Your interactions with some niche documentary about a hobby or movement you like or are interested in give you a false sense of hope. I recently watched Going Cardboard: A Board Game Documentary (2012) which is about various aspects and viewpoints surrounding the modern board game revolution influenced by European board game design and cultural values. Towards the first fifth of the doc are testimonials about how these newer better designed games and board games in general have brought people together in an over technologized era. I see this a lot in documentaries about people's hobbies and niches. I find it to be wish-fulfilling however. You can enter a hobby which is enjoyed by a lot of people—including a lot of guarded snobs too—and do whatever you can to enter their ranks yet barely sprout a bud in a seemingly fertile niche. I have my own experience with this in playing video games, collecting retro video games, listening to, collecting and creating music (including collecting and playing instruments), writing, reading and collecting books and creating art. (I still want to do other things outside these interests I’ve put a lot of effort into rounding myself off as a human with a variety of things to do and do with others in an attempt to ‘belong’ to some group of people who I can share my ideas and self on a regular basis. Some of these interests include fishing, collecting firearms, and whatever you would call the whole business of buying and using airsoft guns.) Let us look at film and filmbuffs/cinephiles for example. When I was 16 years old I decided I needed to round myself off as a movie watcher so I decided to buy two films including The Seventh Seal (1957) directed by Ingmar Bergman (the other one being Ed Wood (1994) dir. Tim Burton). What I didn’t know was by owning The Seventh Seal I was introduced to a filmmaker who is extremely prolific, influential, artistic and at times challenging to people’s sensibilities (I have first hand evidence of this). It also introduced me to The Criterion Collection, a brand of home video releases which specializes in art cinema the world over, directors of renown, obscure gems or just beloved films that are usually restored to future-proof standards resulting in a hefty retail price. By collecting and watching these films and learning about the history, art and people important to film I became a knowledgeable movie snob at least on paper. I’m 23 years old meaning that I’ve had this hobby of loving films at high level of dedication compared to the average film watcher. Now, back to the documentary subject. I could watch a documentary on any of these subjects and see how it has changed people’s lives, which is reaffirming to the main message of the documentary that the subject matter is legitimate. Basically these documentaries claim that when you hit a stride with a hobby to the point where the community that enjoys their insider version of something normal (Board Games, Film, Music, Cartoons etc.) that they you will be brought into the fold for seeing the light. If this doesn’t happen then they will have another argument towards their “community-building pastime” which is that if you can’t find anyone who wants to participate in your niche hobby then get other people into it “because once they try what makes the snobs go crazy, then they’ll want more”. It has never happened to me, either situation. I have never found a person who was into something I shared an interest with who actually felt to share their interest and time with me, someone who is into the same thing as them and I have never found a person who wanted to get into the interest I was passionate about. So when I watch a documentary like Going Cardboard and it preaches things like “This women walked into my board game store not knowing what it was and now she’s just horny as fuck to see what it’s all about after I told her how awesome playing newer board games are” I feel like I someone who’s seen the machinery behind The Great and Powerful Oz and am seeing an attempt to fool other people into thinking there is a community ready to hold them if they get into the hobby they like. The thing is that there’s a lot of evidence to the contrary though. There are a lot of people who do things that they love with other people and it’s because not everyone appreciates or knows about their hobby and they need other people slightly more than the regular lay person. So there has to be someone to compliment your interests, right? Yeah that is true but it is also possible that people don’t want to be your pal to talk about these things. It is possible that people can’t commit themselves to learn what you know or to be social with you. It is possible that your frame of mind doesn’t gel with the rest of the people into your hobby because you were brought up differently or are too idiosyncratic to gel with the hive. This brings me to discuss a documentary I saw maybe a few years back called I Dream of Wires (2014) which is about the extremely niche subject the modular synthesizer which is an old, complex but important electronic instrument which also has had a resurgence recently. The difference between with this documentary is that instead of making the common point that a hobby brings people together and changes people’s lives it instead shows people how much money they’ve spent on the hobby; that is the closest thing it gets to a social component. It’s fitting since most hardcore hobbyists spend four digit figures or more on their hobby and it’s not because they have a lot of time with other people, it is because their love of their hobby succeeds what a normal person needs to be happy. People who have put a lot of money into a hobby can be happy but it is mainly a thing that fills the time, it’s not something that brings people together but a social excuse for lonely people who are into celebrities or materialism more than other people. So the next time I see a documentary about people who bury themselves alive as a form of recreation I’m going to be peeved if they claim it’s brought them closer to other people like a religion.
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