Other "Weird" Hobbies?

I collect clown figurines. My room is extremely cursed to everybody except me I have a habit of finding creepy things SUPER CUTE!

 

Fountain pens and ink! Nothing super pricey, but i love writing with them and having a wide range of ink colors to write with.

 

been an avid Mecha modeller, since early-teenhood in the early/mid-1990's;

 

I raise, breed and keep insects and invertebrates as pets! Quite different when you think of something such as doll collecting, haha Millipedes, butterflies, moths, mantids and cockroaches are my forte -- I find them all just adorable ^_^ I also build garage kits in my spare time... which isn't often lol!

 

I keep bees! I was really surprised how many people were weirded out by that when I started. They're so cute!! With their fuzzy little sweaters. (Brief beekeeper digression: I live in North America and the honeybees we know and love are not native inhabitants. If you also live in North America, would like to support native pollinators, and have a little bit of outside space, consider putting out a bug hotel! Many of our pollinators are solitary. )

I think what people find the most off-putting, though, is how I feel about Furbys! Like, after seeing Moon Moon, the bjd stuff is a nonissue.


(in case of image breakage)


(in case of image breakage)

My wife and I made him together and we're currently in the process of gathering all the pieces to manifest a sibling for him.

 

Hi-Fi STEREO Analog Compact Cassette Decks, 20+ years after the technology was well and truly obsoleted.

indeed, cute dolls and cool robots weren't EVERYTHING that Japan was capable of being world-class masters at,
at least, once upon a time, anyway;

 

I collect hats, mostly vintage and I clean and restore them, which led to buying and making hat boxes, because every restored hat deserves it's own space (preserves and saves all the hard work) and that takes up lots of space. I rarely display because of light and dust and can never wear them because I have an extremely large head, so every year, sans the last cuz... I bring some to a local textile fair to display, share and talk to people about them. So that led to people bringing and giving me hats because they wanted them to be loved and go to a good home and now I have well over 200 hats restored and boxed and I don't even know how many waiting in the wings in bins. It has turned into a costly hobby, with antique silk tulle at $90 /yd., not to mention my jiffy steamer, head blocks, etc...
Any other hat restores, lovers out there?

 

@jhiggi I LOVE this! Your story really made me smile. That's something I've certainly never heard of someone doing before. How cool!!

 

I can't say whether or not my other hobbies on the side are especially weird or not, but I do have a few of them I've been putting more focus into lately.

I've been a mild figure collector for various TV series for years, although over time I've pruned the collection a bit. I've still got a few from Charmed, Teen Titans, and some animated Star Wars: Clone Wars figures (mainly Ahsoka Tano, my favorite SW character).

My current focus (and one I've been waiting on a release of since forever) has been on Avatar: the Last Airbender figures. I had a few from the old set released while the first series was airing, and also picked up a couple maquettes from Legend of Korra (my pride and joy one being of Chief Lin Beifong, Toph's elder daughter). I also managed to snag the Probending board game for Legend of Korra—which contains player pieces of both teams from the probending finale (my main goal in acquiring the set), Amon, and a few minor characters from other books (I mean—P'li, the combustion bender from book 3's in it, and I have no clue why...).

I've also got a few of the Funko releases, but now that they're releasing actual figures I've been focusing more on those instead.

So far they've released action figures of the main cast, along with a few side characters. I've picked up 2 of Toph (the general Walgreens release to unbox and a special edition release), 2 of Book 3 Zuko (same as Toph), a Book 1 Katara, Aang with glider and Momo, Avatar vs Firelord duel Book 3 finale Ozai (I'm still wondering why I picked him up—maybe it's the he's imprisoned in plastic thing), Agni Kai Book 3 finale Azula, Sokka (currently on order), and 2 maquettes (Book 3 Katara waterbending, and book 3 Zuko firebending (currently on preorder).

