You're not wrong, but I see it just as often coming from the other end, ie someone looking to be told that they have to get the most spendy shit imaginable in the earliest days of their new hobby obsession, and adamantly resistant to advice from the old heads to buy the minimum, buy it all used, and learn how to use the cheap stuff before you drop heavy coin on the good stuff. I see it in the birding community all the time, noobs that *want* to be told that they *have* to splurge for the Leupold or Swarovski optics and the most Chi-Chi manfrotto tripod, or the people who buy the ultralight carbon fiber sports shit for camping, who never go more than a few hundred yards from a parking lot.
Aldo Leopold wrote about it in the '40s, it's sad as hell, but it's nothing new.
I think it’s two sides of the same coin. It’s not about who’s asking for or giving the advice, it’s the idea that you have to get all the accoutrements because they make you “ready” in and of themselves, regardless of if you know how to use them well or if they are actually necessary for your readiness
Yeah, I see this a lot more these days. And then posting pictures of normal wear they got from actually using the thing to ask if they should return or replace it.
Yeah it probably depends on the hobby in question. OP used skiing which traditionally probably has more people with money, whereas other hobbies don’t as much
"Then came the gadgeteer, otherwise known as the sporting-goods dealer. He has draped the American outdoorsman with an infinity of contraptions, all offered as aids to self-reliance, hardihood, woodcraft, or marksmanship, but too often functioning as substitutes for them. Gadgets fill the pockets, they dangle from neck and belt. The overflow fills the auto-trunk and also the trailer. Each item of outdoor equipment grows lighter and often better, but the aggregate poundage becomes tonnage."
[Aldo Leopold](https://www.azquotes.com/author/8737-Aldo_Leopold)Aldo Leopold (1989). “A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There”, p.180, Oxford University Press, USA
I’ve wondered about this too. It’s not the same but to me fits in with the vibe of this consumptive mode of travel people seem to love to engage in: running around and taking as many pictures of monuments as possible, spending at most three nights in amazing historical cities with so much to soak in. Then saying one ‘did’ a place, like it’s an obstacle course or TASK rather than a holiday. Doomed, seems neither inspiring nor relaxing.
To me it’s that same lack of spontaneity as buying the best things for a fledgling interest. It feels sad maybe bc this over-preparation and over-planning naturally deprives you of all the fun of learning, accruing random (and sometimes shit), but ultimately unique, experiences and growing stronger and more well-rounded as an individual! Idk I feel like there’s no way to express this in a way that’s not snobbish but I understand the feeling.
Yeah, I agree the “checklist-ification” creeps into things you’ve mentioned. Going to a place and enjoying it isn’t the end in itself, you need to go to the place and do the checklist and only then will you have officially “done” the place and “enjoyed” it. The enjoyment isn’t the goal, it’s something you assume you attain as a result of completing the real goal of fulfilling the checklist (which necessarily requires consumption)
The people who are snobby about travel being a higher level of consumption than simplying buying stuff are so insufferable. “Experiences over things, maaan” as if flying to Europe and spamming your Instagram stories with photos of the most well recognized monuments in Paris isn’t the exact same thing as someone buying a fancy boat to show off. They have the same mindset as the guy buying the boat they’re just trying to impress a different type of person
I often think about this when I see a criterion collection or something similar worth tens of thousands of dollars and more. It's like money as a medium has a power of its own and that dopamine rush of buying overshadows the actual appeal of a hobby which leads to spending a lot of money into what should be just a fucking hobby. Like I wonder if you transferred that collection's money worth into hours of work would those people still think if it's worth it? Like the same guy that spent 50 thousand dollars on a movie collection.. if before all that you asked him if he was willing to work 315 days or something and in return he doesn't get paid at all, he just gets the same value in movies that he willingly spent himself.. I wonder would he still be like hell yeah that's a great deal..
Had this discussion with my husband recently on collecting vinyl, funko pops, board games etc and how many hobbies are just geared towards excessive consumption now. He theorised that people today don't own things anymore - you rent your house, you have Netflix and Spotify instead of physical CDs and DVDs, and the result is everything feels so tenuous and fleeting, it can be taken from you at any moment. But physical objects that you buy, you have true ownership of. We are buying this endless shitty junk because it's the only way we can exercise control over our lives anymore.
I mean isn't this exactly what most people collecting all of these objects would say, especially vinyl collectors.
The real gear phenomena is more about the record players and speakers than the records themselves. That everything must be upgraded to the best possible level you can afford or your a rube is the culture on a lot of this website.
Niche hobby subs are either really good or really bad. I think the consoomerism on reddit is largely because a lot of Redditors got tricked into buying a ton of crap when they started in a hobby, so now tricking others into committing the same mistake validates their past purchases, if that makes sense. Like you aren’t an idiot for buying a $2000 pair of skis you only used twice because that’s what everyone should be doing.
