Digital collections: Buying things is not a hobby. But thanks to cyberspace, it can be.

If you know any boring people, I’m sure you’ll have seen this phenomenon, and you’ll know what I’m talking about already. So feel free to skip to where I tell you what the real problem is. Some hobbies are practically free, like neocities, programming, or writing. With some hobbies, like running, fishing, or swimming, people can do them very cheaply, but at the same time the anoraks who infest reddit can make it as expensive as they like with their carbon fibre minimalist shoes, and such. Other hobbies are very good fun, but inherently expensive – think sailing and motorsport – where the anoraks could drop paycheques on the best gear for the previous kind, only the very wealthy can get the best gear for this kind.

But all of these hobbies have something in common - you actually do something other than buy stuff. You’d think that that’s what a hobby is – but oh, you sweet summer child, you’ve not come across the world of people who’s hobbies are “mechanical keyboards”, “high-end audiophile equipment”or “fountain pens”. The redditor hiker may spend a little too much time on the forums discussing if the latest aliexpress knockoff tent comes close to what the big boys are offering (as opposed to going out into the unknown in her grandmother’s hiking boots, OS map and compass in hand, like you’re supposed to). But for the fountain pen enthusiast this is the ENTIRE hobby! What madness! To have your hobby be to lust after and discuss the merits of your next purchase. No thank you!

The Real Problem

”But you should let people enjoy things, Jess. What’s wrong with this, they’re not hurting anyone!” To that I say, you’re quite right. That these hobbies are (very) cringe and make me giggle is not really a problem, cringe being relative and all. The real problem, which sounds kind of obvious at first but, bear with me, is that how “good” you are at the hobby just depends on how much money you have. You can post to reddit your new “Visconti Homo Sapiens” with some fancy japanese ink, and get all the upvotes in the world, and feel pleased. There’s nothing to do in the hobby except click the “buy” button, write two sentences of lorem ipsum - and that’s it - because you work on the computer and have no need for a pen. That’s no fun hobby. You strike up a conversation with someone, and that poor guy can only afford some sort of jinhao. He can rattle off it’s features to you, and you can say you’ve got a Visconti. Nothing interesting has happened in this conversation - you've both bought your items because (1) they're in budget, and (2) reddit said they were good value.

The solution

The solution is the digital collection. (No, not NFTs, I mean more like my digital garage.) Now the pens that you “buy” (add to the digital collection) really say something, because cost is no longer a factor. People who may purchase a Visconti with real money, may not “buy” one for their digital collection. “But surely this makes no sense! Money is the factor stopping most people buying the Homo Sapien – if we make it so that money’s not stopping people from getting one in their collection, why would that make them less likely to add one?” Well, I imagine you’ve already figured out the answer to that one by yourself already – because you’d have a really boring collection. Take my digital garage – she’s filled with weird and whacky cars of all sorts – but I could just have easily just added the 5 most expensive cars if I wanted a boring collection. Your digital collection says more about you than a physical collection, because when you’re buying for the digital collection, you’re free to buy with your heart, and not your head. As well, when you're building your digital collection, as you make it more complicated than a simple list (maybe you add photos, write texts, animations, etc), there is an act of building there that's quite nice - like you're paying homage to the item in your collection. Buying things is easy - just look at that Andrew Tate clip where Tristan says he doesn't even care about cigars (while smoking the most expensive on earth), and that you can live your whole life devoted to cigars, and never get to smoke the one he's smoking. It really is like that - the billionaires who buy the paganis don't care nearly enough about them as much as the twelve-year-old boys with posters of them on their bedroom walls. So buy making your collection - you also demonstrate your care and reverence for these items, not just as consumer goods, but as pieces of art, by making your own piece of art.

Aside from that, I find that it’s a nice way to enjoy the fruits of our consumerist society, while managing to avoid the pitfalls. With cars especially – the most beautiful rolls royce (even brand new) is honestly going to be a less enjoyable ownership experience than a lexus IS in a big city like mine. But in cyberspace you needn’t worry about any of that practicality, and you get to keep the consumer item on a pedestal of perfection. It's much better than getting into your bentley mulsanne and realising they got these switches the wrong way around, as you're stuck in traffic and the engine's been amking that funny sound for the past three weeks DESPITE the mechanics telling you it was all fine when you got it checked.