[wodenokoto]

> Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS). A person’s insatiable urge to buy equipment for their art or hobby, distracting them from actually practicing said art or hobby.

> It’s driven in part by the belief that new gear will improve one’s art or performance, e.g. I don’t sound like Jimi Hendrix because I don’t have the same effects pedal he used.

Bit tangent, but I think one should just embrace it and say “my hobby is collecting guitar gear, and my niche is things that Jimi Hendrix used or things that make sounds like he did”

There’s no shame in a hobby collecting and being honest with yourself might bring some clarity to your life.

[interroboink]

I like this take. Nobody thinks of stamp collecting as a problematic hobby. Collecting and curating is fun in its own right.

Though I do think there can be another aspect at play; I often find myself collecting things that I think "might be useful". Eg: I have a ton of empty yogurt containers, for use in hypothetical future art projects. I do use them sometimes, but at this point I have plenty. I still feel the urge to keep saving them, though — for some imagined future. I wouldn't say "I enjoy collecting yogurt containers," though.

I'm no hoarder, but I do feel a certain pull/compulsion in that direction from time to time, and I could see the same being true elsewhere. It's not always easy to know whether I'm scratching an itch or worrying at it.

[Fluorescence]

I am a bit disturbed by collecting hobbies to be honest. When there is some novelty, archival or scientific value to a collection, that is different and fascinating, it's the purely consumerist collecting that gives me the heebie-jeebies.

It's purely acquisitive and about the buying and getting and just seems quite sad and empty. Those afflicted become slaves to the companies pumping out items purely for this class of consumer. For example, "limited editions" and such are not rare because the product warrants it, it's just designed scarcity to press the buttons of the collectors and extract the most money from them. Or it's bidding wars on vintage items like wine where huge price inflation happens just for the collection kudos not the virtues of the item itself.

For example, I like fountain pens, but I can't really read r/fountainpens because it's mostly people building huge collections of pens and getting excited about buying a new pattern or colour of pen they already own. Nothing makes me sadder than seeing their full collections of 100s of fantastic tools that will sit idle for the vast majority of their life until the owner passes and a relative has to liquidate things they don't understand.

It looks like a dysfunction to me - a stimulation seeking addiction which is not satisfied by the next acquisition and will never fill the emptiness, the need, the dream, of the collector. I know people will be super defensive about their collecting but I would love for that money and energy to be redirected towards higher degrees of self-actualisation. It feels like a failure to scale the Maslow's hierarchy of needs and get stuck in a loop down the bottom. Instead of creating novelty or growing, there is something safe, comfortable and unchallenging to just acquire.

[Paul-Craft]

I wouldn't go so far as saying it give me "heebie-jeebies," but I also don't see the point in collecting mass market consumer items that are not and have never been rare. Probably the closest I come to ever wanting to do so is that I have a real appreciation for old computer systems. Once, I even got it in my head that I could theoretically own and run a working PDP-11. Fortunately/unfortunately, I've never had the space to properly store, much less display a collection of obsolete home computers, and I don't even want to think about the power and space requirements to actually operate a working PDP-11

So, yeah, I truly do not understand collecting Beanie Babies, Funko Pops, or fountain pens. But, I do collect coins. I find them interesting on multiple levels. I can't think of too many other hobbies that give one a good excuse to study history, economics, art, metallurgy, and more. So many things that happen involving humans and human societies also involve money and commerce. Going back to the rarity aspect, I own quite a few coins that are anywhere from quite scarce to truly rare. It also really helps that they don't take up a ton of space, either.

I don't see anything particularly maladaptive about it, except that it's a hobby that can take up arbitrarily much time and money. But, that's actually one thing I like about it: I could definitely have fun collecting coins on less than a $100/month budget, even though I actually spend quite a bit more than that on it. The acquisition process is fun as well. I like going to coin shops and coin shows. Buying online or at auction is slightly less fun, but it gives me a greater opportunity to find what I'm really looking for. When dealing with things that are, as I said, fairly scarce, the hunt itself becomes part of the enjoyment.

