Today I went to a modeling expo hosted by the Arkansas branch of the International Plastic Modeler’s Society. I know, I’m a wild man. I overheard one of the other organizers talking to someone and saying they had a little over 320 people attending and it was before noon, so they had a pretty good turnout. There was of course a modeling competition with various categories including ships, science fiction/fantasy, dioramas, automobiles, planes, figures, and there was a category for teens. There were two models in the teen category.
Looking around at the other attendees, I couldn’t help but think of how old we were. The average age, not counting the folks who showed up to play Warhammer, was 40+. If you were in your 30s, you were a young modeler. Mrs. Odesio couldn’t help but notice and said, “Who else has time to do this other than old people?” Fair. But it got me to thinking it might be a doomed hobby as there won’t be any young people to replace the old folks when they die.*
Are there any other hobbies that seem destined to suffer under a demographic crunch?
*It could be that younger modelers simply aren’t into the traditional planes, automobiles, etc., etc., but there are still people painting Gundam (giant robot) models. I wouldn’t doubt there is a higher percentage of younger people painting those than there are more traditional models.
I know a number of people under 40 (many of them even under 30) who are into “gunpla”: building and painting plastic models of Gundam and similar giant robots.
For most of my life, I’ve been periodically on-and-off a fan of model railroading and model rocketry (two sort-of-allied hobbies to the modeling hobby described by the OP), both of which definitely skew old these days. I have a very good model railroading store about 20 minutes from me, and when I go in there, I feel positively young, at age 60, compared to both the staff and the other customers.
I suspect that stamp collecting and coin collecting (two other hobbies I was at least mildly into as a kid) are facing that same aging fan base, without many younger people picking up the hobby. For those two hobbies, it probably doesn’t help that a lot of kids might rarely see postage stamps or coins these days.
FWIW, I don’t think that these hobbies always skewed old; when I was a kid, a lot of my male classmates and friends played with model trains and slot cars, built plastic models of cars and planes, flew model rockets, collected stamps, etc., and that had likely been the case for decades before I came along. But, flashier hobbies, like video games, came along, and I suspect that most of the young people who get into those older hobbies at all are doing so because of their parents or grandparents guiding them into the hobby, rather than discovering it at a friend’s house, in an ad in a comic book, etc.
I just thought of this old timey hobby today. When I was a kid there were three men within two blocks who were amateur radio operators, or “HAMS.” I don’t know anyone nowadays who has this as a hobby, though I’m sure there are some still out there calling “CQ” into the ionosphere, hoping for a ragchew with some guy in some far off place. And they’re probably all over 80 years old.
I had an interest in it when I was a kid but never had the patience to learn Morse code, which was required back then.
I think 3d printing (which can be a type of modeling) has some appeal for younger folk.
Amateur Radio skews old, I would guess most younger hams are only in it due to their parents.
I’m happy that we have quite a few regulars in my board game group who are in their 20’s
As for other collectables, we all know the pattern: we collect things as children, get rid of them as cool teens, buy them back again as adults. As the people nostalgic for their era of childhood toys dies out, the market for those toys shrinks massively even if it doesn’t completely disappear. I’m sure that by now there a lot fewer people looking for Roy Rodgers cap pistols than are looking for Gen 1 Transformers.
Well, I just got my first license (Technician) and studying for the other two. Why pursue? Well, why not! When I ran a Ham check on a map, there are perhaps 100 other licensed Hams with five blocks of me. Something like 750k in the US.
I’m also looking to set myself up just in case. I fully expect cell phone outages will increase as well as cybersecurity events will greatly increase in the next year, from foreign and especially domestic actors.
Congratulations! You didn’t mention your age, but I’m assuming you’re on the younger side, and it’s heartening to know amateur radio still has its enthusiasts. There’s a club in my area that was founded in 1956 and has 91 members (some of them original members).
I think one reason a hobby like this has had an erosion of interest is that today many people live in neighborhoods and developments that prohibit the large antennas needed. TV antennas and satellite dishes are allowed by law but a big honking HAM antenna might not be. I know my neighborhood would never allow it.
Most people diving in the UK seem to be at least 40 and usually over 50 and I get the impression it is similar in places like the PNW and the Great Lakes. Y9unger 0eople do scuba dive but tend to 9nly do it on vacation to warmer climes.
It’s certainly an older-skeyjng hobby, but if you look past the voice-only ragchewing, there’s a lot of interest in digital modes and things like mesh networking. I hold an amateur extra license and have never made a voice contact of HF. I’m on Zoom calls all day, I don’t worse versions of that for a hobby. But I enjoy the digital signals work.
Or that being able to have instant, free conversations with people thousands of miles away used to be exotic but now is incredibly, profoundly mundane.
That’s one reason for the rise of the digital modes. They require much less power and very compromised antenna setups can still provide global contacts.
the other thing I see a lot of newer interest is mobile operation. Not HTs, but true low,power HF radios that can be run off battery along with antennas that can be set up in a park. The Parks on the Air and Summits on the Air programs have a lot of people chasing awards for activations.
I mean, the most obvious one here is posting on the Straight Dope. At 42 I think I’m one of the youngest Dopers here. Personally I love it; it’s the only context in which I feel young.
Bridge definitely. I had a poker buddy who would play online occasionally and he (an early middle aged guy) estimated he was about half the average age of his bridge partners. And that was a decade or more ago.
Bridge was, as far as I can tell, a hugely important social currency for my parents’ generation (they’re both Silents, born in 1933 and 1940, respectively). My parents’ social circles, for most of their adult lives, was largely centered on playing bridge, and most of their long-term friends were people in their bridge groups. They did other things with their friends, too, but bridge was what they did, every other Saturday night (at least from fall until spring), for decades.
When I was a high school senior (around 1982), my dad very much wanted to teach me how to play bridge. His reasoning: “it’s important, because that’s how you’ll meet people and make friends at college.” His advice, of course, was based on his own experience as a college student, in the mid-1950s; I literally knew no one my own age who knew how to play bridge, and my dad was rather disappointed that I wasn’t eager to learn.
Instead, my social currency at college was playing Dungeons & Dragons, and that’s how I met the group of what became my best friends. I also learned how to play cribbage, poker, and sheepshead when I was at college, but never saw anyone playing bridge.
As an adult, I know a few people my age who know bridge, and enjoy playing it; interestingly, they grew up in Ireland, and didn’t move to the U.S. until they were in their late 20s. And, yes, when they do play bridge, they’re nearly always playing with much older people.
And coin collecting. The era of kids looking through their pocket change hoping to find a rare 1943 steel penny and then building an entire collection off that original interest is long past.
Oddly enough, the local paper just ran a story on the rebirth of mahjong, including quotes from veteran players remarking that it’s not just played by little old Jewish ladies like them anymore.
