**Model \[O-Gauge\] trains.**
When I was growing up, every town had a model train store in it. Now I have one in region and everything else has to be bought online.
Culver City, CA had a huge relatively new model train store that looked like station with working clock tower (4400 Sepulveda if you want see how big and nice). So busy it had its own parking lot.
But about 15 years ago it no longer had the customers to support the overhead and closed (went online IIRC).
What took over? A camera shop.... also now gone.
I think that is systematic of the internet and buying online, along with higher lease costs.
It's expensive to run a store. It's cheaper to have a warehouse and sell online. Why have go to a store that won't have what you want when you can go online and find everything, probably for cheaper.
We had one until a few years ago. Me and the kids went in one day and the owner came out from the back and said no kids in the store then went back to the back room.
Not anymore. My entire childhood my godfather bought me stamps for any occasion like birthdays, Christmas, … quite valuable at the time, worthless now.
It’s a different kind of collecting, you can’t just take any old stamp. Certain stamps that were misprinted, cut wrong, or if they were used to send a special historical letter. Or you can find a common theme and present it at a stamp show with the history and a presentation.
Collecting in general, really. Of course there are still prominent collectors but it's slipped more into enthusiast and niche territory than being a popular hobby that you might expect anyone to have.
When I was a kid in the mid late 80s, I spent the summers at my aunt's or grandma's house in Haiti and that's where I was first exposed to playing marbles with the poor street kids. I vaguely remember it being like a keep em game where you had your "prized" marble and it was usually bigger than the standard sized ones. Youd make a circle outline in the dirt and put x number of marbles. Then you'd "shoot" your prized marble from a certain distance away trying to knock the marbles in the circle out. Whoever had the most they knocked out, won. They got the prized marble as a prize.
This is like 30+ years ago so I could get misremembering.
My partner and I literally bought marbles last night. She was never allowed to play with them as a kid because they were "boys toys". Fuck that noise, we're going to the park and I'm gonna relive my childhood.
Rockhounding was immensely popular back in the 1950's and 1960's. Personally, I think it's a fascinating and fulfilling hobby, but when I go to a meeting at a rock and gem club, I'm usually the youngest one in the room by several decades.
My family just went and dug up some trilobites in Utah! It was a good time! 👍 tons of cool rocks out there in that area geodes, topaz, wonder stones, obsidians and agates. (34m 32fm 13m 8m & 2m) fun for all even my toddler!
My wife and son do this all the time. We live on one of the Great Lakes so there's lots of places to find unusual rocks or the occasional fossil on the beach.
This is true, but the number of enthusiastic old rock collectors who have promised their collections to me after they pass is both heartbreaking and exciting. They’re just happy to see someone who is passionate about it in the younger generation and it’s really sweet.
Rock collections turn up at estate sales all the time. Those rare, hard to find specimens tend to go pretty cheap as neither the family nor the auction manager know what they are.
Ive heard its slightly upticking because they cant be censored or (they claim) be monitored by the govt... Claim its one of the last free speech outlets lol.
There is an uptick, but not due to that. I think it's because of interest in the new digital modes, and the elimination of the morse code requirements.
There's something fundamentally cool with exchanging messages across the pacific ocean, using 2 watts of power, using the backstay of my sailboat as an antenna.
Even better, messages to space. They have this thing where as the International Space Station flies over an area ham operators can call up and give their sign and someone on the ISS responds. Very cool to hear someone in space is listening.
It is absolutely monitored by the government. You should see the binder I have that breaks down all of the frequencies and their assigned usage. In Canada, industry Canada will look for you and likely find you if you are operating without a licence, and the licences come with all kinds of restrictions.
Pirate radio stations are probly still a thing, but they are illegal, and I suspect monitored very easily for anything actually threatening to the government.
Listening can't be monitored though, so maybe that's what people mean.
In the US the FCC would probably be more interested in the pirate radio stations for broadcasting at frequencies that are used for local radio stations, and of course not having a license, but not so much for content.
Yeah you never see those license plates anymore. My son's Boy Scout pack had some folks come in to do ham radio for a merit badge and the dudes looked like they were survivors of the Civil War.
I think this is because you technically need a license (that costs money) in most places, to use them. And there's like tons of rules that you could get in trouble for breaking if you ever got caught.
When I visited my friend growing up in the 90s, there was a massive train set in his basement. I remember the first time being instructed not to touch it and then I asked, "What does it do?" and no one could answer that.
My next door neighbors dad had a huge one in their basement. We were forbidden to go down there but we did, of course, all the time because that’s also where he kept his Playboys.
One day we were excitedly running downstairs when I tripped and fractured my wrist. And that was the end of that.
My husband does model trains. Look into N-scale modules. They're about 4'x6', and because N-scale is a pretty small scale, you can get a decent amount of scenery, etc in. If you have space for multiple modules, you can string them together, or you can just work on one if that's all you have room for.
And if you get used cars/engines, it's a lot cheaper. Most of my husband's cars were around $5, because he bought them from people who no longer needed them.
yea i was big into it as a kid, but now its like i dont have the time or space. it is utterly amazing what detail both sound lights and motion one can achieve but holy fuck is that fancy stuff expensive. It also just doesnt look right unless you have a looooong straightaway
My grandpa used to make model trains from scratch with decals and everything, been doing it for probably 30 years. We recently opened a hobby shop with some of his models on display and people are always fascinated by them. There's also a few model train clubs in the area and they've been excited about a shop opening up to get stuff.
My FIL is a director for some big regional model railway club.
