As we work our way further and further down the list of the most influential Myachis of all time, there are a few sacks that you expect to see. Some Myachis have reached such an iconic status within the movement that they are bound to show up on a list like this.
In fact, I'm willing to wager that as the bona fide Myachi Maniac read through the first four entries in this series, they were probably listing Myachis in their head that they knew would show up on the list somewhere. While I doubt that anyone had predicted the Cherry Red, the Tune in With Taylor or the Green Sponge as contenders, I have little doubt that many of our loyal readers have been thinking for a week now, "I wonder where Black Butter will fall?"
#6) The Black Butter
In many ways, the Black Butter could be considered the definitive Myachi. It is the most popular Myachi of all time, having been released in no fewer than 10 different series. In addition to the more than 22,000 Black Butters that have been released in various series over the years, the same fabric has lent itself to a number of popular promotional sacks like the Dunkin Donuts, the Alana Grace, the Dodge, the Mileage Club and the Shamrock Shuffle.
The first iteration of this sack actually came long before the Black Butter itself. The Black Velveteen of series 0.4 was a remarkably similar sack with exquisite jammability and grip. It was fast to break in and its neutral color made it a favorite among early jammers. But that fabric quickly became unavailable and a series of not-quite-as-good substitutes plagued the Myachi Movement for the years following.
But then along came the Black Butter. It was superior in grip and the fabric was widely available so there was no danger of our manufacturer running out. What's more is that we found virtually everyone loved the solid black. It was rarely anyone's favorite in a series, but it was always a suitable second choice if the most popular sack was gone.
The Black Butter was extremely popular and is even today considered by many to be the most perfect Myachi ever constructed. But that, by itself, does not earn it a place on this list. We're not compiling a list of the most popular Myachis ever made, after all; this is a list of the Myachis that changed the world... or, more accurately, Myachis that changed the world of Myachi.
To understand the impact of the Black Butter, we must examine a slow, undulating trend that has existed in the Myachi Movement since the beginning. It is the tidal flux of Myachi, the eternal ebb and flow of collecting and jamming.
At first, of course, Myachi was all about jamming. The game can't start with collectors, as there would be nothing to collect. Jamming was all there was to Myachi at the time; solo shredding, tossing back and forth with your friends, creating new tricks and thinking up new Myachi games. The only reason people got more than one Myachi was to hedge their bets against losing one and later to learn two and three Myachi tricks.
But it didn't take very long for the collecting aspect to materialize. As soon as a few jammers glanced at their pile of four or five Myachis, it started looking like a collection waiting to happen. The various fabrics all in a uniform size and cut just beg to be augmented with ever more colors and patterns. Within only a few series, collecting started to dominate the market.
It makes sense if you think about it. Keep in mind that we're talking about the earliest days of the Myachi Movement where at best there were a few thousand people that owned Myachis. Jammers, by and large, buy two or three Myachis and eventually develop a collection over years. Collectors, on the other hand, by ten, twelve or twenty Myachis. So even if there are ten times as many jammers as there are collectors, the collectors are still buying more Myachis overall.
As a company, we have little choice in the whole supply and demand thing. It's kind of an immutable law of business so when the biggest segment of our customer base started begging for ever more exotic fabrics to add to their collections, we obliged. We scoured the world for cool looking, unusual fabrics to use in upcoming series.
This led to an interesting era in Myachi that is still relished by collectors. Sacks like the Snake Skin Tie-Dye, the Orange Wetsuit, the Yellow Cat and the Red and Purple Swirls dominated each new series. These sacks were clearly there for collectors. They were stiff, unaccommodating jammers but they looked spectacularly cool. Inevitably, of course, this trend went too far.
The sack that most perfectly encapsulates the ridiculous end that we went to trying new fabrics is the infamous Neo, the waterproof neoprene yellow beast that has all the jammability of a soaped up iPhone. Designed to be jammed with in pools and on beaches, the Neo was a decent jammer when it was soaking wet and all but useless the rest of the time.
The Black Butter showed up at about the same time (actually a few series before) and represented our continuing commitment to the freestylers and skill-players. Sure, the majority of sacks were produced for the collector that was demanding more colors, patterns and feels, but we never lost focus on the importance of having a few great jammers in every series as well.
For a number of reasons, the trend toward exotic Myachis started to recede around series 1.1 or so. Part of this was due to the ease of manufacture of some fabrics, some was due to the shifting zeitgeist of the movement back toward freestyle but an awful lot of it can be credited directly to the Black Butter. Despite being offered in a series alongside such visually striking sacks as the Blue Dragon, the Royal Tiger, the Leopard Lime, the Tie Dye Snakeskin and the Fireball, the Black Butter consistently remained toward the top of the sales numbers. Sure, we sold out the Royal Tigers a bit faster, but everyone was willing to settle for a Black Butter if they didn't get their first choice.
The Black Butter was a turning point for the company and for the game. It said that we didn't need gimmicky fabrics to make it work. The fun of the game itself was enough even if the Myachi wasn't visually striking. The quality fabric and the intrinsic yumminess of the Black Butter was enough to help reverse the trend. Of course, today we've found ways to couple superior jammability with awesome patterns, but this best-of-both-worlds approach never would have been possible if it weren't for this simple Myachi.
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We'll be breaking into the top half of our list in the next installment, so be sure to keep checking back with us to see if your favorite Myachi made the list of the top 5 Myachis that changed the world.
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