[Fluorescence]

> that give one a good excuse to study history, economics, art, metallurgy

Not sharing this as a serious alternative, just sharing this as something nerdy and cool. It's a little more involved than coin collecting lol... but this guy making his own Carnyx (Celtic war horn) ticks many of those boxes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWTFIDAbDtY

A Carnyx being played:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRIQp4qZrrE

Engaging with history in very practical ways like this is very cool. I'd love to make my own Round House one day.

[gilleain]

I have a friend that makes medieval lutes. He even reproduced one from Skyrim - it sounded bad, apparently, as it was designed to look good, not sound good.

More of a business than a hobby, but still.

[vwcx]

Wow, down the rabbithole I go. Thanks for sharing (especially that second link). Always good to get a dose of awe first thing on a Friday.

[mikewarot]

The new hot computer at Rose-Hulman in 1982 was the VAX 11/780. I always wanted to have one ever since. However, I've been through hording, and having had to purge things, I realize that it would be quite silly to actually own one.

So, I've done the next best thing... Thanks to Termux and SimH, I run one in my Android phone. I can telnet into it and log in, not quite the VT100 experience, but close enough. So for the low price of about 4GB of storage, I have a VAX 11/780, running OpenVMS 7.2 in my pocket. ;-)

[cbm-vic-20]

> I even got it in my head that I could theoretically own and run a working PDP-11.

Me too. Thankfully, buying old PDP-11 manuals on eBay and assembling a PiDP-11 satisfied that urge. I also live close to two good computer museums that have plenty of PDPs to poke around on, when they're working. Watching the graybeards diagnose and fix things on these 50+ year old machines reminds me why I don't want to do that at home.

[kaashif]

I used to collect old Sun, IBM, and HP Unix workstations. You know, the ones with weird architectures like SPARC, POWER, and PA-RISC. And the software to run on them, which was often very weird.

Like you, this isn't the mass market consumerism type of collecting, but is maybe a bit closer to it than your idea of somehow getting a working PDP-11.

[slowhand09]

Ha! I used to want an Inmos Transputer. Even tho I had zero experience in parallel process development. Saved myself some money by not being able to afford it. "I should buy a boat" meme appears.

[mnky9800n]

what bothers me is not the people collecting them but the ones who offer such consumerist trash (e.g., funko pops). Because they are willfully using resources to create nothing from something so they can sell their nothing to people who have some need to express themselves by collecting. there are many quality things to collect however most of the "memorabilia" that exists today is not it.

now that my rant is over would you like to see my extensive collection of Star Trek memorabilia plates? The paint is toxic so we cannot eat from them so i just leave them in this box and bring it out when guests come over.

[Nursie]

I was encouraged to collect things as a kid. I think it was even a badge in cub-scouts. I collected keyrings. I was given them from various places, spent pocket-money on them on holiday, that sort of stuff. I certainly didn't own any keys. I also collected model dinosaurs (usually acquired at museums) and Lego.

The Lego I would put in its own category because it was endlessly fascinating and rebuild-able. I used it all the time. The dinosaurs were at least educational.

But the keyrings were just hoarded and gathered dust. I'm trying to decide now if this was unhealthy and trained me to covet stuff, or if it was a good inoculation against the behaviour later in life. I now have zero interest in collecting anything just for the sake of collecting it. I'd rather be minimal where possible, and after accumulating a lot of crap in my early 20s (when owning stuff was a novelty) I now also try to avoid the "I might use that someday" trap.

I too like fountain pens and have about six, moderately priced, all made by 'Cross'. I put various coloured inks in them (I usually have about 3 good to go at any one moment) and ... I virtually never hand write anything.

The thing I have most of is certainly cables and tech widgets of various descriptions, but I don't try to collect them, somehow they just sort-of happen.

Make of that all what you will.

[Fluorescence]

> I was given them from various places

Mmm. That does remind me of the quite nice social interaction some types of collecting gives. For example, a neighbour was a thimble collector so whenever visiting somewhere, we would look for a thimble. It gave us some entertainment as a tourist, like a treasure hunt, and then the nice moment to give it to the neighbour and show we were thinking of them while away.