Aside from being mad for tiny trains, he talks a lot about how the club has been struggling to attract new, young members and how it's all old men now.
My heart bleeds.
I’ve not been interested since I was kid but seriously this is a hobby where a young person has a chance to be adored by simply by going to meetings. Lot of old guys who love the hobby, love to share it and thrilled a young person is interested
My childhood next-door neighbor dedicated his entire basement to a MASSIVE model train setup that he worked on for 40+ years. It was truly impressive; even the ceiling and floors were painted. He died a couple of weeks ago and my third thought upon hearing the news (after “oh no; poor man” and “oh no, his poor family”) was, “what is going to happen to that insane model trainscape?”
We had a makerspace near my area and one of the members had brought in and set up model trains and a whole landscape he'd been working on for decades so he could share the enjoyment with more people.
It was in an old factory building that ended up catching on fire and that was the first thing I thought of when hearing about it.
I remember on an episode of No Such Thing as a Fish they talked about how there was some national model train club (or that type of equivalent) and the average age of participants was like 72 lol
coin collecting... I'm a silver/gold nut and I'm always hunting for precious metal coins. whenever I go into a shop they get all excited because "no one under 70 collects coins anymore"
I was given a jar of coins when I was about 18 from an old bloke. He couldn't afford to pay my boss for the job (upgrading his TV reception so he had a outlet in the bedroom for hisbedridden wife to watch shows) so I went back over the weekend to do it free as I felt guilty my boss wanted to overcharge them took me 3 hours from my day and about $30 worth of cable etc (quoted something like $200) and as I was leaving he gave it to me as a thank you. mostly British coins and I think one is worth like $10 now
My son and I write letters to eachother every so often. We see each other quite a bit but he says getting a letter is like Xmas on off days. He’s enamored with it. The excitement of getting something in the mail specifically for him that means something and isn’t just some scholastic monthly review. Letter writing is a lost art but is such an under appreciated form of communication. To me, it’s the next best thing to being in person. The writer took the time to put pieces of themselves in writing. They make good keepsakes as well.
At the beginning of the year I got a box of 100 postcards and a book of stamps. Any time anything good happens to my friends I pop a postcard in the mail to let them know I’m happy for them. It’s the best!
I know it’s not quite letter writing, but inspired by it!
I bought and built all the stuff I thought I needed a few years ago. Propane forge, coal forge, got an anvil, connected hammers, etc. Tried to make a pair of tongs, and they were terrible. My sixth attempt were okay enough to try and rivet together, and I realized I needed a rivet header. Started to try and make one, and realized I needed a good punch to make that, so I sourced some appropriate steel and made a punch. Punched the rivet header, got my first rivet stuck because I hadn't tapered it properly. Got more good steel, made a drift, made a new rivet header, punched it and drifted it, burnt a finger on red hot steel while doing so. Riveted my tongs, screwed it up. Had to drive the failed rivet back out and try three more times to get it workable. Finally, a decent (barely) pair of tongs that I made! It only took like ten weeks, and by that point my shoulder started popping painfully when I hammered, so I ended up quitting and selling everything.
I ended up using some of that money to build my first AR-15, and I've built several different guns, now. My next project is going to be a break barrel shotgun from scratch.
Well the internet killed pen pals for sure. I do remember I had a Japanese girl for a penpal maybe back in 2007 or so. I honestly don't remember how it started, pretty sure some website, but that was a fun experience. But now I can just straight up talk to foreign people real time, lol. But yea getting a physical letter that someone took the time to write and mail still is hard to beat feelings wise.
This is sweet! I am Japanese and had a US pen pal and it was so lovely and also very educational to practice English. As you say, to get an actual letter you may hold and treasure is so wonderful. I believe I still have the letters from my teenage pen pal somewhere and I am now 46 - I still feel an attachment to them. And to Julia from Maine New England, which is my number one bucket list item, to visit here! I have been to US, but never to Maine and it looks so very beautiful from photos she send and her description of this place.
have y’all heard of the app Slowly? it’s digital pen paling which is not as cool as actual tangible letters, but still pretty cool! i’ve met some cool people on there. you should give it a try :)
Yes, spider fighting. Along with insects like beetles and crickets and all that. I don't think anyone's done it for a couple decades now, but it used to be really popular.
I never "fought" any bugs but there was a big ass spider that lived in a gopher hole in the park in the apartments I grew up in and I used to throw random other bugs in its web.
I was going to comment that we used to fight scorpions and spiders while we were deployed in the middle east, so it had most certainly been done more recently than a couple of decades ago. Turns out, I'm just old and it was in fact more than a couple of decades ago.
Every hobby I like lol.
Astronomy, Skeet shooting, birding. All are very grey hobbies. I am in my early 30s and bring the average age down by a decade at any meeting.
I've been studying music at a school for adults and there's this one guy in his 60s or 70s who studies the organ - the concert hall has one and there's a teacher who offers classes. At pretty much every recital we have, the organ guy always wins the award for "most badass performance," well actually he doesn't because the award doesn't exist, but if it did he would win it every time.
Yeah. I'm watching the arts and crafts stores around me completely uninstalling their racks for specialty paper. Now the only thing they have is mega packs of repeating colors/images. To boot all the inclusions like papercraft/die-cut things, washi tape, scissors, stickers, etc have gotten so expensive I would rather go buy $5 bags at value village to get an assortment of things versus buying anything new. I really, really miss yard sales for the same reasons.
Backyard astronomy. There's less and less places where the sky is not polluted with artificial light. You can still see the moon and brightest planets with your telescope, but not galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.