The other major hobby of focus for me lately has been aquarium fish keeping. Sure, to some degree that's not all that weird, but I've been delving further into it than just picking up a few pretty fish and putting them in with some fake plants and colorful gravel. I've been going in full-on—special gravel for planting, live plants, driftwood and rocks, and a bizarre variety of aquatic life. I had a dwarf aquatic frog (whom I recently lost to some kind of bloating disease unfortunately), and I've dabbled with some shrimp and snails. I've also been keeping a range of gobies, gouramis (currently have a sparkling, and hope to get a dwarf once my larger tank is set up), bettas, rasboras, garras, and loaches. The loaches (Kuhlis specifically) are my favorite little oddballs; they look like eels and catfish shoved together into one fish, and they are hilarious to watch swimming all over the tank when they get into a tangent. I eventually would like to possibly get some danios, tetras, and corydoras once my larger tank's been fully cycled.

Those are my big weird hobbies that I'm currently into—unless collecting screenshots and video of playthroughs of Star Wars the Old Republic counts

 

my mom kept a pair of fish tanks throughout my childhood.
she drug me often to a pair of aquarists' shops she frequented
for her pH chemicals and other necessities.

one of my uncles was into it as well at the time,
and when my mom got out of the hobby around the onset of the 1990's,
-due to the demands of our life at the time- she sold her entire setup to him.
-hundreds of dollars worth, if not over $1000-

at the turn of the millennium, finally back within a stable household model,
she got back into it, this time with a single, more modest tank.

alas, her life again went south in the mid-2000's, and, once again, she was forced to part
with her complete rebuilt setup.

she hasn't returned to it since, -understandably enough- and it does not seem as if she ever will.
life just seems to get a general bug up it's craw at some people, it seems...

 

I wear lolita fashion? That's not too far a stretch from playing with dolls, I think... But it is another luxury hobby

 

I'm like a magpie. I collect anything that catches my eye; stickers, swords, hoppechans, fantasy outfits etc. The "weirdest" thing I probably do is taxidermy, but that's because I'm a biology major and help out with specimens at the museum.

 

I make jewelry. Like, metalsmithing jewelry, self-taught. I have a bench, several torches and lots of tools. I really enjoy it but haven't been able to do it in the past 7 weeks because I'm still recovering from surgery. I enjoy working with silver the most (sterling and argentium), but I also work with copper, brass and bronze. I occasionally work with PMC, but that's a hassle because I have to lug my kiln in from the garage and set it up so pffft.

 

My "hobby" is so typical! This year I got into TTRPGs and am playing way too many and running two games! I've also spent too much on RPG books.

 

As far as collecting, the only other thing I collect is idol CDs and merch. I don't even actively collect anymore really, not since I started losing interest in my main focus Hello!Project (and Morning Musume primarily). I still quite like my collection though, and it's not yet finished to the extent I'd like it to be! (one day I'll own every single my kamioshi participated in... maybe )

Outside of collecting, my other main hobby, maybe it doesn't seem so weird but it's something that gets a lot of quizzical looks and "oh..."s when I mention it lol. I'm a comic artist! Graphic novel artist, I should say, since the vast majority of people think I draw newspaper comic strips when I say so, as opposed to something serious with an overarching storyline. A hobby only, since I haven't been published, though that's something I'd love to aim for one day. I need to stop being overly critical of my own work though, and failing that, I need to at least have something completed that I can pitch lol. Easier said than done though, considering I have a three year old haha.

 

@Tasuke one of my fonder childhood memories is popping a Bangles cassette into a tape deck just like that first one and dancing around the living room. I still have the huge high quality speakers we had it hooked to; they're downstairs in my grown up home now. Thanks for bringing back that memory, it made me smile.

 

IDK if it's weird, but...I love antique, vintage machinery that does not use electricity or electronics. I don't want to spend a lot of money for it though, it's more like if I see something nice at a market, I will try to get it and if possible, try to get it to work again.

