After months of listening to my dad talk about fishing, I finally told him: Dude, I get that this is good for you, but damned if it does anything for me. I don't wanna yuck your yum here, but if you were serious about catching fish, you'd use a fucking net not a pole and do it one at a time (hopefully). Getting me a fishing pole for graduation is like me buying you an Xbox for Christmas. Thank you, but the real winner here is you. Fishing is cool, but if I hear one more word about a secret fishing hole, I am going to face fuck Aquaman to death. Focus: What subculture truly, deeply baffles you? For me, it's vegans. There's TONS of things I don't eat. Why are you special? Alt Focus: Whats your favorite subculture?
My dad is super into HAM radios. I'm talking, "install a 100+ foot antenna in the back yard" into it. He always has been. I had a discussion with him about it recently and he asked me why I dont seem to like it when I seemed to be when I was younger. I had to break it to him that I never gave a shit about it and that it was more about spending time with him than anything. Its certainly a very niche subculture, especially today. Apropos, on the reddit thread that Im assuming this was inspired from, the top response was "bug chasing." Bug chasing meaning gay guys that deliberately go infect themselves with HIV. I wouldnt necessary call that a subculture as much as I would call it a mental illness.
My grandpa was huge into ham radio. We found a bunch of his log books with contacts he made in the 50s. Now it's really just nutty doomsday preppers and anti government folk. I don't get fine wine connoisseurs. I have an appreciation for the craft, and it gets you drun, but people get so into it its nutty. One of my buddies is a wine rep and he lets me pour at various tastings. People want to know the exact valley. This all goes without saying the crowds at these can be insufferable.
I have never developed a real appreciation for jazz. Of course there are individual songs that I like, but a typical jazz tune starts out great and is invariably interrupted by discordant notes and off beat percussion that seems to characterize so much of the genre. I can enjoy an evening at a jazz club or listening to the occasional album, but any more than that just leaves me frustrated. This is likely more of a generational thing, but Youtubers. I go on YouTube to watch something specific. I don't get following any one person, particularly when the so called content is just empty unfunny or untalented nonsense.
Watching sports. I don't hate sports, I just don't care about them. When the SF Giants won that 3rd World Series recently, my brother said the feeling was almost like one of his kids being born. Get out of here with that shit. It's a dude hitting a ball with a stick. You're watching the game at home with all your sports gear on, yelling at the TV, letting it ruin your day if "your" team loses and you're having zero effect on the game. I just can't see how people get so invested in something they have no control over.
Believe it or not, HAM radio is heavily used in times of crisis and emergency, when cell towers or phone lines are down or too crowded. For instance, 9/11 and Katrina both used HAM radios to coordinate emergency responses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_emergency_communications Full disclosure... I have my HAM license from the early 80's (high school thing), but don't currently have a radio.
And the FCC takes it very seriously too. As for the emergency response, that's 100% correct. It's one of the reasons antennas cannot be regulated by a home owners associations (in most jurisdictions). The communication relay ability is pretty remarkable.
Somehow that makes sense to me. I've heard as phones have become smarter and more modern the reception and reliability has become worse. I've also noticed in Top Gear they always have radios in their cars and I figured there was something to that
AFAIK not listening unless you intercept some really outlying government frequency. But for transmitting you need to stay within the amateur band/frequencies. You also can't use a HAM to transmit on CB frequencies and vice/versa. A lot of truckers fuck with their CBs to do so though.
You can listen on any frequency without issue, but you're greatly limited by the frequencies and power that you can transmit. For instance, your simple radio (cb or gprs) is severely limited in power. HAM radio can go around the world so is hugely regulated so you don't get a bunch of yahoos cluttering everything up.
I don't get NASCAR. I understand why you go to NASCAR events, because it's basically an anything-goes party containing the population of a medium-sized city. I don't understand why you WATCH the sport of NASCAR. The only time it is entertaining is when a car is travelling 180 mph on its roof before going into low-earth orbit. Other than that it's Parcheesi. I dated a woman in the 90s who loved it. I shut up and pretended I did too because I was 19, she was five years older and really, really hot. ...But I could NOT get into it, or even not fall asleep watching it. Wake me up when Jayce Fickle or whoever gets annihilated and chain reaction-wipes out half the field.
