The hobby Is content, not the craft
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Remember when hobbies were messy, private, and deeply personal? When painting meant splattering colours on a canvas just to feel the brush move, or when journaling was about scribbling down thoughts that no one else would ever read? Those days feel like relics of a pre-digital era.
Today, hobbies are no longer hobbies—they are content pipelines. The joy of the craft has been overshadowed by the pressure of the camera.
Cooking isn’t about experimenting with flavours anymore; it’s about plating food in perfect symmetry for an Instagram story. Gardening isn’t about watching a seed sprout—it’s about catching the golden-hour shot of a blooming flower. Even learning to play guitar has shifted from strumming for yourself to recording the right 30-second reel that might trend. The act is no longer enough; the performance is the point.
Social media has quietly transformed leisure into labour. What was once relaxation has become presentation. Activities that once offered escape from productivity culture are now bound by it. Every hobby risks becoming a side hustle, every sketch a “portfolio piece,” every jog a “tracked run” for the likes.
The implicit question lingers: if it isn’t shared, does it even count?
This transformation runs deeper than vanity. At its core, it is about validation. Our digital world rewards visibility, not sincerity.
A person may spend hours in quiet satisfaction crafting a clay pot, but that will never earn the dopamine hit of a hundred hearts on TikTok. The attention economy has rewired motivation itself—why knit quietly when you can record a timelapse and caption it “Self-care Sunday”?
Of course, documenting hobbies isn’t inherently wrong. For some, it sparks creativity and builds communities around shared passions. But the line between expression and performance has blurred dangerously.
Hobbies were once a refuge from judgment, a place to fail safely. Now, the pressure to appear productive, skilled, and “aesthetic” strips away that freedom. What was once imperfect but joyful becomes curated, rehearsed, and exhausting.
The tragedy is subtle but profound: we are losing the art of doing things simply for ourselves - and for the pleasure of indulging in it.
Private joy is being replaced by public proof.
The world doesn’t need to see every poem, every dish, every sketch. Sometimes the most radical act of leisure is to create quietly, away from the lens.
A hobby that feeds only the feed will never feed you back.
