The internet connects people

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.
- Now we can find communities and just passively partake
- 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.
- 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.
- Fanzines were huge in Germany for that reason.
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.
Possibly. He hates the screenshot and wants everyone to stop posting it, though.

No, but his neighbours do.

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
- Ok

Why is this on shitpost? I think it's a perfectly valid hobby and it should be celebrated

That depends entirely on how he is acquiring the alarms.
Yeah. I dont get it. It's not my thing but I don't judge if it doesn't hurt anyone.
- 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.

The net brings us together but it also brings the haters and drama. I knew I knew this dude from something.

https://youtu.be/3FxoFAVqGjg?si=8qwlKww0ORhgCJll

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'm a Star Wars fan. Tell me about it.
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.

Dude looks like he was animated by Pixar.

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.
- I completely misread what kind of leak we were talking about.

Absolute Chad.

What a FAG...

Fire Alarm Guy

why does the fire alarm look like an among us?

AMOGUS

Finally, someone sane.

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.

Anyone else think this was the “taking a selfie using a silly object” meme at first?

How is it not?
It’s certainly more nuanced, but it is what it is, nuanced or not.

He looks like the teen antagonist to a 2000s animated series

Or the guy from the incredibles

It connects people alright, just not in the most benign ways

And that's one of the best things that the internet actually did?

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.

Not as bad as my stop sign collection
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.

Cancer says maybe

I don't know but literally what a dumb thing to collect

Not dumber than any other collectible.
- I guess if you want to be the most annoying person in the neighborhood

I don't understand how anyone thinks any social media platform resembles a community.

You're currently posting in one...
- 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.
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.