly hobby of a wacky celebrity, the show radiates with Bautista’s passion and uses it to drive the story.
“The world of collectibles is fascinating because the items are so personal to the talent who is collecting them,” La Puma told cllct. “What I love about this show is, it’s less about resell value and more-so about the sentimental value and the stories each distinct item holds to the celebrity.”
La Puma is an avid sneakerhead. His “Sneaker Shopping” show, which features A-list celebrities ranging from Vice President Kamala Harris to Kyrie Irving bonding over a shared love of sneakers, has cemented him as a central figure in sneaker collecting culture — a collector’s collector with earned expertise.
But for him to step out of the mass appeal of sneaker content in favor of a deep-dive collectible show predicated around decidedly uncool (at least, according to public consensus) topics such as rare lunch boxes, allows the show to feel cool in quintessential Complex style without compromising on its subject matter.
“As much as I love talking sneakers with subjects, it's cool to see the similarities all collectors have no matter what they collect,” La Puma said.
The show’s genesis can be traced, at least in part, to producer John Walaszek falling back into sports cards during the pandemic. His collecting habits, which began in the typical ways as a child — “sports cards, action figures, you know, all the normal stuff” — led him to wonder about the broader collectibles world.
Walaszek always collected vinyl, having previously worked as Def Jam’s director of content, and the cross-category aspect of collectibles intrigued him.
“It made me realize this is happening in so many other categories besides just cards, like someone who's a die-hard collector of lunch boxes or wine, all of them have the same versions of things that we do in the card world,” Walaszek said. “I wanted to explore where that exists in other lanes.”
He pitched the show as a tour of celebrity’s collections, but with the intent of going deep into the weeds of the category and the human.
“Instead of just ‘here's item one,’ it costs this much. Here's item two, it costs this much,’ I really wanted to get into the ‘why’ behind their collection and what drives them. ... I didn't want to be ‘Cribs.’ My goal is that a collector of anything could watch this show and see themselves in it,”he said.
In watching the show, it’s clear Walaszek’s goal was a success.
Through La Puma’s interview with Bautista and his infectious enthusiasm for lunch boxes, I was delighted by the level of relatability, especially during moments where Bautista takes the time to break down the rare variants and his personal collecting journey.
“He loves his lunchboxes and talking about them like any collector loves talking about their collection,” said Walaszek, explaining how the show wasn’t supposed to be about Bautista the celebrity as much as it was to be about Bautista the collector.
Only after I had reached the three-quarters mark did I realize that wasn’t strictly true.
The show is also a bit of a Trojan Horse, with the whole episode doubling as a deeply personal interview, life stories tumbling forth from each lunch box as Bautista brought the cameras through his collection. Anecdotes arrived with each lunch box and served as a more revealing look into Bautista’s personality than any straight-up interview could have hoped to accomplish.
Walaszek didn’t create the show by summoning a focus group, it’s borne out of his own curiosity and beliefs surrounding collecting. He wanted to get beyond the price tags and the numbers and really find a way through to the humanity behind collectibles. Sure, someone has a bunch of stuff making up a collection, but what about the "why" behind it all?
“To understand that, you have to spend more time with just one item. You start to understand why he's buying what he’s buying,” Walaszek said. “I wanted the show to just be very focused and specific on a certain item in collectibles. Because I also want to get deep enough where someone who knows nothing about lunch boxes could walk away from it, kind of knowing the 101 of lunchbox collecting.”
Bringing a show like this to the Complex audience is far from a natural progression. But Walaszek believes there’s broad overlap for this type of content.
“The Complex audience is probably collecting something, whether they call themselves a collector or not,” he said, explaining how he hopes the show will hold up a mirror to its viewers and help them relate through their own collecting habits (conscious or not).
When pressed for a favorite item in his collection, Walaszek was stumped, thinking out loud whether it would be a piece of music memorabilia he picked up while working for Def Jam or a Shaun Alexander card which he had signed through the mail as a kid.
Picking one was too much to ask, but he was able to summarize his collecting philosophy quite succinctly: “I just like accumulating tangible goods that represent memories.”
Don’t we all?
“On Display” understands that on a fundamental level and is a gem in an ocean rife with poorly researched and emotionless content claiming to cover collecting, but failing to get beyond the “oooos” and “ahhhhs.”
For collectors of anything, Complex’s new show is a welcome injection of fresh energy and a chance to reinvigorate your own love of collecting.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.