It can go wrong though. I've known a few friends who have become associated with "a thing" because their family saw they owned one of "the thing" and now it's the exclusive theme of all presents but they don't have the heart to correct them and reveal all their presents were unwanted!

[Nursie]

Yes there can be a social thing, I had a friend who collected Starbucks city mugs, so people would bring them to her from all over the world.

On the “associated” thing - not so much about collections but there was an interesting article on the guardian website a few months ago, about a woman who came to realise that ‘I like Prosecco’ was not a substitute for a personality, but she had run with it for so long that that was all she ever got as a gift, and she discovered her friends knew very little else about her. A one-dimensional character trap.

[gilleain]

> The thing I have most of is certainly cables and tech widgets of various descriptions, but I don't try to collect them

That makes me think that someone who is a hobby cable collector must have the easiest time of it!

People do collect all sort of non-expensive things (pebbles, seashells, ...) so it feels like just a coincidence that collecting pens means also collecting a lot of tools that will never be used.

[captn3m0]

I collected clothing tags as a kid for a few months because I saw a kid on TV for collecting something inane (I forget what). Used to do Philately for a while before that.

As an adult, I go by the motto of “Don’t save the candles”, which is to actually use the things you buy, even the expensive cutlery and the scented candles.

[4death4]

I agree that collecting is weird, but I also agree with the GP’s general point that one should accept they have a collecting hobby and find contentment in that fact alone. There is a large amount of personal satisfaction to be found by accepting who you are and what you like. So what if other people find it weird?

In all likelihood, you and I find collecting sad and empty because we’re not collectors. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For all we know, collectors have found more fulfillment than we will ever know.

[Mindcraft]

I think seeking value in hobbies is a problem, they don't need to have any inherent value for the hobbyist other than being fun. I say it is a problem because it leads to a kind of mentality where one seeks productivity and optimization of RoI in all things in life. You are allowed to enjoy thing for no other reason than being fun. That being said, I agree with you, but I feel this kind of thinking could lead to see others who just want to enjoy a hobby as less than me, and that's where I draw the line.

[interroboink]

Perhaps there are just some basic human urges at play, and in some cases it is directed into something you value (eg: archival pursuits), and in other cases it is being cynically manipulated by companies for profit.

It's hard to choose the line between "don't yuck someone else's yum" and not wanting to endorse others' self-destructive tendencies.

Part of me wants to chastise you for gatekeeping other people's enjoyment[1], but I do agree that it can slip into dysfunction, and also agree that some companies downright push people in that direction (looking at you, microtransactions).

[1]https://xkcd.com/1314/

[scruple]

Steam libraries with hundreds or thousands of unplayed games. I do understand it, I think, but I'm glad I'm not afflicted.

[Thiez]

Sometimes they sell bundles that include some games you want and some you don't care for.

[kashunstva]

> It looks like a dysfunction to me

Undoubtedly for some it is a dysfunction; but for most, I suspect it taps into something common to most of us and is encoded by our evolutionary past given that for most of human prehistory we were equipped to deal with scarcity. For many with collecting hobbies, the target items are very specific and their practices don’t preclude moving effectively through life.

[cainxinth]

It's because the law of marginal utility, which states that the satisfaction derived from each additional unit of a good decreases as one consumes more, often doesn't apply to collecting because collectors derive pleasure from uniqueness and completeness.

[swayvil]

There's a vast and profitable opportunity awaiting the man who can connect "collecting hobbyists" with generative/AI production technology. A veritable money machine.

[marcosdumay]

Any hobby can be a healthy, fun exercise you do on your spare time or an unhealthy compulsion that takes over your life. You are singling-out collection for no good reason.

[yayitswei]

Isn't that the highest level of Maslow's hierarchy? Where your other needs are met so you can afford to do something "useless" that makes you happy.