My proud collection include old cameras (none of them work, but it's just nice to have them) an old phone in which you still have to turn the disk to compose the number (and that won't work because it's not a landline anymore, haha), a gramophone (a gift from my father, it works, but doesn't sound regular), several mechanical watches (one that I use, a gift from my mother), some music boxes, and two Singer sewing machines (both functional, I am currently using them for dressing my crew. XD).

I definitely keep an eye out for it everytime I go out. XD

 

im also a kpop stan!

 

FFVII - not weird except I've never actually played the game. I don't even own a game system. I became a fan while watching my nephew play. Then I got a copy of Advent Children and became obsessed.
I love anything to do with the ffvii world.
I have folders full of screenshots of the characters. Maps and images of the world, plus saved files of all the cut scenes. It's all research for fan fiction. I write fan fiction involving the ffvii characters and their world for my own enjoyment. I also have a huge crush on Reno
Crazy old lady here lol

 

I don't think my other hobbies are weird, but my other collecting hobbies are collecting kpop, kdramas blu-rays, and stuffed toys. I used to collect stickers because it's inexpensive and cute, but I think I lost my sticker book or someone threw it out. I used to collect planners.

I forgot I used to collect random pieces of papers like pamphlets and paper bags if they were useful information or pretty designs. I think that is sort of weird now that I think back to it. It would get to be so much stacks of papers that it was stressful that i ended up recycling it every year.

I almost started collecting legos, but gave up on it pretty fast. I collected funkos for a few years because they were always on sale, but I got sick of it. I didn't really like the look of it. I just wanted something to collect that was relating to pop culture shows I liked. I'm glad I gave up on funkos. It wasn't fun anymore.

I collected monster high dolls for a few years and pullips. I think I collected 3 pullips then decided it wasn't for me.

Then I got interested in licca-Chan and Kikipop dolls, but I'm fine collecting only 1 or 2 of these dolls. I think I kept going back and forth with what I collected because I really just wanted a ball jointed doll and enter the bjd hobby.

I wanted to collect these Korean dolls called ddung, but I couldn't find them easily so passed on collecting on them.

I just realized most of my hobbies is collecting items.

 

Add me another weird one: Snakes.
I now own a Black African House Snake, and spend a lot of time learning about reptile keeping.

 

I larp, which is apparently weird to people? I don't really think it's that much odder then improv theater or ttrpgs, but to each their own I guess. It does lead to some interesting dilemmas, like "hmmm do i spend this money on a body, or dishware I can throw at people?"

 

I don't think of it as weird, but I collect pretty rocks (crystals and gemstones). I have done so since I was a small child and my father bought them for me. I have a large bowl beside me on my desk as well as towers and others scattered along my bookcases. I love looking at the patterns and colours in them and thinking of their age just leaves me in awe. My favourites are labradorite, moonstone, azurite, malachite, boulder opals, rutilated quartz and the list could go on forever.

 

I already posted about my FFVII obsession, but I do have other actual hobbies. I love kitchen items from the 1940s and 50s. At one time I had a large collection of vintage syrup pitchers. I loved the colorful plastic tops. I sadly had everything stolen when I was in the process of moving 12 years ago. But I would love to revive my collection someday.

 

YOU HAVE A HOARD OF GEMS!! LIKE A DRAGON!! OOhhhhhh I wanna try this. I do have a couple neat specimens. Labradorite is my favorite too. Small bits like this are such a great way to have a big collection in a little space!

