we've commodified the hobby

Letterboxd, Strava, Goodreads, Obscurify.. we keep track of nearly everything we read, watch, or do. hobbies have turned into accomplishments. how do we return to the essence of the hobby?

i recently watched ‘sleepless in seattle’ for the first time with one of my good friends. as a lot of people on substack, i, too, have fallen victim to the meg ryan fall movie craze. so after roughly 90 minutes of pure autumn-induced bliss (and wondering ‘how does her hair look like that?’), the credits start rolling. my friend and i simultaneously reach for our phones. ‘how many stars are you going to give this one?’ i ask him, and we discuss our nuanced takes on hanks’ portrayal of a single dad as we both open the letterboxd app to log the film into our diaries. i notice it’s only the first movie i’ve watched this month, and feel a bit disappointed. as a true enjoyer of culture, am i not supposed to watch more movies? i feel i’m lagging behind a little, and i simultaneously see my friend has watched a lot more movies than me already. it makes me feel like i’m doing something wrong somehow.

it seems redundant to state there’s no wrong way to watch movies. through external comparison, i let something silly like the amount of movies i watch take away from the enjoyment of the act. simultaneously, i find myself wanting to log every movie i watch, broadcasting my participation in media culture to the world. but this reaches beyond the confines of letterboxd: these days, i’ve found myself tracking my books, my runs, even what albums i listen to (and, in turn, contemplating how ‘generic’ my music taste is). the culture i participate in has turned into something i deliberately show off to the world. and i find myself wanting to. i can proudly declare i’ve watched x amount of movies, read x amount of books, which in return contains its own value judgment.

there’s an inherently social element to apps like letterboxd, goodreads or strava. you can add your friends, see what they’re watching or reading, and interact with each other. these types of apps hugely increased in popularity during the covid-19 pandemic and constituted essential ways for us to connect and stay in touch with each other when we weren’t allowed to meet in person. when we were forced to stay outside, platforms that helped combine our hobbies and interests with our pre-existing social lives formed critical connections to outside world. while letterboxd only had 1.8 million users in march 2020, it quickly grew to be a huge platform, and it had 14 million active users in june of this year. and these types of mediatised tracking apps are still growing in popularity. we can’t seem to get enough of letting our friends know what books we’re reading and what movies we’re watching. and while it’s fun to collectively participate in a cultural niche it, through comparison, indirectly births the notion that there is a right and best way to practice a certain hobby.

every year, i set my goodreads reading goal: for this year, i aimed to read at least 30 books. although i think the concept of the reading goal in itself is harmless, and solely meant to gently motivate people to pick up a book more often, it turns finishing a book into an accomplishment. a book is now meant to be finished first, and enjoyed second. the focus shifts from the inherent act of reading to the act of finishing said book. as a result, it feels like our hobbies have turned into things we can accomplish, or grow good at, if only we practice them well enough. i feel this sets the benchmark for being a ‘good’ reader at a numerical standard. additionally, the practice of our hobbies is validated through the presence of an online audience inherent to culture consumption apps. and although i do think it’s fun to share our hobbies with friends, i also feel it indirectly triggers social comparison.

membership of mediatised tracking apps also results in the overwhelming urge to log everything. a book hasn’t been read if it hasn’t been uploaded to goodreads. if you’re a runner, you didn’t really run until you uploaded it to strava and supplied your followers with a not-too-short-not-too-long description of your run. i once logged my walk home from a club in greece, to ‘get in some mileage’. i realize now, that sounds insane. but as the end of the year approaches, people will soon upload their spotify wrapped to instagram, and we’ll see our friends boast about the amount of minutes they spent listening to music. our consumption of culture is something we can add to the list of things that serve as a public display of just how well we’re doing at life. aren’t we sucking all the fun out of the things we’re meant to do for sheer enjoyment, by turning it into markers of success?

more generally, the rise of tracking apps fits into a larger pattern of culture mediatisation. with the increase of online media dependency, and larger parts of our lives taking place online, companies have found ways to turn those few activities still taking place in the physical, private sphere into a shared, social, online, and often profitable venture. the hobby has turned into a commodified product: media movements and subcultures like booktok form crucial business ventures for publishers and authors. additionally, research has suggested that social media platforms bring about the performance of particular cultural identities. for example, the performance of ‘bookishness’ manifests itself as someone valuing reading, integrating it as an essential part of their lives, and preferring print over e-books. this performance of identity, in turn, feeds into the idea that there is a ‘correct’ way we should be practicing our hobbies.

the free time we have has now become time we spend completing the ‘task’ of watching a movie, and reading a book. our free time spent consuming culture is no longer private, and we are expected to share it with the world. consequently, we’re being judged on how well we do that. relaxing, enjoying, watching a movie or reading a book. the frequency at which we manage to watch or read something turns into a trackable feature that communicates how good we are at our hobbies. It’s almost like a status symbol, something you get to show off. I am a prisoner in the panopticon of online media and i can’t give my honest opinion on the lego movie-franchise, for fear of public judgment and scrutiny. instead, i sit through two hours of Fight Club as that’s a piece of Actual Good Cool Media. i think the panoptical element, in this case, is unavoidable. you are subconsciously made to evaluate how you go about practicing a hobby, or watching a movie, through your exposure to the cultural experience of others. as a result, i feel like i’ve subconsciously taught myself that there is a right, cool, good way to go about something silly like watching a movie. there isn’t.

so, i’m definitely guilty of mediatising my interests as well. it fills me with a sense of accomplishment when i watch a movie and, immediately upon finishing, tell my 15 trusty letterboxd followers my exact thoughts on it. but why? if hobbies become things we commodify through these tracking apps, are we really doing things for the inherent enjoyment of the act? or do we chase that feeling of fulfilment we get after we feel we’ve finished or accomplished something? do we do it to show off to our friends that are also using the same apps? it’s difficult to return to the inherent enjoyment of practicing a hobby, while letting go of the sense of fulfilment we get when we log a movie, a book or a run, where we feel we’re striking something off.

now, i’m trying to shift my focus from the amount of media i consume, to how i go about doing so. i’m busy, and when i’m reading or watching a movie in my free time i don’t want to think about the way it adds to my cultural repertoire, or whether it’s helping me reach my goodreads reading goal. i’m trying to return to the inherent enjoyment of the act through a deliberate appreciation of the piece of media. although i catch myself wanting to come across as someone cultured, worldly and educated, i don’t want it to be forced—nor do i want it to come at the cost off my own enjoyment. culture is best enjoyed when you learn what suits your own taste, rather than when you go along with whatever is deemed ‘cool’ or ‘popular’ at that point in time. and i won’t delete my goodreads or letterboxd account; the joy it brings me to share my silly thoughts on movies or books is simply too big. however, i aim to be more mindful of why i consume media: i no longer want to participate in the carousel of cultural performance that sometimes made me feel like i couldn’t classify myself as a reader or a movie-watcher, simply because i wasn’t passionate enough about it (or because i wasn’t reading or watching enough). hobbies are meant to be enjoyed and shouldn’t be treated as a task to check off your to-do list. and while i ended up liking fight club, the lego movie is something i feel infinitely more passionate about.