[ginko]

I didn't realize accumulating a large funko-pop collection was an expression of "man's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities ... to express and activate all the capacities of the organism"

[Paul-Craft]

Accumulating stuff that "might be useful" at some indefinite point in the future, without trying to curate the accumulation might not be hoarding, but, it's actually quite similar to the mindset of some of the actual hoarders on the TV show Hoarders. Those people obviously take it to pathological extremes, and I'm not suggesting having a bunch of empty, cleaned out yogurt containers stashed away somewhere is in any way equivalent to stuffing one's entire house from floor to ceiling with stuff. But, on the show, when the hoarders talk about why they do it, it's often a behavior that came about as a reaction to some kind of loss, or out of a fear of some kind of loss. I would suggest that what you've described ("I'll hold on to this 'just in case....") is a lot like the reasons they give for doing it, even if the real motivation is quite different.

There are differences as well. Magnitude is the obvious one, unless you actually filled your entire kitchen with yogurt containers or something lol. :) The other big one I can think of is that an actual hoarder will have genuine, severe anxiety at the mere thought of getting rid of anything from their hoard. This is another assumption, of course, but my guess is that if you had to get rid of some, or maybe even most of your accumulation of yogurt containers for some reason, you'd be able to do that, and the thought wouldn't fill you with dread or anything.

[MSFT_Edging]

> Accumulating stuff that "might be useful" at some indefinite point in the future, without trying to curate the accumulation might not be hoarding, but, it's actually quite similar to the mindset of some of the actual hoarders

Every once and a while I'll try to curate my parts bin, tossing bulky or unused items that I haven't needed.

Every time I find myself needing some seemingly dumb part from what I got rid of a month or two later.

I still try to clean up, fully knowing I'll need that thing later. Its rough.

[bombcar]

I toss based on how hard I feel it will be to get it back, and just accept it as part of the cost of life.

Still can be annoying, though.

[j7ake]

I’ve gotten to the point of my book buying hobby that I buy books to collect books, rather than to read them.

[soco]

I finally collected/hoarded/acquired all house improvement gear I ever thought I'd be able to use. And when I also get to use them - like once every 5 years if I'm lucky - I get such a satisfaction! So was I unhealthy or prepared? I even asked myself but as they're only occupying a cupboard I let myself breathe and wait for the next opportunity to polish a handle or drill a square hole.

[ramses0]

Late reply, but... I'm with you on this one! Reduce/Re-Use/Recycle, washing glass spaghetti jars, etc. What I've come to the conclusion is the following guidelines/rules:

1) "Save _all_ the things!" Yeah, save them, use them, etc.

2) Use it or lose it: I have a space under the sink for washed/clean plastic containers. If that gets too junky, it's time to throw them out in the trash, offer them "free" on craigslist/facebook marketplace, your neighborhood group, whatever.

3) Regularize: we've ended up with strict "use cases" after saving "_all_ the things!". Sour cream containers become waste-grease-buckets for the freezer. Glass spaghetti jars become candy/cookie containers. Peanut-butter-jars become nail/screw holders in the garage.

4) Limit the flow: Once you "run out of space", keep only one or two "on hand" if it's a particular type of jar that you know you will "flow through". Basically you should reach a steady-state of using the stuff you're saving rather than growing your "cache" unbounded. Unless it's a really useful/valuable/unique type of box/jar/product, get rid of it! Even if it's awesome (but unique), probably get rid of it, b/c it'll end up being "the odd one out" unless you have a really specific need for it.

5) re-Regularize: is there a certain type/brand of spaghetti-jars that are soooo awesome, because they fit on a shelf, have the right size opening, etc. etc.? Start consolidating around one particular type (as you "flow through" them) and getting rid of the oddball ones.

6) Front-door, back-door: Put things by the front door if they're going to be given away, sold, donated, etc. Put things by the back door if they're destined for the trash. Make those decisions and then take action on them as you can.

There's a lot of value in saving some of this "stuff" from the waste-stream, and lots of pleasure to have all your other "stuff" organized in solid plastic containers (that you ended up kindof paying "nothing" for)... just don't fall victim to the "save everything", instead know that you can just "stretch out your hand" and grab the things you need _when_ you need them, not _if_ you need them. :-)

[TrapLord_Rhodo]

There's a difference between collecting and preserving. Saving your old yogurt containers for a future use, is the later. In the same way you could save coffee grounds for growing mushrooms, Jars for growing sprouts, etc.

Buying artificially scarce dead trees isn't really the same.

