Imagine how different the world was for people with super niche interests before the internet. Back then, this would have been seen as the weird (or at best eccentric) guy in your town who collects fire alarms and won't stop talking about them. Now he's presumably got a fulfilling social life via his unusual hobby, and an outlet to share his thoughts to a willing audience.
For all its many faults over the last decades, this is the pure internet at its best.
What's crazy is that a lot of niche hobby/lifestyle people found eachother anyway pre-internet. Shopping cart drag races, downhill shovel events, a lot of counter culture movements, early body modification, all manner of shit. People get into some seriously wierd/niche/one-off stuff and given a little time, they'll find someone else that's into the same thing. It's like electrons in a post big-bang universe, they sort of attract each other. The internet has made it way easier for people to find their tribes, but they used to find them anyway.
Very good point! I imagine meeting someone in person and finding out they have the same unusual hobby would have been quite the thrill. I'm old enough to distinctly remember a world before the ubiquitous internet, but never had a super niche hobby to have given me that sort of experience.
Yeah. It's funny, my cousin is a few years younger than me but has no memory of the world pre-net. I told him the story of how we used to have to do things and it blew his mind.
Ex. Cowboy Bebop. Me and a buddy heard a thing on Terry Gross about the soundtrack one day driving home from work. They played a few seconds of Tank! Man, we were hooked instantly. So we changed directions and went to, where? Where do you go? Blockbuster? FYE? Game store? Comicbook store! They'll have it! So we went to every comic shop in the area (we knew them all because we would get MtG cards every payday). A couple had a DVD or two. How many episodes were there? How many seasons? How long would our search take? It was a treasure hunt. Calling game stores, calling small video stores. Finding one DVD at a time but not in order. It was like that for everything. And honestly, I think it gave things a greater value.
I love being able to answer almost any question instantly. When I'm listening to an audiobook, if there's a word I'm not sure of, I can pause, get a definition, and go back to my book without even looking at my screen or touching my phone. But there's deff a sense of flippancy to everything now that wasn't there before. Bad or good, I don't know, it is what it is. But I do miss the hunt for new stuff.
Sure, but the internet increased this interconnectivity by orders of magnitude.
The LGBTQ community is one which massively grew in outreach and connections due to the internet. Without it, I have no doubt that LGBTQ rights and visibility worldwide would be nowhere nearly as advanced as they are now. Of course, it also gives the opposition the same megaphone and organizing capability.
This is what “specialty interest” magazines and newsletters used to address. Whatever the hobby or interest, there were likely a dozen magazines specifically targeted to that audience.
Then the internet happened. Also, media conglomeration.
Maybe people didn't frequently have weird hobbies before.
The way I see it internet widened enormously the diversity of knowledge we get to check. And that's these weird rabbit holes online that create the similarly weird new hobbyist.
That's a fair point but I suspect this has always been the case. I bet if we could go back to the prehistoric period we'd find someone saying, "Cronk found himself another dick-shaped leaf to add to his collection." I'd almost think with less available to amuse them, people would be finding joy in all sorts of weird hobbies or collections.
This is the case. Check out the old Re:Search zines/books. Each is about some wired niche thing and has a bunch of contributions from different people. Folx have always been into strange things, and folx have always found kindred spirits, the internet makes it easier to find, abd troll, them.
Sorry, habbit from writting emails recently to someone that is, enthusiastic, about inclusion.
No need to apologize, was just curious - figured folks is gender-neutral as is, never saw an alternate form of it before.
Sincerely, thanks! Didn't know this was a thing for anyone.
Yeah. It's a thing but I'm not sure how much it really helps. I'll do it because if it makes people feel better, it's easy, but I honestly think folks is fine. The person I do this for specificly is cis, has cis kids, has a cis husband, is a member of a community that is largely not only cis, but white and female. To me it comes across as preformitve. But it makes dealing with her, and a few others, easier. If there were a real movement to adopt folx, I'm in but like I say, it seems like our effort could be better spent elsewhere.
These people are documenting the history of an important part of our infrastructure. One video from a channel in this community documented a 1970s home security system as he was contracted to remove it. It’s super fascinating learning how these things function and watching them be tested. Such content can also help a person get over fear of alarms!
The video: https://youtu.be/mwAFN1aSFjY
I fear alarms because they hurt. It's not like Spiders where learning more helps. I've been hurt by alarms hundreds of times in my life. Learning more isn't going to help me fear them less.
How are you hurt by alarms? Noise, high voltage, the fear of the things they indicate, or something else? legitimately curious, never heard of this phobia before
Autism. Too loud. Hurts. I'm very slow to evacuate because I always need to take the time to put in my nose cancelling earbuds so I can evacuate safely. If the alarm were quieter, it wouldn't hurt as much
I haven't seen the video but my first impression (and likely other's) is it's similar to a tik-tok trend where people steal soap dispensers, break sinks, etc.
