Are hobbies dead?

A powerful video looking at where we are today, productivity, and hobbies.

One line I especially liked was how hobbies are supposed to be part of our life where it's safe to be terrible at something, experiment, mess about, and just do it for ourselves.

I really feel this. In my experience, every time I've started doing something that was a hobby for money, I grew to hate the activity.

But I wonder to what extent how one looks at this depends on one's position. Like, I have a job. It's full-time with a good salary and all the benefits. And, for instance, permaculture is a hobby, or really, several hobbies. Because of my position, it feels like there's a lot of side-gig grubbing in the permaculture space that is frankly distasteful. But I'm not so rooted in my situation that I don't recognize things are different for everyone. If I was running a permaculture farm for a living, you bet I'd be trying to make everything a side-enterprise. And my kids don't live in a world where you can just get a degree and then embark on a career. The entry level of the rat-race is brutal right now, so my kids live on side-gigs to varying degrees.

Í prefer to just call all that I do 'a life' rather than compartmentalize...I've always had a problem with the word 'hobby'...in my mind it's right up there with 'crafter'...both, to me, are trivializing 🤔

I play a lot...I suppose to others those things look like hobbies?

Is a hobby defined by whether it makes money or not? is it fun?

I can't watch videos on my phone so am probably missing something important....

No, No, NO, hobbies are not dead !  I am with the greatest enthusiasm seeking my permaculture hobby, as suggested by one of the Elite members of the Committee from this very site.

If I ever find such, I'll be sure to post all about it.

Peace

Christopher Weeks wrote:I really feel this. In my experience, every time I've started doing something that was a hobby for money, I grew to hate the activity.

...Like, I have a job. It's full-time with a good salary and all the benefits. ...

This is much like my situation.  I do several things that I could make money on on the side, but then I don't enjoy it anymore.  Doing something I love becomes a chore.  In addition to that, I could work an hour of overtime and make a lot more money than I can from say, selling comfrey, and I don't need to dig it, cut it up, package it, run it to the post office, figure out the best way to collect the money, follow up to make sure it grows for the customer.  If I have excess of anything at this point, I just share with family and friends.  I enjoy helping them out much more than I do selling things, so it's a win/win in my mind.

As you mentioned, I fully understand that my situation is different than many people, and frankly, I'm blessed to be in the position I'm in with regards to all this.  

I am at the point in my life where virtually all the activities in my life are hobbies.  I have been tempted to get a “real job”, but I am simply enjoying my hobbies too much.

I think that in case of permies the hobbies are just part of life and creation process. For example all the hobbies that I wanted to pursue: ceramics, blacksmithing, fabricating, stone masonry, woodworking are used to build things.
I think that most of the people nowadays are satisfied with virtual world in the network.

I am going to disagree! I spend a decent amount of time with college-age people and many are taking up handcrafts and stepping away from face-in-phone, actively. Sure, they'll search TikTok to find inspiration, but they're meeting up at the coffee place to crochet together (my daughter's friend just rang me after one of these meetups to ask if I wanted the coffee grounds from the café, in fact!! damn straight I do!) or share the cuttings from their houseplants. Yesterday we taught a guy at my husband's mechanic shop how to make his own yogurt, when he expressed interest. I love the hobbies I have, and I am thrilled when people want to share them!
I just yesterday read about a group meetup to make hook-and-yarn rugs (which I thought died about 45 years ago!) And just today I saw a really cool sewing video on instagram about how many people could come back to sewing like children playing or exploring, after maybe initially being turned off (and yelled at for not being good at sewing, like I was!). It made me want to pick up a needle and start puttering around.
A really interesting part of this trend is pushback against AI art and people wanting to learn how to do things "for real". Modern life is all about pendulums and extremes- politically, culturally, and in trends. All this AI and virtual life means handcrafting stuff has to come back. Hobbies are a great part of learning to do these things. I hope they remain something that we do for joy and for fun, not necessarily to monetize.

Something I'm telling myself a lot these days is that I can't believe everything I hear. No matter what anyone says, what I do for joy is still joyful. They say hobbies are dead? mmkay. To be sure, there are days like today when I'm busy and can't get out in the garden, and if I have to go out there and weed in 6C weather I'm going to definitely use the word "grind" to describe it-- even when life is great there are days when playtime gets rained out. But the sun comes back.

No hobbies are not dead. They are a great way to get different folks together that all enjoy similar things!

