It's just a hobby

Doog has just published yet another insightful view into our hobby, dismissing the “It’s just a hobby” mentality that infects many of the conversations we see online, and I suspect in person, too.

He’s right. When we talk about the accuracy of the latest Trumpeter kit, obsess over the tire tread pattern on a P-47D, or discuss judging at IPMS contests, it’s too easy to dismiss efforts to improve our models or the hobby by saying, “It’s just a hobby.” It is a hobby, but it’s very important to many of us. It’s our passion and it consumes our thoughts, much like wine consumes the thoughts of an oenophile or music consumes the thoughts of a pianist.

We should remember that the conversations we have online largely mirror those we have face-to-face. Some are constructive, and some are inane. The other day I remarked to a friend that a new release is “cool.” Not exactly evidence of a deep thinker, right, but I said it? Would I express that pithy comment online? Of course not. The difference between an online conversation and one that occurs in the real world is that online conversation allows us to consider and compose our thoughts before expressing them. Ideally the comments we post online are constructive and free of microaggressions.

I understand how some people can become annoyed at the minutia we discuss. It's comical at times. Recently someone asked about the correct color of a 1950s era tarmac. That’s a bit much in my opinion, and I was tempted to tell him not to obsess and just paint it a suitable gray color. But it’s important to him, so I simply moved on to the next topic.

Let’s embrace our hobby. Let’s embrace the passion others have for it. Let’s learn when to contribute and when to put the laptop down and build a model instead. In them meantime, remember that as your thinking about whether the access panels are correct for that Kitty Hawk 1/48 MiG-25PD you’re building, someone is carefully planning next year’s crop of hay for the state fair.

Award-winning hay at the 2015 New Jersey State Fair. Beautiful, ain't it?