[minitoar]

Haha yes, like so many behaviors, collecting yogurt containers to re-use is adaptive until it isn’t.

[thih9]

I feel like presenting yourself as a collector could work at most as an excuse for concerned friends and family.

A person with GAS does not enjoy collecting; they do end up collecting, but it's a side effect.

[prmoustache]

> Nobody thinks of stamp collecting as a problematic hobby.

I do. About any collecting hobby. I view that more as an addiction than a hobby tbh.

[omnibrain]

> but I think one should just embrace it and say “my hobby is collecting guitar gear

That's something I noticed with a lot of people in my circle and 3d printers. They don't 3d print for their hobby. Most of them have 3d printing or even 3d printers as their hobby.

[drewzero1]

For a long time I was baffled by the seemingly unnecessary gizmos that are popular 3d print subjects, because to me 3d printing was just a means to an end. Eventually I realized that the printing itself is a hobby for a lot of printer people.

Personally I like to use my printer to enable my other hobbies, but along the way I've picked up 3d design and printing as secondary hobbies.

[drivers99]

I designed a custom shape for something I needed for another hobby (holding a first-surface mirror at 45 degrees so I could try to learn to paint by copying) and that was really satisfying to learn 3d modeling and making a real object. I should probably do more things like that, such as making a robot or something.

[bluGill]

I have realized I already have more hobbies than i have time for. I do need parts to repair my other hobbies, I might get a 3d printer for that, but i'm thinking about using some printing service to make parts for me instead

[marcosdumay]

A good 3D printer isn't a very large time-sink.

But it's only worth it if you have a reasonable number of those parts, or if lead-time is important. For most people designing stuff, led-time is essential, but not everybody that want some specific part designs it.

[prmoustache]

It is not cost effective to buy a 3d printer if you 3d print only when you actually need a 3d printed part. That is the main reason. You buy/build a 3d printer only if you want to tinker with them. Otherwise you just commission someone to do it or use the local fablab.

[LanceH]

I don't know. I spent a couple years printing some parts at our library's maker space. The feedback loop is very, very slow.

Having a 3d printer now, I can get a half dozen iterations on something done in a day and compared to a single iteration per day from the library. So if you're designing your own parts and can't draw them perfectly first go, having the printer is huge.

Replacement battery covers for remote controls. If I value those at $200 each, I've broken even.

[randomdata]

> It is not cost effective to buy a 3d printer [...] just commission someone to do it

If you are lucky enough to have a neighbour to do the commissioning, maybe, but otherwise shipping has gotten so expensive (at least in these parts), and 3D printers so cheap, that a getting few design iterations in your hands will practically buy you the printer.

[benj111]

My journey into Linux was like this.

I decided to install arch once. Didn't have any issues per se, but spent far too much time going through all the window manager options, file browser options etc etc etc.

I eventually decided that I needed an os to do stuff, not be the stuff to do.

[epiccoleman]

This mirrors my experience with emacs. I enjoyed tinkering with it but found I'd lose 30 minutes every time I thought "I bet I can make it do..."

Nowadays I'm using Code with the Vim plugin and I haven't tinkered with my config for quite some time.

Emacs is infinitely more powerful - but with Code I was able to set it up once and be done, and there's value in that too.

[omnibrain]

That (and the at the time, in my personal opinion, superior to anything else Office 2010 with the improved tabbed interface) was the reason I went back to Windows. Nowadays most of the time I don't even bother to change the color scheme an set a background image.

I just recently started to customise my Powershell profile. Let's see where this leads...

[benj111]

I'm still on Linux.

I just use a premade Debian rather that selecting every single tiny piece.

If I need to change things I can, I just don't feel I have to change everything.

[crashmat]

I think it depends on whether you can do stuff in the os even if it is not yet set up exactly perfectly. If so, then you can do stuff when you need to, and play with the os when you want to. But obviously some will be too distracted from doing anything such that that's still a bad idea.

[LanceH]

I just bought my first 3d printer a couple weeks ago. It was so tempting to pull up the benchmark and see what I could do. Instead I sat down, drafted something I wanted to make, and made. So my first print is something that sees daily use.