When they talk about hobbies, I suspect there is a generation gap. The word hobby is changing.

The first 2 min of this video sum it up nicely.

Tereza Okava wrote:And just today I saw a really cool sewing video on instagram about how many people could come back to sewing like children playing or exploring, after maybe initially being turned off (and yelled at for not being good at sewing, like I was!). It made me want to pick up a needle and start puttering around.

This! I am also one of those people scarred for life by a sewing teacher who told nine year old me I was a failure and I'd never get married because I couldn't sew! Fact was, I loved to sew and was great at refashioning old clothes relegated to Mum's rag bag because of stains or tears into things I could wear. But I couldn't do that term's project, a pulled thread work table mat, because Mum bought me cheaper fabric and the threads wouldn't pull out easily like everyone else's. For years, I didn't sew, but I've taken up hand sewing clothing again and love it! A needle, some thread, and a few old bits of clothing to upcycle make me very happy!

I can't watch videos, so don't know what they said, so can't respond to those. I do think that when money is tight, expensive hobbies can be hard to justify. There's a whole industry out there working to make people think that whatever they want to make or do requires spending a lot of money. And when people are on zero hour contracts and have no job security, I can understand the pressure to monetise anything they do for fun they're good at.

I feel hobbies are still alive and well.

My hobbies take up about 8 hours of my day, everyday.

I didn't watch either of those YouTube video so maybe I am missing something.

I feel day days folks tend to make their hobbies their life's work.

Like baking cupcakes, standup comedy, playing in a band or becoming a country singer...

I kind of got bored after five minutes or so, but I loved this description of commodified hobbies:

aesthetic flex powered by consumerism

I think what the first video was trying to identify is that we (Americans especially, but much of the Western World) is living through what is called "End-stage Capitalism." This is where everything becomes a commodity, and everything has some unrealistic monetary value attached to it.
When I say "unrealistic" I mean that some things simply cannot, and should not, be assigned a monetary value. Doing so ruins them.
The other ruthless aspect of our culture is the "Birth-school-work-death" process that we all get indoctrinated with. We have forgotten how to play.

I completely understand this sentiment: " I do several things that I could make money on the side, but then I don't enjoy it anymore.  Doing something I love becomes a chore."
I have always had hobbies of some sort or another, but I am a maker of things. I like to play with different mediums and see what I can create. Whether I choose to submit to the commodification pressure is a choice, and I have to bear responsibility for making that choice.

Hobbies aren't "dead", they have been consumed by our society's incessant need to put a monetary value on everything or call it useless.
All I can say is resistance is your best alternative.

Interesting and useful discussion!

One aspect is the problem of measurement. It's valid angst, but angst about online things that are measured against things that are online.  

The world is much, much larger. It is almost exclusively offline. Actual live humans are doing actual things, adding value, pursuing useful and (to the untrained eye) useless hobbies and interests. You can't measure their presence because they're not online and have no inclination to go there. The mass of this is planetary gravitas compared to virtual online moons.

Big Tech hates this with all of its avaricious, calculating, addictive soul. My God! -- If you don't contribute to our social media sales platforms, we can't leverage your angst and insecurity and fear, and can't create the space that gives you piddling microdoses of validation while selling you megadoses of advertising that feeds your angst and insecurity and fear, how can we keep making billions of dollars? You offline hobbyists are a direct menace to civilization as we know it!

In learning to paint these last two years, I've noticed a trend that worried me in past endevours like yarn.  

More and more people have become supply collectors rather than crafters.  

They who dies with the most yarn wins, was the motto even back in the 1990s.  It's worse now.  It scares me.

Apparently I'm the person who gains a lot of enjoyment out of turning my hobbies into side hustles.  I mean I like being able to do something I like and make a bit of cash off it.  It doesn't usually take the fun out for me.  Rather it enhances my enjoyment.

Hobbies of mine that will never yield money are:
Watching survival shows,
playing in the water,
History,
Going to cute shops (heck, that hobby loses me money haha).

At some point when perfecting the craft/hobby you end up with excess. For me the sharing initially and then selling that excess naturally occurred. There is only so much wall space for a painting. I only wear one ring. If something I make gives someone else joy, how cool is that. A hobby gives me personal time for creativity and escape from the day to day tasks. I do make money from my hobbies. I don't think that's a bad thing, but it is not the driver of the creative process.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Interesting and useful discussion!