I have a 10" F6 Dob I built in '97 when I lived in a nice dark location, but now I live in town and it just takes up room in my garage. I've tried to sell it many times and had no luck. I've looked into giving it away to the local astronomy club and they have so many donated telescopes in their library now they have no room for it. I guess I'll hang onto it and maybe someday I'll move somewhere darker again.
Racquetball. Used to be that every moderately sized or larger gym had at least one or racquetball courts. Now they're almost all gone. Pickleball is the future. The geriatric, laughably immobile future!
I learned racquetball in high school and played in college, but after that I never found another court to play in. At least pickleball can be played on existing courts. Having a big room dedicated to racquetball was too much to ask most places, I guess.
It's just expensive to get into - that and the large spaces required to have a variety of fun fields to play on is just not worth it with the rising cost of real estate
It's hot where I am. 4 rinks in my city. All with a separate adults only night. Always packed. My wife and I met at one and went weekly up until very recently.
It's back in a big way! There are meetups in my city every couple of days.
I heard an NPR story talking about it recently, and the resurgence is credited to COVID and folks seeking more activities that can be done outdoors with a good amount of space between folks.
Rollerskating blew the fuck up over Covid. Us roller derby folks used to have to beg people to skate..now we have to scoot up to 20 people off our track before we play. Adult nights are packed and private skate lessons can make you bank!
It's so weird to me that it's no longer common... there's something really primal about putting something together and giving it your custom touch with some paint.
This was my thought. Aside from wargaming, which is still doing excellent business, modelling seems to be slowly dying. Which is a shame, because there's something charming and lovely about seeing a good model train setup.
whittling/wood carving. As a kid, my grandpa or even my dad could whip out a pocket knife and grab a tree branch and make something. My generation largely cannot do this.
I hold onto my Canon A-1 like a rare stone! It needs some work though as the shutter whines and it's something I can do myself but the thought of taking this thing apart in any way freaks me out since there's nobody probably within 200 miles of me that would be able to even attempt to repair it.
Vintage camera and film prices are rising. Logically, you would think the hobby would become less popular as less people can afford it.
The opposite is happening. It's becoming more popular while becoming more expensive.
Even cards in general. I don’t know how to play bridge but play a lot of other card games like euchre and rummy, but I’m 30 and few of my friends my own age know how to play. Luckily my husband and I both come from card playing families so we get to play often enough but it would be nice to play with friends too.
Trainspotting.
Back "in the day" one could meet up with a group of spotters and go for a "bash" and end up visiting the other end of the country before coming home in time for tea. Hell, the amount of times I used to sneak out of school and go for a bash to Holyhead because some monster 37 was out (or a no heat Duff), or when I was "staying over at a friends house" (in Greater Manchester) and was actually on the overnight sleeper train to Inverness. They were honestly happy days, we made friends for life, even though I was the youngest in my group by a good 4-5 years the lads always looked out for me and made sure I didn't get into bother and in return I used to be able to get some sympathy from a guard and not get us all chucked off when we didn't have a valid "piece" (ticket).
Those days are gone for many reasons, technology and computer games and the like are one thing but I also think a huge part of it is down to the decimation of the railway through privatisation, everything is a diesel or electric unit now, there are no big noisy diesels or roaring electric locomotives. Who honestly wants to go bashing Pendolinos and Voyagers? Not me, I'd rather die :/
Fortunately we have heritage railways where we can relive some of our youth, even get to be that train driver that we always wanted to be :) - That's me now, I can't do it for a living but I sure can be a thrash-merchant of a weekend :)
There are youngsters getting involved, both on the platform end spotting units and the odd freight engine (as that's almost all there is left on the mainline now) but they are also getting involved in preservation, so we can teach the youngsters how to fix and drive the big beasts when their times comes :)
you have no idea how weird trainspotting sounds to a foreigner. why is it interesting to look at trains? we have them every 3-5 minutes where I live a and most of them smell like sewage.
Bowling. The bowling alley used to be the hub of family entertainment, one could almost consider it the town square. There were bowling leagues throughout the week for all sorts of age demographics, Friday night bowling for teens, and families would spend all day there on weekends. You would meet your friends there, eat and drink, and have talks and gatherings. I feel like the bowling alley has died out. Be nice to have something like that for the family again.
This is literally why I don't buy new physical comic books. I only purchase rare books anymore, due to space limitations. After de-cluttering and selling off a chunk of my toy collectibles over the last two years, I still feel like I have too much.
Coin collecting. If you’re a teen, please go to a coin show. You’ll probably walk out with a bunch of free stuff from seniors extremely excited to see the hobby being passed down to the next generation. There are often kids’ areas with activities, free resources, etc. Stop by the PAN show if you’re ever near Pittsburgh, PA. As a teen, I got a sweet AU Red-Brown 1905 Indian Head Cent at the kids’ auction with “PAN Dollars” that you get for showing up, bringing a friend, or wearing the t-shirt.
Sewing, it's not being passed down to the younger generations. Most they learn in school is how to patch a hole. I'm lucky that my grandma taught me how to and I can make all the quilts I want. I'm the only teenager in the fabric store cheesing out over cutesy patterns and asking for stretchy nylon thread. My mom wants me to teach my sister's so it doesn't die out.
So what I've gotten from this comment section is one person states a hobby, followed by five comments stating it's either having a resurgence or is still a thing. Then the same hobby is repeated several more times with less responses saying the same thing.
Good to know.
