I write a lot about hobbies on the blog. So far, I’ve written posts about gardening, woodworking, and bowling, but I also enjoy playing guitar, model making, card making, cross-stitching, reading, and video games. Plus, I recently bought a pair of binoculars for bird and sky watching. I really like hobbies because they’re a great way of passing the time while keeping your hands busy and learning a new skill. I think my love of hobbies comes naturally.
My dad and grandparents all participated in their hobbies when I was growing up and showed how important they can be to a balanced life. Hobbies were a form of relaxation for them as well as a way to keep the mind engaged. Hobbies were never supposed to be something that cost a lot of money, and it was okay to do things as frugally as needed to make it work.
Recently, I’ve started to notice a shift in how people approach hobbies. Perhaps it’s not how the majority of people approach them, but it is what is conveyed on social media, YouTube, and forums, including Reddit. This shift has been both frustrating and saddening, and it’s what I’m writing about in this post.
Internet Is Making Hobbies Elitist
Before diving in, I don’t mean that the hobbies themselves are elitist or for people we consider to be elite. There have always been some hobbies that are associated with the wealthy and upper class: fox hunting, motorsports, sailing, polo, etc. Those haven’t changed. It still takes a lot of money, time, and connections to gain entry into these clubs and hobbies.
The ones I’m thinking about are those that have always been approachable by the vast majority of people. The ones that don’t need to cost a lot of money to start in, and your investment can increase the more interested you become. The hobbies I listed above largely fall into this category. These are the hobbies that I feel are under attack. It still doesn’t need to cost a lot of money to get started in some of these hobbies, but the narratives around them, and therefore the barrier to access them, have changed. It’s not necessarily a financial element, either. In some cases, it’s actually cheaper to get started in hobbies than it used to be. Yet, if you buy into the narrative, you come out of it feeling that hobbies aren’t for everyone. It’s my belief that the internet has played a key role in establishing this barrier, and nowhere is it more evident than on social media and YouTube.
Social Media & YouTube’s Role
If you have watched YouTube or used social media for any amount of time, you’ve seen the explosive growth of influencer culture. People are selling and promoting every item, activity, and lifestyle that you can imagine. Creating content on YouTube and social media has become a full-time job for some people, with much of that income stemming from brand ambassadorships. Companies will pay these creators to test (not in an objective manner) and promote these products, and oftentimes, these products typically aren’t that cheap. From there, successful marketing takes place: viewers and consumers feel that they need to buy the product that their favorite creator is peddling even if a more cost-effective option would better serve their needs.
The second aspect of YouTube and social media that I hate is the presentation of perfection. Both platforms are designed to share a skewed version of life that doesn’t show the struggles and failures. My favorite YouTube channels are the authentic ones that either include the struggles and failures they encounter or who acknowledge that the channel is only sharing a curated version of reality. I’ve encountered a lot of woodworking YouTube channels that only share the perfected final product and cut any of the mistakes that naturally occur when working on a project. I can’t tell you how many times during a woodworking project that I have to redo a cut or alter a design because the original one was going to fail. An internet creator choosing to leave these elements out of the final video or post creates a false expectation for the viewer that if they don’t achieve the same level of perfection, they’re a failure. In reality, woodworking and any other hobby are difficult, especially at the beginning. There will be failures as you learn and grow, but the failures refine and hone you into someone who is better at that hobby. But when we see creators that skip over the growth portion of a hobby and only show the success, it creates false expectations and disappointment.
These same creators are also usually the ones who only use the most expensive tools. A lot of woodworking YouTubers have shops full of SawStop and Festool tools, which are incredibly expensive. For example, the collapsible SawStop table saw is $1,700, and the cordless Festool table saw is $1,500. Meanwhile, my Ridgid collapsible table saw is $549, and I paid less for it when I bought it. My table saw isn’t perfect, and I’d eventually like to upgrade it, but it makes all the same cuts that the more expensive models do. My dad and grandfather built some amazing furniture on affordable tools and never needed the highest-price versions. It used to be a widely accepted belief that you would start a hobby with entry-level or used equipment, but a lot of people have abandoned that idea. The combination of creators only showing a perfect finished product that they built with top-of-the-line equipment yields a mentality that tells you that you must have that equipment to achieve those results. And even though we may be able to rationalize that it’s not true, when we’re struggling with something, it’s easy to convince ourselves that our tools and equipment are the culprits. If we don’t have the budget to buy the equipment that the creators use, it is easy to reach the point of abandoning a hobby we once were passionate about.
This brings me to my final point about social media and YouTube: obsession with luxury goods. As a society, we seem to be obsessed with luxury goods. People love to walk around with a brand label on their clothing or bag and will pay obscene amounts of money for a name regardless of the quality. I’ve been guilty of this in the past when I became driven to buy clothing at Polo by Ralph Lauren. I bought a pair of jeans that I had high expectations of, and while they’re comfortable and have lasted more than two years, the denim is thin, and I don’t think the quality is better than some Wranglers I own. Magz has shown me these incredible videos that analyze other creators sharing their shopping “hauls” at luxury stores. They’ll spend thousands of dollars on one trip as though it were $10. As I mentioned in the paragraph above, woodworking isn’t exempt from this. People only want to be seen using the most expensive tools even though it rarely has any impact on how good of a woodworker the person is.
I used woodworking as the main hobby in this section, but I think it rings true with other hobbies. Guitar players only want to be seen playing a premium model, usually a Gibson or Fender. Gamers need the newest and most powerful systems. Regardless of the subject, social media and YouTube only present the best and often most expensive versions of things, and unfortunately, it has an impact.
Take Back Your Hobby
If there’s a hobby you used to enjoy but have stopped because you don’t feel like you belong anymore, please put those thoughts out of your mind. The internet can be an awesome tool, but it can also be a horrible place. Online creators usually publish content with some sort of an agenda in mind and are rarely unbiased. They’re paid by brands to promote products, not to perform objective testing. And it’s always worth keeping in mind that what you see on the internet, especially visual media, is often the edited version that is curated to tell the intended story. It’s usually unpopular to tell truthful stories that highlight struggles, so the creators omit those parts. Likewise, showing themselves using the most expensive or perceived “best” products connotes wealth even if it’s artificial. You don’t need those same expensive tools to achieve wonderful results. You only need enough to accomplish your goal and to get interested in the hobby. Take it back, and don’t let the internet steal your fun and joy.
Leave a comment