One aspect is the problem of measurement. It's valid angst, but angst about online things that are measured against things that are online.  

The world is much, much larger. It is almost exclusively offline. Actual live humans are doing actual things, adding value, pursuing useful and (to the untrained eye) useless hobbies and interests. You can't measure their presence because they're not online and have no inclination to go there. The mass of this is planetary gravitas compared to virtual online moons.

Big Tech hates this with all of its avaricious, calculating, addictive soul. My God! -- If you don't contribute to our social media sales platforms, we can't leverage your angst and insecurity and fear, and can't create the space that gives you piddling microdoses of validation while selling you megadoses of advertising that feeds your angst and insecurity and fear, how can we keep making billions of dollars? You offline hobbyists are a direct menace to civilization as we know it!

This was completely on point. I was laughing while reading it. Not at you, but whole-heartedly with you.

I also think this is an interesting discussion, but for a slightly different reason.
This thread  No-Buy art supplies plan is a recent discussion about hobbies and art supplies.

Riona Abhainn wrote:Apparently I'm the person who gains a lot of enjoyment out of turning my hobbies into side hustles.  I mean I like being able to do something I like and make a bit of cash off it.  It doesn't usually take the fun out for me.  Rather it enhances my enjoyment.

I don't exactly think of my hobbies/sideline skills as a side hustle to earn money, but I keep an eye on ways to make them revenue neutral. This is a very frugal thing to do. Take for example my little sideline sharpening gig. If I can help people out and recover a portion of my overall expenses for consumables, it's pretty sweet  and casual -- nothing like the pressure of a hard-charging business venture.

I also accept that my "revenue neutral" approach isn't necessarily about cold hard cash. If it builds networks and community and goodwill, this sort of thing comes back to me in non-monetary ways that are still of enormous value. Like the neighbour who has a giant pile of wood chips just sitting there, or another one down the road who is thinning out his inventory of little sheds ...

Hobbies are definitely not dead. For years I've been making wooden toy trains and have more recently made other items such as Noah's Arks with 12 sets of animals, manger scenes, animal silhouettes, and other things. We sell them once in a while at craft fairs which is fun. It's all in fun. Not work really, where it's nose to the grindstone.
One other thing that sells good is tractor trailers with different attachments such as a flatbed, a logging attachment, a tanker attachment, and a box truck attachment. Sometimes I even give them away, it's just a lot of fun for us.

I love those wooden toys, Bill! Those will make children very happy.

Thank you Jane.
Y'all just purple moosage me if you want anything.
Or I can make just about anything you might want just let me know.

I think it's good to define what "hobby" is. Here's a really fascinating history of hobby:



It's been a few months since I watched it, but, here's a simple summary. A hobby used to be something fun someone did in their freetime. It might be silly, it was likely looked down upon. It was something you did because you enjoyed it. It comes from the term "riding your hobby horse." You didn't "have a hobby" you "rode a hobby." During the Victorian times, it was things like researching history, collecting seashells, becoming obsessed with learning musical skills, etc.

During the late 1800s, hobbies went from collecting things/knowledge, to expensive activities like yachting, traveling, taking art classes. This shows, of course, that hobbies were rather expensive and really only what the upper-middle and upper class could do... because they were the only ones with free time.

As women and poorer people had more free time, it became really important socially for people who had spare time to use that time "productively." It was very important for the hobby to keep them busy and out of trouble, and also for it to not become an obsession that would make them neglect all the things they needed to do. So, women would be sewing clothes for their whole family, cooking, learning a useful skill, etc. As work hours for working class were lowered to more like 8 hours a day, it became worrisome that the lower class men would use their free time in destructive way. So, they should have hobbies to keep them out of trouble and to keep them from being depressed due to boredom--something like church baseball teams, woodcarving, etc.

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It seems like, over the years, we have four main uses/definitions for hobbies:

Something fun to collect of learn: This is I think what hobbies generally were in the 1990s when I grew up. I hobby was something like reading books, knitting for fun, going hiking, collecting coins, etc. This might be the definition that Judith thinks of when she hears the word--it's something that degrades that skills and activities she does because they're as silly as an adult riding a hobby horse.

Something to keep you busy and out of trouble: This could be sports teams, learning a craft to make things for other people

Something that you can monetize and turn into a job/business: Learning a skill that you can then sell it. People often tell me I should sell my leather-bound books, needle felting, and fairies. But, making things to sell them can be rather soul draining.