Having said that, it could just be a little click-baity and maybe he collects old or "retired" fire alarms, which would obviously be fine.
I know several fire alarm enthusiasts. Fire alarms are acquired after being retired, nobody would damage or steal from an active fire alarm system as that's a risk to everyone's safety. People who steal from active systems would be shunned. Most fire alarms enthusiasts get are bought off eBay or similar sites.
The net brings us together but it also brings the haters and drama. I knew I knew this dude from something.
Yeah that video essay is such a wild ride. I'm on the spectrum and I absolutely understand the emotional ties one can have to such esoteric hobbies, and how those emotions can twist relationships due to perceived slights and phantom insults.
Nobody hates Nerds like other Nerds.
I would but you'd probably say "it's not canon" or something like that /j (I'm equally start trek and star wars, I can hate and agree with everyone!)
I did not expect to watch that whole thing but I'm really glad I did. Even teared up there at the end. Thanks for sharing.
Interesting how that channel found a new recipe for something popular. That channel might get big.
But then everything changed when the fire alarm community attacked.
Only the avatar can master all the alarm types, but when the wold needed him the most, he vanished. Years later he returned, and I believe he can finally save the world.
Leak, earthquake, fire, air quality.
Long ago, the four alarms lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire alarm went off.
Train spotting used to be the niche hobby.
We've come a long way. I don't know which way, but here we are.
Actually, it was the train that has come the long way.
It might look like you're moving when you focus completely on the train, but you are in fact standing still while train spotting.
Yes and no. I don't feel as alone in liking my little hobbies. On the other hand paranoid schizophrenics can collaborate on flat earth or what ever they are doing these days.
I mean, did he rip those off from places where they were active? Cause that would be dangerous.
Doubt it. Alarms are usually acquired second-hand off eBay or given when they're retired from service. Stealing an active alarm is both dangerous and extremely stupid.
Yeah but that doesn't mean I think it's a "community" that I am "joining".
Certainly by some definition of the word you can call these things communities just because that's how language works. Using "community" in this way is so pervasive I laughingly recall a tech bro watch company calling the people that buy their watches a "community".
But from the meaning of the word before the rise of social media, social media platforms and the loosely structured groups underneath that you "form" by "joining" (AKA sometimes just looking at a video or web page or something) them definitely don't resemble nor replace a community.
EDIT:
TL;DR: Being subscribed to "Lemmy Shitpost" (or just not blocking it, as is my case) isn't exactly like joining the local chapter of the Loyal Order of Moose.
...I guess you aren't going to want any of these welcome cookies that we baked for you then. =(
That's a fair take I think.
Would you say smaller forums where people largely know each other are communities then? IRC? Discord?
Because I struggle to think what else could or has ever fit such a strict definition.
Would you say smaller forums where people largely know each other are communities then? IRC? Discord?
Probably not, but they're at least closer. Real communities provide you care, support, relief from loneliness, a sense of purpose, etc. etc. etc.
It's possible for some (lucky souls) to find tiny nuggets of these benefits in even the worst online "communities" (I think partially because we're hard wired as humans to need these things), but by and large it's does not exactly scratch the same itches that your grandma's sewing circle or bridge club used to.
Because I struggle to think what else could or has ever fit such a strict definition.
It's difficult to reason about because if you're anywhere close to my age group (old ass millenial) online "communities" appeared and replaced existing physical communities across the country (I'm speaking in US terms). We're now basically as lonely as we've ever been as a country, and I think it's at least partially related to us going inside and screen timing it up for a number of decades on these platforms where "the community" is a bunch of strangers angrily typing messages to you through the Internet.
I find it no small coincidence that loneliness in America skyrocketed even as people became more active on social media. It points at the exact lack of benefit you get out of these "communities" that you used to get out of the old type.
This seems like a rose-tinted glasses view of the past. Sure there were communities for rich white cishet men where they organized around mutual shared values of racism, misogyny, football and queerphobia but for the rest of us it was being shunned and gathering with the few other local shunned people in nasty dungeons.
Thankfully the internet came and solved all that. Now queer people have dating apps which work pretty flawlessly for us, and the space online is endless for us to gather and be ourselves with each other, freely, across all borders.
communities provide you care, support, relief from loneliness, a sense of purpose, etc. etc. etc.
but by and large it's does not exactly scratch the same itches that your grandma's sewing circle or bridge club used to.
I'm sorry you're struggling with loneliness, personally I'm definitely not and I can't say I know anyone who is.
Socializing online is great and the communities there are much more true and real than some IRL circle of Karens and their Christian bleach enema method and their TERF enclaves.
It's also a much more efficient method of meeting people you actually get on with as well, rather than the endless NPCs on Tinder and IRL who only want to consume alcohol, travel and go to the gym. It's crazy that I could be with someone who appreciates all the same things I do, my gf and I are def soulmates.