My woodworking setup for my garage, however. Someday it will see use other than for organizing my woodworking setup in my garage. I just need that one more tool. And to build a place to put it.

[eternityforest]

But first, one should ask if the hobby is actually fun without the imagined success(Even if the imagined success is just an excuse for the hobby! Nobody said psychology always makes sense!).

I used to do a lot of DIY software when I first got started, that I now deeply question the value of. I think without the imaginary payoffs, I would have only done about a quarter of it for fun. I don't use any of that code now, nor do I write anything similar on a regular basis, and my entire approach to coding is completely different, so it kind of feels like I was throwing time and money away.

[klabb3]

> But first, one should ask if the hobby is actually fun without the imagined success

I have a similar litmus test: assuming you’re going to fail, how do you want to spend your time?

[blechinger]

Waste is part of life. Especially waste as a byproduct of good faith attempts. Is it better to avoid creating waste? Yes, however; perfection is the enemy of progress, no one is clairvoyant, and best is conditional anyway.

My point is: you didn't do anything wrong. The mere fact you're thinking about it reveals you've grown wiser for the experience. Kudos, friend. Thanks for sharing.

[actionfromafar]

At least you probably learned how to do something.

[starcraft2wol]

Some of us like to program

[eternityforest]

Programming random small toy stuff that catches your interest is fun, as is making something you really believe is useful.

But when you design a project I a way that's not appropriate for your resources, and it becomes an overwhelming pile of bugs, because you tried to do something really complex and reinvent 20 different wheels, it's less fun, unless you can polish it up to be like what you imagined, but that could take years depending on how crazy your idea was.

[pimlottc]

I read somewhere once that for every community of hobbyists, there's 4 main types of activities enthusiasts engage in:

1. Doing the thing

2. Talking about doing the thing

3. Getting into the gear for doing the thing (collecting, building, customizing)

4. Talking about the gear for doing the thing

Very often, the first group is the smallest!

[swayvil]

There's a higher evolution of this seen in certain religious circles. Where any mention of "doing the thing" is reviled, called "impossible", "sinful" even. Any discussion of technique banned from the conversation.

So what they do is the other 3, and wait for a random bolt of lightning, or a favorable judgment from the inscrutable supreme authority, or even declare that the "doing" is in fact the "talking etc".

It's an interesting bit of psychology for sure.

[bigbluesax]

That's an interesting way of looking at it, it's not just different from person to person but also from hobby to hobby. For me climbing is mainly about 1, but on reflection I defnitely spend more time talking about competative games than actually playing. I can also think of a few people who have hobbies that focus around 3 and 4.

[thih9]

For many people reframing GAS as collecting wouldn't work. As stated in the quoted part of the article, people affected by GAS often expect that their new purchase will make them better at their hobby. This usually doesn't happen, or is not that significant - and so the search for a new piece of gear begins. Again, expanding the collection is not the goal, it's a compulsive side effect.

[verve_rat]

You see this a bit with hand tool woodworking. Some people will restore old tools (hand planes are a popular choice) and sell them on, some will keep then and claim they will use them some day, and others give up on making things and just collect the tools.

All of the above is fine, learning the history of and techniques in restoring things is cool.

[saalweachter]

There's a bit of The Toolmaker's Dilemma in both woodworking and programming.

You can work on a project, or you can work on a tool to make that project easier. A work-station, a jig, a library, a pod orchestration framework. Sometimes the new thing you've made will make the target project easier; sometimes you go down a rabbit hole and forget the project you were supposed to be working on as you start designing a new language to write a library in to write a database with that would suit your new project a lot better than SQLite.

Open any wood-working magazine, and half the projects are workbenches and shop organization.

[slowmovintarget]

Every time a bell rings, another programmer has written an editor.

[drewzero1]

I occasionally pick up old hand tools at rummage sales, estate sales, etc. just because I like the look of them, but have found that I enjoy cleaning up and using them too. I have an old cherrywood level that is a decoration in the house, but when I need to hang a shelf or a picture it's very handy to have a perfectly good level hiding in plain sight.