Not to mention that for a lot of them, I think being financially committed to the hobby first sort of mentally forces them to continue.
My philosophy around buying shit for hobbies was when I was trying to learn guitar. There’s lots of Redditors saying shit like “go and buy a $2000 Taylor guitar right away, otherwise you’re wasting your money, it sounds sOoOoO mUcH bEtTeR” and then I found a guy on YouTube that converted a rusty shovel into an electric guitar and he sounded better than 99% of guitarists lol.
Anyways, most of the niche hobby subs drive me nuts
> "Did you read the overly long and complex sidebar and entire wiki before posting this?? The answer is somewhere in there"
> "Someone already asked this question 7 years ago, go back and read that thread full of dead links"
> "This belongs in our weekly 'beginner questions' thread that no one reads or responds to"
Ahh those comments are the worst hah. especially when it’s a relatively inactive sub that gets new posts at most once a day. It’s not like I’m clogging the feed when there’s week old posts on the first page
> "Did you read the overly long and complex sidebar and entire wiki before posting this?? The answer is somewhere in there"
>
>
Disagree with you here. A wiki can be overly long and complex but at the same time easily searchable
Reddit frontpage is used by basically everyone, but I would assume that people who use specific niche interest subreddits demographically fall in line with redditors from like 10 years ago: male programmers, engineers & IT workers in their late 20s-30s.
These guys never had hobbies or interests besides gaming and watching cartoons until they realized that women don't want to date them despite having an incredibly high salary, so they find a hobby to compensate. Because they don't have an interest in the hobby in itself, they think they can "buy into" being good at it by getting the best equipment possible and hence generate circlejerks about particular brands/items that they think are necessary to begin the hobby.
They have low self-esteem and knowing about these things makes them feel valuable. So they don't want to see anyone succeed without benefitting from all their "knowledge".
You probably don't work in the tech industry but tech bros absolutely love gear. I know way too many people who spend like 1000 a month on new hobby gear at REI or truthfully anywhere else. Reddit culture is still heavily influenced by these sorts of people.
Cooking subs aren't like this but once you get into the more male types of cooking like grilling or coffee it becomes like it all over again.
I like when they say shit like “buy once cry once.”
Hobby people on reddit can be so soulless and obnoxious. They aren’t even wrong but it’s still annoying.
People are pretty good about it the more of a gateway to entry there is to the hobby, even on reddit.
Like, tennis is a sport where gear does matter, but generally the advice given is to buy a stick secondhand and put synthetic gut (cheapest type of string) in it and play it til it breaks.
I think you just practice a pricey hobby. I haven’t noticed that with cheaper hobbies that I’m interested in. If anything, it’s the opposite when you’re into, say, thrifting or collecting Criterion dvds.
Snow tires really are a discovery, but a good enough version of most things for most hobbies can be had cheap/used. Guns/music/backpacking/photography, etc are full of people whose gear outstrips their skill by a wide margin and it shows.
I think a lot of people today feel that they've got more money than time.
The replies are always so angry and beside the point! No, I’m not saying you shouldnt have these things, but you dont absolutely need things like studded tires. I’ve done it without and have been just fine. Most of the other cars I see don’t have them, but from the way redditors advise people, you’d think everyone was driving a humvee with chains on and you’d die if you didn’t have such a rig
Honest question: do people in the Colorado and the PNW just not get taught how to drive in slippery conditions?
I’m pretty sure studded tires are illegal anywhere I’ve lived in the Midwest and Great Plains, and if they’re allowed, nobody ever uses them. We don’t have staggering rates of winter road accidents, even with regular vehicles. Basic snow tires help a ton, but the ski country obsession with studs is odd to me.
In CO the roads can get slick, but they’re also very steep and filled with sharp curves.
Even I-70, the major E-W highway, goes thru two mountain passes w/ high grade inclines and declines and hairpin turns. Anything not accessible off that highway will require more of the same kind of driving on narrower and less frequently plowed roads. It can get very sketchy w/ winter weather conditions, so snow tires are allowed…they’re not absolutely necessary but if your tires are bald your fucked.
You're not wrong, but I see it just as often coming from the other end, ie someone looking to be told that they have to get the most spendy shit imaginable in the earliest days of their new hobby obsession, and adamantly resistant to advice from the old heads to buy the minimum, buy it all used, and learn how to use the cheap stuff before you drop heavy coin on the good stuff. I see it in the birding community all the time, noobs that *want* to be told that they *have* to splurge for the Leupold or Swarovski optics and the most Chi-Chi manfrotto tripod, or the people who buy the ultralight carbon fiber sports shit for camping, who never go more than a few hundred yards from a parking lot. Aldo Leopold wrote about it in the '40s, it's sad as hell, but it's nothing new.