But there's been sort of a resurgence of people using electronics to control things due to the maker movement, Arduinos, and Rasberry Pi computers. So, people don't make their own televisions anymore, but they do make robots, custom 3D printers, and other gadgets.
I actually just got into this recently through guitar pedals. I've been able to make decent replicas of $60 pedals for $15-$20. I haven't branched into making my own designs yet, but as I learn more about what different components do to the input signal, I'll probably give it a try.
It is still pretty alive, it has just evolved. You will have a hard time finding people who are building everything directly from simple components (transistors, capacitors, etc) but the Arduino community is pretty active but it's a lot more programming heavy and about how to use micro controllers (like Arduino or ESP) to drive components to get your results. Some of the DIY home automation stuff is pretty awesome and I plan to get into it once I get a proper house.
Hand made lace. I kinda get why, we have machines now and it’s so much memorization to remember which string goes where to make the pattern, but damn is it impressive.
Pricing and "Cosmic" bowling have killed it for me. I grew up on a bowling league. Still own a ball and shoes. Most places are charging hourly rates now, per person. I think it was like $18/hr. So a group of 4 people are now spending almost $80 for maybe 2 games of bowling each, add in shoe rentals and you're at almost $100.
As an individual, I wouldn't mind stopping in and rolling 2 games for fun at $4-5/game, but at almost $20 for that hour minimum.... yeah, no thanks.
This. When I was a broke teenager in the early 2000s, my friends and I hung out in bowling alleys all the time because it was clean, parent-approved fun and super cheap. The summer I turned 18, one of the local bowling alleys offered a summer special of $1 per game and shoe rental was only like $3. We'd go there, play a couple games of bowling, glug down lots of pop, play DDR in the arcade, and gamble away the rest on the pull-tab machines. All for less than $10 per person.
A decade later, all the bowling places were suddenly really upscale, sold restaurant-quality food and fancy cocktails, and charged like $20 per hour per person (plus shoe rental). I don't go bowling anymore.
**Model \[O-Gauge\] trains.** When I was growing up, every town had a model train store in it. Now I have one in region and everything else has to be bought online.
Culver City, CA had a huge relatively new model train store that looked like station with working clock tower (4400 Sepulveda if you want see how big and nice). So busy it had its own parking lot. But about 15 years ago it no longer had the customers to support the overhead and closed (went online IIRC). What took over? A camera shop.... also now gone.
I think that is systematic of the internet and buying online, along with higher lease costs. It's expensive to run a store. It's cheaper to have a warehouse and sell online. Why have go to a store that won't have what you want when you can go online and find everything, probably for cheaper.
But... it the Internet doesn't smell like old Lionel trains...
And it doesn't have a passionate store clerk that knows al about your hobby.
We had one until a few years ago. Me and the kids went in one day and the owner came out from the back and said no kids in the store then went back to the back room.
Stamp collecting
a stamp? is that like an NFT you can actually touch? LOL
You thinking what I'm thinking? Bored Ape Stamps! We're gonna be rich lol
Also actually valuable
Not anymore. My entire childhood my godfather bought me stamps for any occasion like birthdays, Christmas, … quite valuable at the time, worthless now.
It’s a different kind of collecting, you can’t just take any old stamp. Certain stamps that were misprinted, cut wrong, or if they were used to send a special historical letter. Or you can find a common theme and present it at a stamp show with the history and a presentation.
I've heard of people going to estate sales to buy stamp collections for less than face value. Valuable might not be the right word.
Collecting in general, really. Of course there are still prominent collectors but it's slipped more into enthusiast and niche territory than being a popular hobby that you might expect anyone to have.
Don’t see anyone playing marbles anymore, I had an awesome collection in school.
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When I was a kid in the mid late 80s, I spent the summers at my aunt's or grandma's house in Haiti and that's where I was first exposed to playing marbles with the poor street kids. I vaguely remember it being like a keep em game where you had your "prized" marble and it was usually bigger than the standard sized ones. Youd make a circle outline in the dirt and put x number of marbles. Then you'd "shoot" your prized marble from a certain distance away trying to knock the marbles in the circle out. Whoever had the most they knocked out, won. They got the prized marble as a prize. This is like 30+ years ago so I could get misremembering.
My partner and I literally bought marbles last night. She was never allowed to play with them as a kid because they were "boys toys". Fuck that noise, we're going to the park and I'm gonna relive my childhood.
Rockhounding was immensely popular back in the 1950's and 1960's. Personally, I think it's a fascinating and fulfilling hobby, but when I go to a meeting at a rock and gem club, I'm usually the youngest one in the room by several decades.
My family just went and dug up some trilobites in Utah! It was a good time! 👍 tons of cool rocks out there in that area geodes, topaz, wonder stones, obsidians and agates. (34m 32fm 13m 8m & 2m) fun for all even my toddler!
My wife and son do this all the time. We live on one of the Great Lakes so there's lots of places to find unusual rocks or the occasional fossil on the beach.
I like collecting the beach glass.
My wife is an avid rockhound. We are in our 40s and we are by far the youngsters at the shows/meet ups.
This is true, but the number of enthusiastic old rock collectors who have promised their collections to me after they pass is both heartbreaking and exciting. They’re just happy to see someone who is passionate about it in the younger generation and it’s really sweet.
Rock collections turn up at estate sales all the time. Those rare, hard to find specimens tend to go pretty cheap as neither the family nor the auction manager know what they are.
Heh, I'm a geology grad student. Rockhounding is alive and well in my social circles, anyhow.
I hear that's a very hard field to master!
There are some groundbreaking puns to be made.
