That list gets much bigger if I add in pop culture media that I engaged with but didn't collect physical items from ... and then contracts even further if I list off media that I outgrew due to my age and/or changing tastes.
I've cut things myself. I hope to cut more, but I'm happy with where I am. My "Movie Classics" include all the classic ones (Corleone, Bickle, Indy) but also cult hits (Driver from Drive, Vincent from Collateral) and things like Jeff Costello from Le Samourai, which have no chance of ever being made, so really, the actual figures I'd ever buy are much fewer in number. I have bigger chances of becoming a billionaire CEO magician athlete than a Lenny Belardo figure ever getting made. Maybe someone will make official Vampire Pitt & Cruise figures, but that's unlikely compared to Batman #45. So with those rules in place, and how far-off the Marvel/DC stuff I want are, it's not that hard to juggle it. I'm a bit squeezed now as I have 5 POs and haven't found a place for Vito while also playing catchup with SW, but it's not bad enough to the point where I'm missing grails. Now, when Kenobi rolls around and we get to DS2 and NWH, I'll have to come up with plans...
To be fair there was maybe a one-off item here or there but trivial enough (single item, or inexpensive) it doesn't bear mention. I think I owned a single Alien Warrior figure at one point ... might have been a McFarlane or something? Can't remember. When I still collected 1/12 scale I tried out a couple of Figma Motoko figures but they were too small to scale well and a different style anyway, so didn't last long.
I'm actually surprised that I left out Kung Fu represented by Bruce Lee, but I've only ever had one sixth scale figure of him at a time (DX04 and Enterbay 75th) so one figure does not a 'collection' make I suppose.
I've bought random figures too through eBay and the such, but always in that one line I used to collect, so really, there was not much harm done. I had tons more random comic series that I ended up giving away in Secret Santa gifts over the years or throwing them away. I've kept only the ones featuring characters/teams/concepts I still like (which were about 80% of my inventory anyhow).
I got into Anime/Manga fairly late compared to comics and vidya so they're on te backburner for now. It doesn't help that they're all import figures, cost a ton and sell out too easily. I don't want to break into the 1/12 scale so I'm just biding my time until they come out with 1/6 versions. If I had the money I'd get the Akira Kaneda/Bike pack, but I'm still playing catchup with the actual volumes/editions in comics & manga, so they've got to wait. I'm not even thinking of statues. Maybe I'll buy one for each of my Top 5 all-time favourites across all media, but that's decades off.
So the list above still stands with only a couple of one-off omissions.
I'm sticking to the one I built myself, but it's mostly because I've just list everything I've ever poured time and money into. The trick is to trim through them to find the characters I do care about and the ones I'm "so-so" on. There'll come a day when it's between Sith #16, a secondary Green Lantern and a McReady, so I'll have to decide until then.
Yeah, that's evident, you also use a lot of Internet slang when you write, which tells me you're maybe a decade or so younger
And then some. I'm on the lower end in this place.
and definitely spent your time on different places on the 'net. I've never spent any time on Tumblr or Reddit for instance, and haven't been on many toy forums.
I used Tumblr waaaay back in the day, mostly to follow some artists. However Tumblr was a big source of porn, and once they banned that, the stereotypical userbase left and infected every other place. Reddit I never used much. Really, it's old forums, movie, comic, vidya ones and the such, imageboards too, that I was into. It's why I lament how the userbases have changed over the years.
Sometimes you use words I've never seen like 'vidya'.
That's short for videogames.
Yeah, that's a big difference between us. For me to be done with a thing I just forget about it.
With some I can do that. Case in point the myriad of comics and games I've read/played and dropped completely. But some are too much hassle to get rid of, so I prefer to drop the money on a dolly and be done with it. Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men, I have too many comics, games and figures from all the years to cut them off.
At the end of the day, I trimmed it all to about 50%, and while there's still tons of stuff I'd theoretically want to buy, they're in a way all connected. I reached the conclusion that I have a couple of favourites that get repeated across all media. For example I like swords in general, hence my attraction to Star Wars, DMC (and general Hack N' Slash like GoW or Ninja Gaiden), books like the Count of Monte Cristo, and Merc-characters like Deathstroke and Deadpool. I like Sorcerers, hence why I got into Doctor Strange/Fate and later Hellblazer. My favourite character archetype is the Byronic Super-Scientist/Sorcerer Noble, hence characters like Doom, Stark, Edmond Dantes, Griffith, and so on. There are more, but you get the point. All of those have existed since forever, so it's me really being focused on those few themes and how they're reflected in various media. I'm not going any Fallout or Mad Max merch because I never liked Post-Apoc stories beyond some good one-off; the worlds aren't appealing to me.
I think finding that link between all your interests, then trimming the fat, is the first step towards being more particular about what you get. Then you can fine-tune it a lot more.