I find it no small coincidence that loneliness in America skyrocketed
Sounds like we're just measuring mental health awareness, plus the rise in boomers using the web and often exposing people to their alienating rhetoric.
You get the point, you said what I knew you were gonna say because I have a radically different experience.
I’m sorry you’re struggling with loneliness, personally I’m definitely not and I can’t say I know anyone who is.
It has nothing to do with me personally. I'm a bit of a hermit myself. I'd say my social needs started to not be met around 2022 (after approximately 2 years of near total isolation due to COVID) but now I'm completely back up to baseline again.
It has to do with the country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone.
The data also doesn't tell the story you're telling anecdotally here: https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2024-06-26/loneliness-most-prevalent-for-bisexual-transgender-adults-in-america-cdc-research-says
Yes, it's possible for people in marginalized communities to reach each other digitally using the Internet; it's also possible for them to encounter more hatred and bigotry online than they used to in real life (albeit with hopefully less dire consequences).
Sounds like we’re just measuring mental health awareness, plus the rise in boomers using the web and often exposing people to their alienating rhetoric.
I don't think I'm "just measuring" anything. If you want to plug your ears and pretend that I'm not talking about real problems, that's all fine and dandy. Go ahead about your day and enjoy your dating apps, but social media isn't all roses.
There is research indicating that, for one thing, these platforms cause real harm to girls in adolescence specifically: https://www.noemamag.com/social-media-messed-up-our-kids-now-it-is-making-us-ungovernable/
I'm a bit of a hermit myself.
That seems like the problem and what's creating the perception making you agree with this.
I took a brief glance at the summary page on Wikipedia for the self-help book:
religious groups (Knights of Columbus, B'nai Brith, etc.), labor unions, parent–teacher associations, Federation of Women's Clubs, League of Women Voters, military veterans' organizations, volunteers with Boy Scouts and the Red Cross, and fraternal organizations (Lions Clubs, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, United States Junior Chamber, Freemasonry, Rotary, Kiwanis, etc.
Honestly wouldn't miss these if I knew what any of them are. They sound like weird cults.
Everett Carll Ladd claimed that Putnam completely ignored existing field studies, most notably the landmark sociological Middletown studies,[8] which during the 1920s raised the same concerns he does today, except the technology being attacked as promoting isolation was radio instead of television and video games
Sounds like he was reasoning backwards.
Other critics questioned Putnam's major finding—that civic participation has been declining. Journalist Nicholas Lemann proposed that rather than declining, civic activity in the US had assumed different forms. While bowling leagues and many other organizations had declined, others like youth soccer leagues had grown.[10]
And was wrong.
In their 2017 book One Nation After Trump, Thomas E. Mann, Norm Ornstein and E. J. Dionne wrote that the decline of social and civic groups that Putnam documented was a factor in the election of Donald Trump as "many rallied to him out of a yearning for forms of community and solidarity that they sense have been lost."
So like I said they yearn for the ethnostate. Solidarity should be based on class through an explicitly Marxist or anarchist lens, not solidarity in how much they love bashing the fairies.
“People who feel on the margins, who don’t always feel included socially, for whatever reason, that those people are more likely to have higher levels of loneliness,”
So it isn't social media or erosion of civic institutions or any of that made up nonsense, it's just the fact that so many people are still bigoted as hell. That figures. I would suggest them the internet because unlike IRL they have block buttons, adblockers etc to cultivate their own better world.
it's also possible for them to encounter more hatred and bigotry online than they used to in real life (albeit with hopefully less dire consequences).
Just block the bigots? Change platforms? It's ez. This is why headphones always in when I'm outside, best block out the riff-raff wondering the streets on my daily walk. I love technology!
I don't think I'm "just measuring" anything. If you want to plug your ears and pretend that I'm not talking about real problems, that's all fine and dandy. Go ahead about your day and enjoy your dating apps, but social media isn't all roses.
You measure more COVID you get more COVID. Then you go "Oh no! It's on the rise!" and the cycle repeats.
Social media is shit because of corporate control. The early internet free from it was really good.
https://www.noemamag.com/social-media-messed-up-our-kids-now-it-is-making-us-ungovernable/
This just references the book and makes a bunch of extrapolations. Being ungovernable sounds really cool actually. Also something about the "kids born after 1995" and "coddling" and "colleges making kids distorted" set off my dogwhistle alarms off so I went to look this "magazine" up and would you know it: it's run by a think tank funded by a NY slumlord billionaire: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berggruen_Institute
Honestly I expected worse but I wouldn't really take them at their word for opining on how girls these days only know Xanax, twerking, be bisexual and hot chip before examining real material factors for why everyone is so stressed (hint: it's housing and everything being fucking expensive and an exploitative scam and has fuck all to do with technology).
Agree. Not every hobby and common trait is automatically a "community" nor should it be.
The tiny house community
The pickleball community
The eating ass community
etc.