Jazz is HORRIBLE background music. You either have to actively watch and appreciate musicianship, otherwise its terrible. And I'm far more pop culture and social media trend savvy than a lot of others my age, but I don't get YouTube personalities and Vlogs. Guys that do stuff like reviews or travel videos I get, but just random daily videos about your day? Fuck right out of here, its bizarre to me. See the funny thing is there is a lot of interesting strategy and precision to NASCAR. Fuel usage and tire wear. Waiting often long periods of time to set drivers in front of you up for passes and moves. Understanding the habits and tendencies of drivers and teams as it pertains to the former. HOWEVER, 90% of fans have no interest or understanding in that. Its just DRIVE FASTER JUNIOR. Ive been to Indy car races and NASCAR races and the differences in knowledge and interest of the casual fan is pretty noticeable.
I enjoy watching NBA, MLB, and most forms of fighting, but I usually don't care who wins. It is much more important to me to see a well fought competition by both sides than to know the end result. I also hate when people say "we" in place of their favorite team's name. Sorry, but "we" did not win anything. I'll add British humor. It's not that I think that it's objectively bad; I just don't get it.
I've never really liked the blues. I grew up in BB King's hometown where everyone plays the blues so I don't know if I'm just burned out or I don't like it. I appreciate the influence it has had on all genres of music that I enjoy but I've never been able to get into it. Hell every town around has a blues festival that I attend but that is only for the party. I've been fortunate to see many of the old time greats play live but to me its just an o well thing.
Can we do an alt-focus about subcultures you love? Because this is very timely with something I'm trying to do currently. I have had this weird lifelong love of people who keep pigeons in New York. I know exactly where it starts too - a combination of loving the song "Sally's Pigeons" by Cyndi Lauper as a kid (which I didn't realize involved an abortion until I listened to it again this week) and an episode of Hey Arnold about their local pigeon man. It's also tied to this era of the city's history that I've always loved and seek out any remnants of, and since the coops are kept on the roof I love the idea of this whole secret world up there. And I just so enjoy how the few left who do it are pretty much solely old gruff Puerto Ricans and Italians or young guys with, like, face tattoos who used to be gangsters and somewhere along the line took a hard left and ended up being very passionate about taking care of pigeons instead. A couple artists work with pigeons too, and last year there was this piece where a guy trained a huge flock of pigeons that he kept on a boat in the East River and they all had little lights tied to their legs and the show would happen right after sunset when they'd all be released and slightly choreographed as they flew around the sky and it was ridiculously beautiful and magical and I can totally see how someone could get completely hooked on it (even when they're not twinkling). I'm writing something where I'm trying to find someone who keeps pigeons that will let me visit their coop and do a little interview. I've gotten in touch with the nearest American Pigeon Racing Club who's given me the number of their top guy in Brooklyn, and I'm going to call the one store left that sells pigeon-keeping supplies to see if they can put me in touch with anyone. And if all else fails, I know a guy who says he can see a couple coops on rooftops from his studio so I'm just going to wander around that block until I find some people playing dominos who can direct me. I have been getting SO EXCITED about hopefully finally getting to see one and learn more about it. Spoiler just a picture that I like from the sparkly pigeon show, the last couple dozen emerging from the coop
I knew an older gentlemen who had retired from the Army and taken up cabinet making. He was phenomenal. He built various cabinets for me at a couple different houses, and to many people I recommended. He was working on a really cool bookcase for me and I went over to his shop to look at something. His wife said he was out back with the pigeons. I met him in the back yard, and he was all, "oh, yeah, I raise fancy pigeons." I just snickered, because I thought it was a joke and he was just using "fancy" as a sarcastic adjective. Nope. Fancy pigeons, with feathers on their legs and feet. "But Rush," you're saying, "if they have feathers on their feet and walk around in the coop, won't they get bird poop all over their feet and then smell terrible?" My answer is, "yes. Yes they would." I don't know how many abortions they had, though. Isn't Mike Tyson a big pigeon guy? Spoiler: Fancy!