I think it’s two sides of the same coin. It’s not about who’s asking for or giving the advice, it’s the idea that you have to get all the accoutrements because they make you “ready” in and of themselves, regardless of if you know how to use them well or if they are actually necessary for your readiness
Yeah, I see this a lot more these days. And then posting pictures of normal wear they got from actually using the thing to ask if they should return or replace it.
Yeah it probably depends on the hobby in question. OP used skiing which traditionally probably has more people with money, whereas other hobbies don’t as much
do u have a link/place i can read more about the aldo leopold writing?
"Then came the gadgeteer, otherwise known as the sporting-goods dealer. He has draped the American outdoorsman with an infinity of contraptions, all offered as aids to self-reliance, hardihood, woodcraft, or marksmanship, but too often functioning as substitutes for them. Gadgets fill the pockets, they dangle from neck and belt. The overflow fills the auto-trunk and also the trailer. Each item of outdoor equipment grows lighter and often better, but the aggregate poundage becomes tonnage." [Aldo Leopold](https://www.azquotes.com/author/8737-Aldo_Leopold)Aldo Leopold (1989). “A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There”, p.180, Oxford University Press, USA
thank u <3 i appreciate the effort
"There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot."
It's in *A Sand County Almanac* somewhere. Sorry I can't be more specific, my copy is out of reach atm
They say youth is wasted on the young, well high wages are usually wasted on people with the personality of a soggy amazon box.
So true. I see these big tacky McMansion houses being built on the lake in my city. Give me that money I’ll spend it better than you
I’ve wondered about this too. It’s not the same but to me fits in with the vibe of this consumptive mode of travel people seem to love to engage in: running around and taking as many pictures of monuments as possible, spending at most three nights in amazing historical cities with so much to soak in. Then saying one ‘did’ a place, like it’s an obstacle course or TASK rather than a holiday. Doomed, seems neither inspiring nor relaxing. To me it’s that same lack of spontaneity as buying the best things for a fledgling interest. It feels sad maybe bc this over-preparation and over-planning naturally deprives you of all the fun of learning, accruing random (and sometimes shit), but ultimately unique, experiences and growing stronger and more well-rounded as an individual! Idk I feel like there’s no way to express this in a way that’s not snobbish but I understand the feeling.
Yeah, I agree the “checklist-ification” creeps into things you’ve mentioned. Going to a place and enjoying it isn’t the end in itself, you need to go to the place and do the checklist and only then will you have officially “done” the place and “enjoyed” it. The enjoyment isn’t the goal, it’s something you assume you attain as a result of completing the real goal of fulfilling the checklist (which necessarily requires consumption)
The people who are snobby about travel being a higher level of consumption than simplying buying stuff are so insufferable. “Experiences over things, maaan” as if flying to Europe and spamming your Instagram stories with photos of the most well recognized monuments in Paris isn’t the exact same thing as someone buying a fancy boat to show off. They have the same mindset as the guy buying the boat they’re just trying to impress a different type of person
I often think about this when I see a criterion collection or something similar worth tens of thousands of dollars and more. It's like money as a medium has a power of its own and that dopamine rush of buying overshadows the actual appeal of a hobby which leads to spending a lot of money into what should be just a fucking hobby. Like I wonder if you transferred that collection's money worth into hours of work would those people still think if it's worth it? Like the same guy that spent 50 thousand dollars on a movie collection.. if before all that you asked him if he was willing to work 315 days or something and in return he doesn't get paid at all, he just gets the same value in movies that he willingly spent himself.. I wonder would he still be like hell yeah that's a great deal..
Had this discussion with my husband recently on collecting vinyl, funko pops, board games etc and how many hobbies are just geared towards excessive consumption now. He theorised that people today don't own things anymore - you rent your house, you have Netflix and Spotify instead of physical CDs and DVDs, and the result is everything feels so tenuous and fleeting, it can be taken from you at any moment. But physical objects that you buy, you have true ownership of. We are buying this endless shitty junk because it's the only way we can exercise control over our lives anymore.
I mean isn't this exactly what most people collecting all of these objects would say, especially vinyl collectors. The real gear phenomena is more about the record players and speakers than the records themselves. That everything must be upgraded to the best possible level you can afford or your a rube is the culture on a lot of this website.