 

Do it fellow dragon/rock geek! I love having the bowl next to me on the desk. It is very relaxing to pick up a nice crystal to hold whenever I feel like it. Now I feel the need to take a pic of my darkhorn dragon sitting on them

 

What is weird? I legit have no idea. I too am a dragon/magpie with rocks, shiny things (museum gift shops are really good for there), books (esp illustrated fairy tale, fantasy, craft) blankets, stuffed animals and cardigans stashed around my space. I have fountain pens, though not as much as my brother, who is a true connoisseur. Office supply collection and pretty notebooks.
Fanfiction?
Art is normal, and crafts, I do a lot of that. And reno on my house, power tools are happy making.
Are medical appointments a hobby? lol
I belong to a fiber arts guild? Is that weird? I first went to learn how to knit, now I'm getting dye lab instruction, have a spinning wheel (fairy tale style) and will be learning to weave tapestries this year. It is awesome!! One of the members is very into antique dolls and repaired my grandmother's for me and invited me to the local doll club, they also make miniatures together! I am on my first miniature kit. Another member invited me to the local button club (I have a hoard of these too, I keep them in my hoard of jars). I have found my people.
Just read more, I love vintage hats, though most of mine are ones my grandmother made. I have some from thrift stores and a couple that were my bestie's grandmother's.
I do have some lolita dresses, although I bought most over a decade ago and I want some more in a different color palette now.

 

I have a massive collection of Pokémon plushies and figures from all over the world

 

Interesting thread topic!

 

i guess one might argue that Plastic Scale-Modelling is a bit quaint/offbeat of a hobby to have in this advanced, futuristic age...

 

Weird hobbies .... erm where to start .... As i've said before I'm a huge ice skating fan especially of Yuzuru Hanyu (going to competitions/collecting merch) and my family and friends think I'm nuts. Also I've got a rather large collection of absolutely devine Japanese Kimono, Juban and haori .... which in UK is unusual I guess. What with BJD plus a liking for BTS at my age and they are ready to wheel me into a home.

PS I always wanted to grow old disgracefully.

 

Before the pandemic I was learning church bell ringing. Haven’t got back into it yet though! Also previously tried to learn to play the Northumbrian small pipes (a type of bagpipes)...

 

Oh I'm into journalling too but I do write in them. Plus use lots of stickers.

 

Besides wearing lolita fashion (the most outwardly weird hobby) and doll collecting (maybe the most privately weird?), a lot of my other hobbies aren't especially out there. The combined effect of it all tends to garner comments: vintage fashion, early music, fountain pens, perfumes, rose gardening, vegan cooking, antique collecting, reading about and researching the ancient and medieval worlds and religions, gaming (Sims, Civ, Crusader Kings, various RPGs). I played the Renaissance Lute briefly, but it was untenable due to tendon damage in both my arms.

 

The weirdest hobby I have outside doll customizing would probably be writing/ reading fanfic. I've also written a couple of academic papers on the topic, which my professors definitely thought was odd (but persuasive so I win). I also enjoy historical costuming and lolita fashion, but people seem to react better towards those than to fanfiction for some reason. And I like playing games, but have mostly given up on big titles and just play visual novels or otome games because they're more satisfying.
I also have a small collection of shiny rocks/ gems and will stop to pick up ones i think look cool while i'm outside doing entirely unrelated things. I miss when souvenir shops had those big buckets full of river rocks you could fill a pouch with lol

 

the stickers are an important part!
I find journaling helps me with a lot of very practical stuff, but the stickers really add to the stress relief aspect.

 

They certainly do. I also find the working up of the yearly, monthly and weekly pages calms me to. I think it's the concentration and repetition.

 

I’m not sure it qualifies as weird these days, but I collect a lot of anime figures.
Also, I used to collect Pullip dolls, now I collect journals, books, and sneakers (although the sneakers, I only have a small collection, because I really need to love the shoe to buy it).
I was getting into anime statues, but that would just finish destroying my wallet, so I’ve only kept it at one .

 

Probably KPOP? I like KPOP, games and anime at the same time so some people do think my interests are weird haha

 

There's definitely something meditative about getting out the stencils to set up my habit tracking. I like doing freehand doodles sometimes when I've got space I don't completely fill-- not very day requires the same amount of journaling, so on slow/routine days it's nice to just draw some little plants or such-- but for the daily/monthly spread things that should be uniform, it's so satisfying.

 

I have quite a few hobbies outside of BJD's--cosplay and anime figure/merch collecting are probably the weirdest. Although I feel like cosplay and anime are becoming a bit more mainstream nowadays...