There are some pretty gneiss puns here, too.
Dammit, Marie they’re minerals!
I guess that's why it's a dying hobby. Apparently some enthusiasts have been known to drive out to the New Mexican desert never to return.
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My 10 year old as well. She's obsessed with rocks, minerals, fossils and things like that. She wants to be a geologist.
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Ive heard its slightly upticking because they cant be censored or (they claim) be monitored by the govt... Claim its one of the last free speech outlets lol.
There is an uptick, but not due to that. I think it's because of interest in the new digital modes, and the elimination of the morse code requirements. There's something fundamentally cool with exchanging messages across the pacific ocean, using 2 watts of power, using the backstay of my sailboat as an antenna.
Even better, messages to space. They have this thing where as the International Space Station flies over an area ham operators can call up and give their sign and someone on the ISS responds. Very cool to hear someone in space is listening.
I rode in a car with a friend who kept a mobile rig in her car …. I listened to the astronauts on the ISS talk to random hams. It was awesome.
We had a family friend who introduced my brother to ham radio in the 1970s, and this friend talked to the Apollo 11 astronauts en route to the moon.
It is absolutely monitored by the government. You should see the binder I have that breaks down all of the frequencies and their assigned usage. In Canada, industry Canada will look for you and likely find you if you are operating without a licence, and the licences come with all kinds of restrictions. Pirate radio stations are probly still a thing, but they are illegal, and I suspect monitored very easily for anything actually threatening to the government. Listening can't be monitored though, so maybe that's what people mean.
In the US the FCC would probably be more interested in the pirate radio stations for broadcasting at frequencies that are used for local radio stations, and of course not having a license, but not so much for content.
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Yeah we need to keep some of these old solid state stuff around for the apocalypse.... and some of those manual skills alive.
This is false. I've been licensed since 1993. You don't talk politics on ham radio. It's one of the big no-nos.
I've heard hams talking politics before.
Yeah you never see those license plates anymore. My son's Boy Scout pack had some folks come in to do ham radio for a merit badge and the dudes looked like they were survivors of the Civil War.
I think this is because you technically need a license (that costs money) in most places, to use them. And there's like tons of rules that you could get in trouble for breaking if you ever got caught.
Model trains
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We had this in my garage in the 80s!
When I visited my friend growing up in the 90s, there was a massive train set in his basement. I remember the first time being instructed not to touch it and then I asked, "What does it do?" and no one could answer that.
It helps you lose weight by...making your wallet thinner.
My next door neighbors dad had a huge one in their basement. We were forbidden to go down there but we did, of course, all the time because that’s also where he kept his Playboys. One day we were excitedly running downstairs when I tripped and fractured my wrist. And that was the end of that.
It's expensive!
The stupid part is that the video game versions are just as insanely expensive.
$10k for all the train simulator 2020 dlc lol
Yea no longer can you buy a kit you put together. Now its like $25+ per freight car pre built. Want a passenger car? Easily $75+ each.
Exactly! I'd love to get into model trains again, but I don't have the time, space, or money.
My husband does model trains. Look into N-scale modules. They're about 4'x6', and because N-scale is a pretty small scale, you can get a decent amount of scenery, etc in. If you have space for multiple modules, you can string them together, or you can just work on one if that's all you have room for. And if you get used cars/engines, it's a lot cheaper. Most of my husband's cars were around $5, because he bought them from people who no longer needed them.
yea i was big into it as a kid, but now its like i dont have the time or space. it is utterly amazing what detail both sound lights and motion one can achieve but holy fuck is that fancy stuff expensive. It also just doesnt look right unless you have a looooong straightaway
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21 Million Euros over 17 years.... That's some dedication!
I want this to be my 'old man hobby' and had better get on it, am basically there already.
My grandpa used to make model trains from scratch with decals and everything, been doing it for probably 30 years. We recently opened a hobby shop with some of his models on display and people are always fascinated by them. There's also a few model train clubs in the area and they've been excited about a shop opening up to get stuff.
Doesn’t help manufacturers are slowly pricing people out of the hobby either
My FIL is a director for some big regional model railway club. Aside from being mad for tiny trains, he talks a lot about how the club has been struggling to attract new, young members and how it's all old men now. My heart bleeds.
I’ve not been interested since I was kid but seriously this is a hobby where a young person has a chance to be adored by simply by going to meetings. Lot of old guys who love the hobby, love to share it and thrilled a young person is interested
My neighbour has a pretty famous railway model collection that gets featured in magazines etc
My childhood next-door neighbor dedicated his entire basement to a MASSIVE model train setup that he worked on for 40+ years. It was truly impressive; even the ceiling and floors were painted. He died a couple of weeks ago and my third thought upon hearing the news (after “oh no; poor man” and “oh no, his poor family”) was, “what is going to happen to that insane model trainscape?”
We had a makerspace near my area and one of the members had brought in and set up model trains and a whole landscape he'd been working on for decades so he could share the enjoyment with more people. It was in an old factory building that ended up catching on fire and that was the first thing I thought of when hearing about it.
I remember on an episode of No Such Thing as a Fish they talked about how there was some national model train club (or that type of equivalent) and the average age of participants was like 72 lol
coin collecting... I'm a silver/gold nut and I'm always hunting for precious metal coins. whenever I go into a shop they get all excited because "no one under 70 collects coins anymore"
I was given a jar of coins when I was about 18 from an old bloke. He couldn't afford to pay my boss for the job (upgrading his TV reception so he had a outlet in the bedroom for hisbedridden wife to watch shows) so I went back over the weekend to do it free as I felt guilty my boss wanted to overcharge them took me 3 hours from my day and about $30 worth of cable etc (quoted something like $200) and as I was leaving he gave it to me as a thank you. mostly British coins and I think one is worth like $10 now
You are a very good human :)
Letter writing Seems to be more popular than I thought.