Something that makes you look impressive/desirable to other people: These have changed depending on the era. They could be expensive hobbies like yachting, hiking in exotic locations, kayaking, etc. They could be useful skills like learning to paint, fine needlework, painting, car repair, handyman skills, etc

Something that's expensive and addictive: This one's not really shown in the video I shared, but I see it a lot. It's collecting expensive things like shoes, collectable toys, "blind bag surprises," etc.  Hot Wheels are a good example of this. There are men who will spend an hour+ every day driving from store to store to find rare hot wheels. It can be supremely addictive, a lot like gambleing, because every so often you *do* find that rare hot wheel and that rewards all the hours/gas/money you spent looking for it. The same happens with pokemon cards, collectable figurines from Funko or Popmart, legos, etc.

Here's a video about how addictive hobbies like collecting "blind box"/commercial collectables can be:

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Right now, the latter three definitions seem to be the most common. Hobbies aren't just silly/fun things you do because you enjoy them. Hobbies have to have a purpose, whether that is: looking cool, learning useful skills, creating something you can sell, or keeping you out of trouble. R Ranson's second video about Gen Z rather seemed to sum up the idea that a hobby must be useful, keep you from being depressed, look cool, or make you money.

This video goes into how so many people are pushed to monitize their hobby, and why that can be destructive and kind of destroy the enjoyment of the hobby:

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It seems to me that hobbies aren't "dead," they're just not done simply for fun but rather for some use (or because companies have made it addictive). I think that's sad, and I hope we can switch back to the earlier definition of hobby as something fun/silly/interesting/affordable to do.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Riona Abhainn wrote:Apparently I'm the person who gains a lot of enjoyment out of turning my hobbies into side hustles.  I mean I like being able to do something I like and make a bit of cash off it.  It doesn't usually take the fun out for me.  Rather it enhances my enjoyment.

I don't exactly think of my hobbies/sideline skills as a side hustle to earn money, but I keep an eye on ways to make them revenue neutral. This is a very frugal thing to do. Take for example my little sideline sharpening gig. If I can help people out and recover a portion of my overall expenses for consumables, it's pretty sweet  and casual -- nothing like the pressure of a hard-charging business venture.

I've found that I don't mind selling some of my hobbies every so often--and that does help fund the supplies to continue my hobby--but that I much rather enjoy making things as presents. I struggle with selling the things I make, because they take so much time to make that if I charged minimum wage for the hours I worked on something, it'd be like $70 for a small dragon or a fairy. Who can afford that? I don't want to charge anyone that! (Minimum wage in my state is $16.66!)

But, if I spend those hours and make something for someone, and it delights them, than I feel so good.

When I'm selling creation after creation, and in a big hurry to get them all done in time, it's stressful. I don't enjoy my hobby as much. If I sell just a few a year, then I can earn money to buy supplies, share my creations with others, and not worry about the fact that I charged them like a third of what I should have for my art.

My day job is homeschooling and teaching part time. I enjoy the research, the act of teaching, watching kids learn, planning lessons, learning skills to teach the kids, etc. They give me the motivation to learn and do things that I wouldn't have otherwise....but it's not my "hobby." For me, my hobbies are something I do for fun: felting, drawing, painting, learning historical skills, reading, hiking, gardening, helping out on permies, etc. Sometimes, those skills help me in my job--but that's not why I do them.

Nicole Alderman wrote:I've found that I don't mind selling some of my hobbies every so often--and that does help fund the supplies to continue my hobby--but that I much rather enjoy making things as presents. I struggle with selling the things I make, because they take so much time to make that if I charged minimum wage for the hours I worked on something, it'd be like $70 for a small dragon or a fairy. Who can afford that? I don't want to charge anyone that! (Minimum wage in my state is $16.66!)

But, if I spend those hours and make something for someone, and it delights them, than I feel so good.  

Yes! The business calculus takes the fun out of it for me as well. Rather I like to think that I am donating my time and skill to provide a useful community service, and asking a small donation to offset my out-of-pocket costs (gas, supplies).

Example: A commercial knife-sharpener will charge as much as $2 per finished inch of blade -- necessary for him to make a living. I charge $2-4 for the entire blade and get paid in smiles.

