Narrower, Deeper, Older

When hobbies become too esoteric

Our grandson is coming to visit us for a few days. I was trying to think of activities that are suitable for an 8-1/2 year old that can be done indoors. Suggestions welcome. We already have board games and card games.

When I was his age, one of the things I liked to do was assemble plastic models of tanks and airplanes. I was not great at it—I remember getting too much glue onto the wheels of a Patton tank, so that the treads would not move. But I could put together a model without supervision, and each one would keep me busy for several hours.

But when I look into it now, the industry seems to have completely changed. It seems to have been taken over by adult hobbyists, who use special tools and emphasize painting the models (I never painted a model).

The model kits that are aimed at kids are really intended to draw them into this hobbyist cult. They come with maybe 35 pieces. Probably if the parts fit right out of the box and you did not want to do any painting, the model could be built in about half an hour. Videos show them being put together by adults, who repeatedly say how these are just introductory models. The challenge in assembly appears to involve struggling to get the parts to fit. You see the guy using sandpaper and tiny razor blades to get rid of excess plastic. The parts are so tiny he needs tweezers. I don’t see how it will appeal to either me or my grandson.

This is what happens with hobbies over time. They get taken over by the most dedicated participants. The upfront cost of getting involved, in terms of the effort involved, is so steep that it acts as a deterrent.

I call this phenomenon Narrower, Deeper, Older. For a hobby that has been around a generation or two, fewer people find the hobby accessible. The people involved in the hobby are deeply involved. They have attained a high skill level. There is no supplier that caters to a casual participant. And the average age of participants is much older than it used to be.

Bridge Players

When I was in high school and college (1967 - 1975), I played a lot of bridge, the card game. In those days, bridge was mostly a social game, enjoyed by adults of all ages. If you have American ancestors who were born before 1940, I’ll bet they knew how to play bridge. There also were competitive bridge tournaments, but only a fraction of bridge players took the game that seriously.

Today, social bridge is rare. It has been at least twenty years since I met anyone who played. But tournament bridge still exists, and it is crazy hard to learn the latest techniques. When I was in college, I spent some time studying books about the game, and if I had kept at it I might have become an expert. About ten years ago, I went to a tournament, and I was totally lost. There were all sorts of new heuristics, bidding conventions, and so on. I felt like a novice, and I decided not to revive my interest.

The other thing that was off-putting was how old the tournament players were. The median age seemed to be 75.

Israeli Dancing

When I was in graduate school, I dropped bridge as a hobby. I was spending so much time sitting and working problem sets that I could not bear to sit any more. Instead, I took up folk dancing, eventually gravitating toward Israeli folk dancing.

In 1977, it was easy to become comfortable with Israeli folk dancing. There were probably 50 or 60 popular dances, with maybe another 50 that were less popular. That meant that at a regular session there was a lot of repetition week to week. The music for the dances repeated several times, so that if you tried to follow behind the circle by the time the music was finished you could catch on. And the dances were simple. You basically faced forward, and there were a few basic steps. If you went to a session for three months, by that time you were an advanced dancer.

Israeli dancing (“folk” no longer applies, for the same reason that the Newport Festival in 1965 couldn’t call Bob Dylan a folk singer any more) is nothing like what it was when I started. Many years ago I started calling it “tournament dancing,” because it is reminiscent of what has happened to bridge.

The size of the repertoire is out of control. I probably could recognize over 1000 dances. Most of the top 50 as of 1977 have gone out of circulation.

Most of the dances are more difficult than the dances from the 1960s and 1970s. The sequences have gotten more complicated. One reason that the dances from the 1960s and 1970s don’t get done much is that dancers today find them boring.

The typical beginner gives up after a few weeks. So do most people who danced some time in the 20th century and attempt to get back into it in the 21st.

The dancers today are so dedicated that during the pandemic many of us danced in our basements, with leaders who held sessions on Zoom. Choreographers even made new dances in those years.

Most Israeli dancers are over 50, and some of us are considerably older. But at least in our area (suburbs of DC), there are about two dozen younger dancers, in their twenties. Some of them are even more dedicated than us old folks. This area is probably exceptional in that regard. Even in Israel, my sense is that younger people do not have the patience to learn Israeli dancing, and they gravitate toward Salsa, instead.

And my guess is that Salsa and other dancing hobbies also are destined to become Narrower, Deeper, Older. Even country line dancing cannot seem to resist moving in the direction of becoming complicated and esoteric.

Claude’s comments on model airplanes and Narrower, Deeper, Older

All I want is to have my old model kits back. Minus the toluene in the glue. I asked Claude for advice, and it said that modern glue is much safer and actually adheres better. But

You make a really insightful point about the complexity of modern model kits. Today's kits often feature incredibly detailed parts that require steady hands and patience - qualities that might be challenging for an 8-year-old.

…The main brands that made those simpler kits from the 60s have indeed shifted their focus to serve the adult hobbyist market. It's created a bit of a gap for younger builders who might want that same satisfying experience of building something real but aren't ready for the precision work of modern kits.

Have a nice day.