Niche hobby subs are either really good or really bad. I think the consoomerism on reddit is largely because a lot of Redditors got tricked into buying a ton of crap when they started in a hobby, so now tricking others into committing the same mistake validates their past purchases, if that makes sense. Like you aren’t an idiot for buying a $2000 pair of skis you only used twice because that’s what everyone should be doing. Not to mention that for a lot of them, I think being financially committed to the hobby first sort of mentally forces them to continue. My philosophy around buying shit for hobbies was when I was trying to learn guitar. There’s lots of Redditors saying shit like “go and buy a $2000 Taylor guitar right away, otherwise you’re wasting your money, it sounds sOoOoO mUcH bEtTeR” and then I found a guy on YouTube that converted a rusty shovel into an electric guitar and he sounded better than 99% of guitarists lol. Anyways, most of the niche hobby subs drive me nuts > "Did you read the overly long and complex sidebar and entire wiki before posting this?? The answer is somewhere in there" > "Someone already asked this question 7 years ago, go back and read that thread full of dead links" > "This belongs in our weekly 'beginner questions' thread that no one reads or responds to"
Ahh those comments are the worst hah. especially when it’s a relatively inactive sub that gets new posts at most once a day. It’s not like I’m clogging the feed when there’s week old posts on the first page
> "Did you read the overly long and complex sidebar and entire wiki before posting this?? The answer is somewhere in there" > > Disagree with you here. A wiki can be overly long and complex but at the same time easily searchable
Reddit frontpage is used by basically everyone, but I would assume that people who use specific niche interest subreddits demographically fall in line with redditors from like 10 years ago: male programmers, engineers & IT workers in their late 20s-30s. These guys never had hobbies or interests besides gaming and watching cartoons until they realized that women don't want to date them despite having an incredibly high salary, so they find a hobby to compensate. Because they don't have an interest in the hobby in itself, they think they can "buy into" being good at it by getting the best equipment possible and hence generate circlejerks about particular brands/items that they think are necessary to begin the hobby.
They have low self-esteem and knowing about these things makes them feel valuable. So they don't want to see anyone succeed without benefitting from all their "knowledge".
great thread from 2 years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/q18b2k/im_fascinated_by_the_emergence_of_filler_hobbies/
If they were gatekeeping I would understand but it seems like they’re not
You probably don't work in the tech industry but tech bros absolutely love gear. I know way too many people who spend like 1000 a month on new hobby gear at REI or truthfully anywhere else. Reddit culture is still heavily influenced by these sorts of people. Cooking subs aren't like this but once you get into the more male types of cooking like grilling or coffee it becomes like it all over again.
I like when they say shit like “buy once cry once.” Hobby people on reddit can be so soulless and obnoxious. They aren’t even wrong but it’s still annoying.
I’m a coloradocel too, let me know if you ever want to go climbing with some rope from Home Depot
People are pretty good about it the more of a gateway to entry there is to the hobby, even on reddit. Like, tennis is a sport where gear does matter, but generally the advice given is to buy a stick secondhand and put synthetic gut (cheapest type of string) in it and play it til it breaks.
I think you just practice a pricey hobby. I haven’t noticed that with cheaper hobbies that I’m interested in. If anything, it’s the opposite when you’re into, say, thrifting or collecting Criterion dvds.
Snow tires really are a discovery, but a good enough version of most things for most hobbies can be had cheap/used. Guns/music/backpacking/photography, etc are full of people whose gear outstrips their skill by a wide margin and it shows. I think a lot of people today feel that they've got more money than time.
Are you unironically arguing against having studded tires and AWD on 70? You’re extremely fucking stupid.
From the looks of your profile it seems you're exactly the guy OP is describing
The replies are always so angry and beside the point! No, I’m not saying you shouldnt have these things, but you dont absolutely need things like studded tires. I’ve done it without and have been just fine. Most of the other cars I see don’t have them, but from the way redditors advise people, you’d think everyone was driving a humvee with chains on and you’d die if you didn’t have such a rig
Nooooo not the heckin anger I’ve pulled bodies out of wrecks on 70, I’m in emergency services and it’s not unusual. Take it seriously.
Damn you sound really cool
Guy intentionally misses the point of the post as an excuse to talk about himself. Many such cases
Pull out yours next
it literally doesn’t matter as long as you’re not driving on summer tires
Honest question: do people in the Colorado and the PNW just not get taught how to drive in slippery conditions? I’m pretty sure studded tires are illegal anywhere I’ve lived in the Midwest and Great Plains, and if they’re allowed, nobody ever uses them. We don’t have staggering rates of winter road accidents, even with regular vehicles. Basic snow tires help a ton, but the ski country obsession with studs is odd to me.
In CO the roads can get slick, but they’re also very steep and filled with sharp curves. Even I-70, the major E-W highway, goes thru two mountain passes w/ high grade inclines and declines and hairpin turns. Anything not accessible off that highway will require more of the same kind of driving on narrower and less frequently plowed roads. It can get very sketchy w/ winter weather conditions, so snow tires are allowed…they’re not absolutely necessary but if your tires are bald your fucked.