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: youtu.be/mwAFN1aSFjY
herrcaptain@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
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.
ZagamTheVile@lemmy.world 4 months ago
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.
variants@possumpat.io 4 months ago
Now we can find communities and just passively partake
herrcaptain@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
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.
EleventhHour@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Sure, but the internet increased this interconnectivity by orders of magnitude.
EleventhHour@lemmy.world 4 months ago
This is what “specialty interest” magazines and newsletters used to address. Whatever the hobby or interest, there is likely a dozen magazines specifically targeted to that audience.
Then the internet happened. Also, media conglomeration.
menemen@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Fanzines were huge in Germany for that reason.
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 4 months ago
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.
herrcaptain@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
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.
OldManBOMBIN@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Possibly. He hates the screenshot and wants everyone to stop posting it, though.