Wannabe Activities That Masquerade As Hobbies

One of the prevalent traits of urbanisation is the upsurge of wannabe behaviour & attitudes. Wannabes are people who do and say things for the sole purpose of fitting in or seeming cool. While I have no problem with the activities or the words themselves, the obvious fakeness of their endeavours really gets my goat. These are not hobbies.

• Food – Only the most basic need of every living creature. What makes this one suspect is that the average ‘foodie’s taste doesn’t go beyond mummy’s food, perennial street food favourites like panipuri & unanimously popular restaurants. Everyone enjoys a good biryani, panipuri, steak or pasta. What sets you apart from the entire human race?
• Travel– I still can’t understand what makes people count this as a hobby. Travel means going to a different place. If it’s not at work, it means you’re on vacation. Find me one person who doesn’t enjoy that. Again, what sets you apart from every schoolkid, corporate whore, rat race junkie?

Photography – This one is misleading. On the surface of it, it looks & sounds like a real hobby and an artistic one at that. Indeed, a decade ago, it would have been considered a respectable interest to have. But in this day & age of digicams, phone cameras and point-and-shoots which you can all but have sex with….what’s that mammoth clicker for, but to show off? What gets me is when people pull out foot-long lenses to photograph a plate of food right in front of them. Weren’t those created to be able to shoot dangerous animals in their habitat, in the perfectly civil role of a wildlife enthusiast?

Cause Crusading – Animal rights. Corruption. Energy saving. Endangered species. Clicking ‘Like’ on a Facebook Page called ‘Let’s vote for (whatever cause)’ does not further the cause. Forwarding an SMS about said cause to everyone in your address book is spam, not crusading. Wearing a tee-shirt with a cause-ey byline helps fund the marketer’s brand, not aid a cause. If you really care about the cause, give something of yourself, starting with time spent finding out exactly what you’re campaigning and what the problem is. I don’t think half the people who wore Gandhi hats & liked/forward the Anna Hazare campaign even knew what Lokpal was.

I call this ‘The Glee Club of Hobbies’. You don’t have to have a talent or skill. You don’t need to know much about anything. And you don’t even need to spend the kind of time & energy that it takes to familiarize & become good at most other hobbies. These are things that everybody does.

I’m just mystified by why they’re suddenly cool. Everywhere around me, I see & hear people talking about one of these as their passions. These get put on resumes, listed on Twitter profiles & linked to on Facebook.

I suspect it’s just the pressure to show that one has a meaningful, full life, complete with hobbies that absorb & enrich one. Gah, wannabedom, your worshippers will even fake what gets them off.