[akadruid]

It doesn't seem strange to me that anything unique enough to be described as a hobby will have it's detractors. Even massively mainstream activities frequently attract meaningless dismissives: couch potato, exercise nut, more money than sense, and so on.

Humans are natural pattern matches and subscribe to a set of ideals; anyone that does not fit their pattern and forces them to think differently is going to cause defensiveness in some people; the least of which is simple dismissal.

On the other hand, it's great that society has progressed the stage where people are being rude about your hobby instead of violent because of your skin colour.