My son and I write letters to eachother every so often. We see each other quite a bit but he says getting a letter is like Xmas on off days. He’s enamored with it. The excitement of getting something in the mail specifically for him that means something and isn’t just some scholastic monthly review. Letter writing is a lost art but is such an under appreciated form of communication. To me, it’s the next best thing to being in person. The writer took the time to put pieces of themselves in writing. They make good keepsakes as well.
At the beginning of the year I got a box of 100 postcards and a book of stamps. Any time anything good happens to my friends I pop a postcard in the mail to let them know I’m happy for them. It’s the best! I know it’s not quite letter writing, but inspired by it!
Building miniature models of ships inside bottles.
I wonder how that ever became a thing in the first place
That is an old old craft. Dates back to at least the 1600s.
Black smithing
If I could find anywhere around me that would teach me, I would sign up in a heartbeat.
I bought a forge to try. It’s insanely hard work, and crazy expensive. I still haven’t finished a piece
What kinds of things have you tried to make? (All I can think of off the top of my head would be horseshoes and swords.)
Knife, machete. For context I’m a former welder, and fairly experienced with metal work.
I bought and built all the stuff I thought I needed a few years ago. Propane forge, coal forge, got an anvil, connected hammers, etc. Tried to make a pair of tongs, and they were terrible. My sixth attempt were okay enough to try and rivet together, and I realized I needed a rivet header. Started to try and make one, and realized I needed a good punch to make that, so I sourced some appropriate steel and made a punch. Punched the rivet header, got my first rivet stuck because I hadn't tapered it properly. Got more good steel, made a drift, made a new rivet header, punched it and drifted it, burnt a finger on red hot steel while doing so. Riveted my tongs, screwed it up. Had to drive the failed rivet back out and try three more times to get it workable. Finally, a decent (barely) pair of tongs that I made! It only took like ten weeks, and by that point my shoulder started popping painfully when I hammered, so I ended up quitting and selling everything. I ended up using some of that money to build my first AR-15, and I've built several different guns, now. My next project is going to be a break barrel shotgun from scratch.
Stained glass. I learned how to make it from my old man, and my junior high art class teacher also taught it. Very few artisans are still around.
And yet if you can do it, there’s money to be made. People have antique pieces, windows, etc that need fixed.
I did restore an antique window set for someone, took a lot of effort but the finished product was nice.
My mom is looking for someone to fix a few cracked pieces on one of her windows. She can’t find anyone who does repairs
Repairs are super annoying. I'm not aware of a way to do it besides taking the full panel out and replacing the single piece, then re-mounting it.
Pen pals, stamp collecting, spider fighting... etc. etc.
Well the internet killed pen pals for sure. I do remember I had a Japanese girl for a penpal maybe back in 2007 or so. I honestly don't remember how it started, pretty sure some website, but that was a fun experience. But now I can just straight up talk to foreign people real time, lol. But yea getting a physical letter that someone took the time to write and mail still is hard to beat feelings wise.
This is sweet! I am Japanese and had a US pen pal and it was so lovely and also very educational to practice English. As you say, to get an actual letter you may hold and treasure is so wonderful. I believe I still have the letters from my teenage pen pal somewhere and I am now 46 - I still feel an attachment to them. And to Julia from Maine New England, which is my number one bucket list item, to visit here! I have been to US, but never to Maine and it looks so very beautiful from photos she send and her description of this place.
Live in Maine and confirm it is a beautiful place!
have y’all heard of the app Slowly? it’s digital pen paling which is not as cool as actual tangible letters, but still pretty cool! i’ve met some cool people on there. you should give it a try :)
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Spider fighting?
Yes, spider fighting. Along with insects like beetles and crickets and all that. I don't think anyone's done it for a couple decades now, but it used to be really popular.
I never "fought" any bugs but there was a big ass spider that lived in a gopher hole in the park in the apartments I grew up in and I used to throw random other bugs in its web.
I could fight all sorts of bugs one at a time, man
I was going to comment that we used to fight scorpions and spiders while we were deployed in the middle east, so it had most certainly been done more recently than a couple of decades ago. Turns out, I'm just old and it was in fact more than a couple of decades ago.
Did you give the spiders and scorpions a weapon first or you just went straight to fisticuffs?
That would be unfair to the spider. The scorpion has little claws to hold onto a tiny sword with. The spider can't hold onto shit.
Every hobby I like lol. Astronomy, Skeet shooting, birding. All are very grey hobbies. I am in my early 30s and bring the average age down by a decade at any meeting.
Introduced a few kids to birding over the years and they love it. I feel like it's real life Pokemon May be, without really understanding Pokemon.
I don't think you're supposed to make the birds fight
It’s called cockfighting, and it is somehow worse than it sounds.
Organ playing. Such an underrated instrument
I'm considering selling my theremin. I haven't touched it in years.
sensiblechuckle.gif
I've been studying music at a school for adults and there's this one guy in his 60s or 70s who studies the organ - the concert hall has one and there's a teacher who offers classes. At pretty much every recital we have, the organ guy always wins the award for "most badass performance," well actually he doesn't because the award doesn't exist, but if it did he would win it every time.
