It is easy to see this, from the fetishization of unboxing and endless gear fidgeting reviews to the details that won't matter to 99.9% of the users.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it, Reddit has really turned "picking up a hobby" into "selecting and purchasing the correct gear, talking about the gear, and deciding which gear to purchase next". Don't even get me started on keyboard fetishists, who dispense with the hobby pretense and just buy gear (yeah a nice keyboard is a great thing to have but I've never lubricated a switch in my life and never intend to)
I think the fundamental problem is that if you're sitting somewhere bored, maybe at work, maybe elsewhere, you can consume some media about a hobby, and you can make an online purchase of some gear for the hobby, but you often can't actually do the hobby.
It's dumb, but I will catch myself watching a ten minute video on synthsizers while I'm at work, but I would never whip out a synth and spend ten minutes playing it at work. But it's the playing it that actually satisfies the desire. Consuming media just increases it.
It's a dumb loop but it's really hard to get out of because:
1. The activation energy of doing a hobby is always higher than the energy required to just consume media about it, or even buy gear online for it.
2. We're often in environments where it's impossible or inappropriate to do the hobby (work, in line at the DMV, etc.) but where we are able to consume media or make purchases.
Good point. It's a mixed bag. I've gotten back into music making the past few years (hello, mid-life crisis). And while watching synth videos on YouTube can easily encourage me to just be a synthesizer collector and not a music-maker, it has also been really inspiring, taught me a lot, and actually encouraged me to make more.
Finding the right balance can be hard but for me at least, it's a net positive. But I do have to be diligent about asking myself "Will this piece of gear really further my goals, or am I just bored and looking for a seratonin hit?"
Also this, its captialism, consumerism, and people chasing the dream of being an "influencer". All rubbish.
I "stopped" taking pictures after I went down the extreme build your own cameras art tract and found it all devoid of meaning. This was 2005...
I actually didnt stop... I still shoot film because we live in a dark age of cloud storage and I believe there will be little recorded daily history still left in the near future, or overran by AI/Deepfake content...
Next time you have a free weekend, pop into some estate sales and flip through people's old magazine collections and piles of hobby crap. You'll find a few people with well worn items and a sensible collection (people who had enough time to really practice the hobby) and many wealthier people that spent money aspiring to commit time they never made while collecting the most featured and esteemed baubles.
has really turned "picking up a hobby" into "selecting and purchasing the correct gear, talking about the gear, and deciding which gear to purchase next".
Thank you for saying it so clearly.
I used to love reading a few subreddits where I would get tips and advice on doing things that I love doing, like /r/snowboarding /r/photography /r/overlanding /r/vandwellers /r/cycling
and all of them have devolved into exactly what you describe. Endless discussion about purchasing new & expensive equipment to do said thing. Extremely minimal discussion about actually doing said thing.
GAS: Gear Acquisition Syndrome, at least photographers call it that.
Not to be confused with collecting, which has no notions of taling better pictures and is purely concerned with acquiring things for the sake of having it. GAS always has this underlying assumption of being a better photographer if only the gear was better, as in the latest and highest priced.
Comments
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it, Reddit has really turned "picking up a hobby" into "selecting and purchasing the correct gear, talking about the gear, and deciding which gear to purchase next". Don't even get me started on keyboard fetishists, who dispense with the hobby pretense and just buy gear (yeah a nice keyboard is a great thing to have but I've never lubricated a switch in my life and never intend to)
It's not just Reddit. It's all of social media.
I think the fundamental problem is that if you're sitting somewhere bored, maybe at work, maybe elsewhere, you can consume some media about a hobby, and you can make an online purchase of some gear for the hobby, but you often can't actually do the hobby.
It's dumb, but I will catch myself watching a ten minute video on synthsizers while I'm at work, but I would never whip out a synth and spend ten minutes playing it at work. But it's the playing it that actually satisfies the desire. Consuming media just increases it.
It's a dumb loop but it's really hard to get out of because:
1. The activation energy of doing a hobby is always higher than the energy required to just consume media about it, or even buy gear online for it.
2. We're often in environments where it's impossible or inappropriate to do the hobby (work, in line at the DMV, etc.) but where we are able to consume media or make purchases.
It is not entirely fruitless. Doing this with different things you might eventually stumble upon something that will become your hobby.
Good point. It's a mixed bag. I've gotten back into music making the past few years (hello, mid-life crisis). And while watching synth videos on YouTube can easily encourage me to just be a synthesizer collector and not a music-maker, it has also been really inspiring, taught me a lot, and actually encouraged me to make more.
Finding the right balance can be hard but for me at least, it's a net positive. But I do have to be diligent about asking myself "Will this piece of gear really further my goals, or am I just bored and looking for a seratonin hit?"
Also this, its captialism, consumerism, and people chasing the dream of being an "influencer". All rubbish.
I "stopped" taking pictures after I went down the extreme build your own cameras art tract and found it all devoid of meaning. This was 2005...
I actually didnt stop... I still shoot film because we live in a dark age of cloud storage and I believe there will be little recorded daily history still left in the near future, or overran by AI/Deepfake content...
Great comments! Makes you feel like we live at the end of the rubbish world! :D
Fuck I hope so. Craftsman unit!
Next time you have a free weekend, pop into some estate sales and flip through people's old magazine collections and piles of hobby crap. You'll find a few people with well worn items and a sensible collection (people who had enough time to really practice the hobby) and many wealthier people that spent money aspiring to commit time they never made while collecting the most featured and esteemed baubles.
There's nothing new to this.
The joke about audiophiles applies to many activities:
"Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music.
Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment.” - Alan Parsons
Thank you for saying it so clearly.
I used to love reading a few subreddits where I would get tips and advice on doing things that I love doing, like /r/snowboarding /r/photography /r/overlanding /r/vandwellers /r/cycling
and all of them have devolved into exactly what you describe. Endless discussion about purchasing new & expensive equipment to do said thing. Extremely minimal discussion about actually doing said thing.
Reddit may have continued or even increased an existing practice, but this phenomenon predates reddit (founded 2005) by quite a bit.
And Leica being an overprived status symbol, I explicitly include Leica glass, predates any Sony digital camera by a couple of decades as well.
Is there a name for that? "wishful purchasing" maybe?
GAS: Gear Acquisition Syndrome, at least photographers call it that.
Not to be confused with collecting, which has no notions of taling better pictures and is purely concerned with acquiring things for the sake of having it. GAS always has this underlying assumption of being a better photographer if only the gear was better, as in the latest and highest priced.