I always thought old hand tools were kind of crap to use though until I cleaned up an old block plane and sharpened the blade. With a sharpened blade it made incredibly satisfying curls of wood on my next woodworking project, where I would have normally used my loud and unpleasant belt sander. I think I get it now why some people really love collecting old tools.

[Almondsetat]

> one should just embrace it and say “my hobby is collecting guitar gear, and my niche is things that Jimi Hendrix used or things that make sounds like he did”

GAS is a form of delusion. You are asking people to “just” self-recognize and somehow self-fix their deeply rooted psychological problems.

[wodenokoto]

I think I'm saying that collecting stuff isn't a deeply rooted psychological problem.

[Someone]

I think it’s deeply rooted, but only a problem because we live such safe lives.

It started as a deeply rooted necessity. If you want to get through a winter that you don’t know the severity of, you better have above-average stocks of food and wood, plus stuff to repair your home if a severe storm strikes, plus extra winter clothing in case the winter is truly severe or your house burns down, and you’ve got to flee to your family, a few days walking away.

[gilleain]

True, but the problem is not the collecting. It's that people want to 'succeed' at some hobby, and are blaming the lack of gear for not achieving some particular goal or level of success (however they define it).

To re-imagine the situation, they would have to give up the original goal of the hobby.

[Paul-Craft]

Funny you should mention "succeeding" at a hobby. I collect coins. There are 2 major companies that will grade and encapsulate coins in clear, tamper-evident, sealed polycarbonate holders that have labels inside them with bar codes and serial numbers and all that jazz.

Both of those companies have this concept that's called a "registry set," which is where you can go on their websites and enter the serial numbers of coins you own, then create virtual sets out of those coins. You can create your own set lists, which I have no problem with, but there are also pre-made set lists the company created, which are scored according to a rarity-weighted average of the numerical grades of your coins, with a score of 0 for any missing coins. For instance, there's a Buffalo nickel registry and a wheat penny registry, and so on.

I think you can probably see where I'm going with this now. Before these companies came into existence and started publishing rankings of these sets, you couldn't really do something like say "@gilleain has the #1 ranked Buffalo Nickel set in the world," and such. Now you can, and it really annoys the piss out of me. It's not because my collection doesn't rate very highly (it doesn't, FYI), but because I think "competitive coin collecting" is bad for the hobby and only serves to make those 2 companies money.

[Almondsetat]

GAS is about simulating skills with resources.

If you want to reach the level of @gilleain you have to obtain the coins he has. Coin collecting is based entirely upon owning resources.

On the other hand let’s say that a guy collecting coins has built a very popular YouTube channel about numismatics. He has his own collection and talks about it. You are envious of his success and you want to become just as popular as him.

A person without GAS would think that in order to achieve this he would have to learn a lot about numismatics and then improve in his ability to speak and entertain.

Someone suffering from GAS would think that acquiring the guy’s collection is the solution and would blame his lack of popularity not on his skills but on his resources

[gilleain]

As it happens, my coin-collection ranking is very low. Mainly as I have none.

Totally agree that this 'gamification' of collecting is an unpleasant way to monetise something that is otherwise quite a chill pursuit.

From the companies point of view, of course, it means collectors are more likely to try and 'finish' collections. Like how some card collections (I think?) would have books that you would put your cards in, which gives an endpoint to achieve.

edit: I lie, I do technically have a single coin I suppose. A 1918 silver 'threepenny bit' (3p coin) from a Christmas Pudding. King George V's head on it. Forgot it was in my wallet.

[Almondsetat]

GAS is not just collecting, it’s collecting under a specific delusion

[Cthulhu_]

To add, the gear mentioned in hobbies like this will often hold its value; they're well built tools, often not mass produced, and well looked after.

Source: I wanted a set of the Volca electronic instruments, but the secondhand market was not significantly cheaper than new.

[jcpst]

GAS is often a side-effect of developing certain hobbies in a consumer-centric environment.

I feel like myself and my friends are aware of this.

GAS is the syndrome, and we talk about it to help keep ourselves in check and not lose sight of what we’re actually doing.

[ano-ther]

That’s a creative re-framing.

Sadly, the realization that you are not going to be a rockstar but a gear collector is likely to trigger a midlife crisis.