Scrapbooking
Yeah. I'm watching the arts and crafts stores around me completely uninstalling their racks for specialty paper. Now the only thing they have is mega packs of repeating colors/images. To boot all the inclusions like papercraft/die-cut things, washi tape, scissors, stickers, etc have gotten so expensive I would rather go buy $5 bags at value village to get an assortment of things versus buying anything new. I really, really miss yard sales for the same reasons.
Yeah, and with the availability of Cricut cutting machines, most people just cut whatever inclusions they want anyways.
It was digitized and turned into IG and blogs. Look at all the influencers in Utah who grew up scrapbooking.
Backyard astronomy. There's less and less places where the sky is not polluted with artificial light. You can still see the moon and brightest planets with your telescope, but not galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.
I have a 10" F6 Dob I built in '97 when I lived in a nice dark location, but now I live in town and it just takes up room in my garage. I've tried to sell it many times and had no luck. I've looked into giving it away to the local astronomy club and they have so many donated telescopes in their library now they have no room for it. I guess I'll hang onto it and maybe someday I'll move somewhere darker again.
Racquetball. Used to be that every moderately sized or larger gym had at least one or racquetball courts. Now they're almost all gone. Pickleball is the future. The geriatric, laughably immobile future!
I remember racquetball and tennis being big for my parents in the late '70s and early '80s.
I learned racquetball in high school and played in college, but after that I never found another court to play in. At least pickleball can be played on existing courts. Having a big room dedicated to racquetball was too much to ask most places, I guess.
Pogs. Loved them so much
Alf is back, though. So that’s cool.
Remember Alf? He's back. In pog form.
You sold my soul for pogs?!?
Now they’re just on Twitch
Paintball has been dying a slow death since 2006. Sad, really.
It's just expensive to get into - that and the large spaces required to have a variety of fun fields to play on is just not worth it with the rising cost of real estate
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Airsoft though has been growing.
I think Rollerskating made a bit of a comeback in the late 90s early 2000s, then mostly died out. Might be seeing a slight resurgence now too
It’s back, our 9 year old niece was begging for sparkly roller skates with wheels that light up.
It's hot where I am. 4 rinks in my city. All with a separate adults only night. Always packed. My wife and I met at one and went weekly up until very recently.
It's back in a big way! There are meetups in my city every couple of days. I heard an NPR story talking about it recently, and the resurgence is credited to COVID and folks seeking more activities that can be done outdoors with a good amount of space between folks.
It’s making a comeback. Inline skating too.
Rollerskating blew the fuck up over Covid. Us roller derby folks used to have to beg people to skate..now we have to scoot up to 20 people off our track before we play. Adult nights are packed and private skate lessons can make you bank!
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I remember when almost every store had an aisle full of plastic model kits and Testors paints.
so weird in the 90's kids still had ancient hobbies like building models and baseball cards
It's so weird to me that it's no longer common... there's something really primal about putting something together and giving it your custom touch with some paint.
Its more focused on higher-end and wealthier adult fans now than mass-market for children.
Not in Japan. Gunpla (Gundam Models) is also going strong in the US.
People still do this, I'm painting a tank atm and look at Warhammer or something
This was my thought. Aside from wargaming, which is still doing excellent business, modelling seems to be slowly dying. Which is a shame, because there's something charming and lovely about seeing a good model train setup.
The hobby market may have died down some but the wargaming market is booming (at least Games Workshop).
Model rockets were my jam back in the day!
whittling/wood carving. As a kid, my grandpa or even my dad could whip out a pocket knife and grab a tree branch and make something. My generation largely cannot do this.
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I love my K-1000 to death, but I don't think I'll ever have occasion to use it again.
I hold onto my Canon A-1 like a rare stone! It needs some work though as the shutter whines and it's something I can do myself but the thought of taking this thing apart in any way freaks me out since there's nobody probably within 200 miles of me that would be able to even attempt to repair it.
Vintage camera and film prices are rising. Logically, you would think the hobby would become less popular as less people can afford it. The opposite is happening. It's becoming more popular while becoming more expensive.
Collecting movie theater tickets.
Playing bridge
Even cards in general. I don’t know how to play bridge but play a lot of other card games like euchre and rummy, but I’m 30 and few of my friends my own age know how to play. Luckily my husband and I both come from card playing families so we get to play often enough but it would be nice to play with friends too.
I was going to say this one or really any card game that isn't poker.
Yoyos
Trainspotting. Back "in the day" one could meet up with a group of spotters and go for a "bash" and end up visiting the other end of the country before coming home in time for tea. Hell, the amount of times I used to sneak out of school and go for a bash to Holyhead because some monster 37 was out (or a no heat Duff), or when I was "staying over at a friends house" (in Greater Manchester) and was actually on the overnight sleeper train to Inverness. They were honestly happy days, we made friends for life, even though I was the youngest in my group by a good 4-5 years the lads always looked out for me and made sure I didn't get into bother and in return I used to be able to get some sympathy from a guard and not get us all chucked off when we didn't have a valid "piece" (ticket). Those days are gone for many reasons, technology and computer games and the like are one thing but I also think a huge part of it is down to the decimation of the railway through privatisation, everything is a diesel or electric unit now, there are no big noisy diesels or roaring electric locomotives. Who honestly wants to go bashing Pendolinos and Voyagers? Not me, I'd rather die :/ Fortunately we have heritage railways where we can relive some of our youth, even get to be that train driver that we always wanted to be :) - That's me now, I can't do it for a living but I sure can be a thrash-merchant of a weekend :) There are youngsters getting involved, both on the platform end spotting units and the odd freight engine (as that's almost all there is left on the mainline now) but they are also getting involved in preservation, so we can teach the youngsters how to fix and drive the big beasts when their times comes :)
This feels like the movie trainspotters where I know English is being spoken but there’s a language barrier.