Douglas, that's where I was going in my next post, the idea that certain hobbies like gardening, while not producing  money, can ultimately give us items which are less expensive than buying them, hence the idea that if we're saving money by growing peppers from the seeds from storebought peppers, or if we're making something to give as a present and thus we don't have to buy said present for said family member we're saving money.  Sorry I'm so focused on acquisition, I guess that's just how I am.

Oh another hobby that will gain me nothing:
Reading trashy adult stories online,

Am I the only one who keeps misreading this as "are hobbits dead"?

I love this conversation.  

I never considered permaculture as a hobby before.  There are things I do for work, things I do for living like cooking and gardening, and then extras like knitting, sewing, etc.  But since yarn and cloth create something I can use, I didn't think of them much as hobbies.  When I got good enough to make my career in yarn, that was definitely not a hobby.

Painting is the first thing I think about as a hobby because it doesn't make anything useful.  And that's the beauty of it.  The reason it works for me is I have zero intention of monetizing this hobby.  There is nothing productive or useful about painting. It's purely pursuing skill for skills sake.

I've never had that before and I'm kind of on love with it.

r ranson wrote:

A powerful video looking at where we are today, productivity, and hobbies.

One line I especially liked was how hobbies are supposed to be part of our life where it's safe to be terrible at something, experiment, mess about, and just do it for ourselves.

It breaks my heart to think of the grind culture. I got caught up in it when I worked for younger people because they saw my talent as something that should be exploited. I tried to make their vision work and gradually became unable to paint anything. Once I realized that I don't have to monetize anything and stepped away from what every other person thought I "should" be doing, I found my love of painting again.

The biggest problem with a social media driven world is there is no lack of others telling us what we should be doing and how we're worthless if we don't follow them. How exhausting is that! I love that I can come to Permies and find gentle, hardworking souls who are making their own little corners of the world beautiful.

Why not to monetize hobbies

After listening for 2:55 minutes I realized that personally I prefer to listen to people who are enthusiastically building all manner of wonderful things. My 2c.

Personal experience- hobbies are alive and well and plenty of people have them they just don't broadcast it. Or, they are working and don't need or want one. Seen plenty of both.
More importantly, why can't people bring back ice cream socials? Important questions.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:After listening for 2:55 minutes I realized that personally I prefer to listen to people who are enthusiastically building all manner of wonderful things. My 2c.

She usually is enthusiastically building all manner of wonderful things.  She's one of my heros for all the beautiful projects and tutorials she produces.

The fact that she has devolved into this rant is unexpected for her.  It highlights the problem better than her words.

r ranson wrote:

Why not to monetize hobbies

Starting about 22 min, is the heart of the problem.  Very well said.

I watched a video that was posted about Bullying. The commentator talked about how one of the bullies surrounding all of us, is "Society". Capitalism is a big part of our society's subtly and sometime not so subtly, pushed values. We need to think in permaculture terms; who gains the most resources and grows the most from that value?

An example I've learned to recognize is in popular TV series where the "heroes" (or at least main characters) are wed to their jobs, working tons of overtime, always going the extra mile, and *never* putting their own needs first.  

Another way our society pushes Capitalism's agenda is the "work fast, work hard, don't stop to smell the roses" mentality. Hobbies such as painting are all about slowing down, thinking about interactions, balance, giving the paint time to dry!

I will admit that many of the things I consider "hobbies," do have uses. Sewing is the obvious. But it is a cross-over. I enjoy sewing projects which will get worn or used in some way. I recently made an upcycled jeans "bag" to replace my dying fanny pack. I could have braved the shops looking for something to buy to do the job, but shopping is absolutely not my hobby. I'm very happy with the results. It's practical, functional, and I enjoy using it.

r ranson wrote:The fact that she has devolved into this rant is unexpected for her.  It highlights the problem better than her words.

Fair enough.

To recreational morticians, the dead are hobbies.

One of my hobbies is making bad uncle jokes. This hobby is alive and well.

Another good video about monetizing hobbies:



This one goes a bit into how, if you do monetize your hobby, or something hobby adjacent, make sure to have other hobbies you enjoy and that you keep sacred.

In his example, he (probably a bit accidently) monetized his reenactment hobby by making videos during covid when he couldn't reenact. But, now that's become his fulltime job.

To maintain his sanity, he's keeping hobbies like gardening and some projects and gatherings entirely away from youtube and social media. Those are his off-line times, his times he's not working. He's shifted his channel a bit away from actual reenactment stuff to things like archeology news, and history deep dives.