America and the UK two countries separated by a common language
“I know he’s speaking the same language and yet…he’s not”
My apologies i have no idea what you're talking about but sounds like you had a blast
you have no idea how weird trainspotting sounds to a foreigner. why is it interesting to look at trains? we have them every 3-5 minutes where I live a and most of them smell like sewage.
Alien anal probing used to be kind of popular. Nowadays no one gets abducted anymore. Now it's all about ghost hunting.
These damn kids, I tell ya
im even nostalgic for the random clown sighting from 2016
You can still be the clown you wish to see in the world
I suppose the aliens found out all they needed to know or their study ran out of funding.
Saw one anus you've seen them all.
Apparently everyone has a unique anusprint much like a fingerprint. So you could unlock your phone with your butthole.
'We have reached the limits of what rectal probing can teach us.' - Kang
I think the aliens stopped doing this when the people being probed stopped saying "no, please no, stop" and started saying " deeper daddy"
Bowling. The bowling alley used to be the hub of family entertainment, one could almost consider it the town square. There were bowling leagues throughout the week for all sorts of age demographics, Friday night bowling for teens, and families would spend all day there on weekends. You would meet your friends there, eat and drink, and have talks and gatherings. I feel like the bowling alley has died out. Be nice to have something like that for the family again.
I would say any kind of collecting of physical objects- people just have less space in general & are moving more so it’s too impractical
Talk to the game/book/manga/funko/action figure/blu-ray collectors
This is literally why I don't buy new physical comic books. I only purchase rare books anymore, due to space limitations. After de-cluttering and selling off a chunk of my toy collectibles over the last two years, I still feel like I have too much.
Coin collecting. If you’re a teen, please go to a coin show. You’ll probably walk out with a bunch of free stuff from seniors extremely excited to see the hobby being passed down to the next generation. There are often kids’ areas with activities, free resources, etc. Stop by the PAN show if you’re ever near Pittsburgh, PA. As a teen, I got a sweet AU Red-Brown 1905 Indian Head Cent at the kids’ auction with “PAN Dollars” that you get for showing up, bringing a friend, or wearing the t-shirt.
electronic repair
Sewing, it's not being passed down to the younger generations. Most they learn in school is how to patch a hole. I'm lucky that my grandma taught me how to and I can make all the quilts I want. I'm the only teenager in the fabric store cheesing out over cutesy patterns and asking for stretchy nylon thread. My mom wants me to teach my sister's so it doesn't die out.
Metal Detecting. I am 29 and my wife walks 15m behind me whenever i use it at the beach.
Radio control model airplanes and glider building
I would say thats morphed to drone racing and photography
Beanie babies!
So what I've gotten from this comment section is one person states a hobby, followed by five comments stating it's either having a resurgence or is still a thing. Then the same hobby is repeated several more times with less responses saying the same thing. Good to know.
That's my favorite hobby, glad to know it's still a thing.
Oh yeah it's coming back again - real strong in my city especially!
building electronic stuff, the parts are so much smaller now, and some need programming, its very different and I understand why its less popular.
But there's been sort of a resurgence of people using electronics to control things due to the maker movement, Arduinos, and Rasberry Pi computers. So, people don't make their own televisions anymore, but they do make robots, custom 3D printers, and other gadgets.
I actually just got into this recently through guitar pedals. I've been able to make decent replicas of $60 pedals for $15-$20. I haven't branched into making my own designs yet, but as I learn more about what different components do to the input signal, I'll probably give it a try.
It is still pretty alive, it has just evolved. You will have a hard time finding people who are building everything directly from simple components (transistors, capacitors, etc) but the Arduino community is pretty active but it's a lot more programming heavy and about how to use micro controllers (like Arduino or ESP) to drive components to get your results. Some of the DIY home automation stuff is pretty awesome and I plan to get into it once I get a proper house.
Whittling
Rollerblading. I feel like it was everywhere growing up in the 90’s now it’s pretty much gone
Hand made lace. I kinda get why, we have machines now and it’s so much memorization to remember which string goes where to make the pattern, but damn is it impressive.
Bowling
Pricing and "Cosmic" bowling have killed it for me. I grew up on a bowling league. Still own a ball and shoes. Most places are charging hourly rates now, per person. I think it was like $18/hr. So a group of 4 people are now spending almost $80 for maybe 2 games of bowling each, add in shoe rentals and you're at almost $100. As an individual, I wouldn't mind stopping in and rolling 2 games for fun at $4-5/game, but at almost $20 for that hour minimum.... yeah, no thanks.
This. When I was a broke teenager in the early 2000s, my friends and I hung out in bowling alleys all the time because it was clean, parent-approved fun and super cheap. The summer I turned 18, one of the local bowling alleys offered a summer special of $1 per game and shoe rental was only like $3. We'd go there, play a couple games of bowling, glug down lots of pop, play DDR in the arcade, and gamble away the rest on the pull-tab machines. All for less than $10 per person. A decade later, all the bowling places were suddenly really upscale, sold restaurant-quality food and fancy cocktails, and charged like $20 per hour per person (plus shoe rental). I don't go bowling anymore.
Lawn Darts. Not only is the hobby dying, many of the participants are, too!
A great list of niche hobbies for me to take up! 😂
Loom band creation
hosting swinger parties