 

Comic books. I'm a "proper" comic book geek. I can tell you all kinds of shit about the X-Men and Deadpool. Don't even get me started! I even used to RP on Tumblr as Deadpool, Cable, and Domino. Someday, Marvel will hire me, because I'm clearly a better writer than some of the hacks they hire (jk, they're all really cool).

 

I do quite a few things during my free time, including games and art-related hobbies which I would classify as mainstream, even if a bit nerdy hehe.

Probably the only truly "weird" hobby I would consider myself having (other than BJDs) would be raising/breeding praying mantids. I have a set of 3 Ghost Mantis (Phyllocrania paradoxa) at home right now. The girl is named Demona, and my two boys are Kong The Destroyer Attorney At Law (must say the full thing, every time. It is all his name xD) and....Kevin. They are awesome little bugs. Fully grown, they'll be about 2 inches long. When they first hatch they look like little black ants for camouflage, and as they molt they become more and more leaf like until they're just freaking walking dead leaves as adults. Such beautiful, so stealthy. I love all bugs, but mantids have always been my absolute favorites.

My favorite thing about ghost mantids is that, since they're trying to mimic leaves, if they notice you watching them (which they do every time, cause they have excellent sight) they'll start doing this little wiggle to mimic a leaf blowing in the wind. It's their little dance, and it's so very very cute!!! There have also been so, so many times I've completely lost track of one or the other of them in their terrariums because they just. They're freaking leaves xD

 

Breeding praying mantids sounds so cool! Is there a community for it or do you have a blog? I'd love to learn more!

 

It really is oh so very fascinating!! I definitely recommend checking it out if you're interested! :3
The forum I've gotten most of my info from is the lovely group over here: Mantidforum

 

I knit, weave, spin yarn, and dye yarn. I just bought a sheep fleece and I am washing it and it will eventually be several of the slowest made sweaters ever.

 

Is knitting considered weird still? I think it’s become more mainstream especially because of lockdown.
I am a little obsessed with the 1940’s-1960’s era but not because of the fashions or music. For music I am firmly into KPOP( which is seen as weird in itself as I’m 51). I like the items from those eras. I have a clock, an old wind up watch, 2 glass lined thermos flasks( which work better than my newer stainless steel ones), a shoe cleaning kit( the brushes are better quality), old needles for sewing… umm what else? Oh my wardrobe is from
1930 and my sewing machines are from 1895 to 1970. I’m addicted to Call The Midwife.
I also like handwriting letters with my vintage fountain pens. My oldest is from the 40’s.
That’s about it I guess.

 

Plastic Scale Models.

not really a "Weird" Hobby, so much as an Old-Fashioned/Dated one.

even so, a hobby i've nonetheless enjoyed since Childhood;

'Tis the season for the venerable ole' F-14 it seems, thanks to TOP GUN and all, i suppose.

anyhow, figured it high time i attempted to tackle a 2013 reprint of the old 1977/1987 ver.1 First Tool HASEGAWA 1/72 F-14A.

i've tried the far more complicated 1988/CURRENT "NEW TOOL" ver.2, and wile i love it's complexity and high accuracy, i DON'T love it's lack of functional Swing-Wings...












coming along about as well as my piss-poor skills with demanding old paint-and-glue plastic models will allow.

decided to be deviant, and go my own way with markings, rather than stick by any canonical book.
why not? my F-14 books show plenty of experimental/in-progress/one-off color-schemes/markings through the F-14's years in service;

 

The hobby I have which seems to be weird to people (why don't you just play them yourself? I hear a lot) is that I like watching youtubers play video games. A lot of games have such good stories and themes and visuals and characters and I suck at playing them, ok?? So, it's fun! And then I watch a bunch of analysis videos to get real deep in the lore (Silent Hill especially. Mmm, lore).

I haven't played most of my favorite games lol, just watched several other people play them. Even with games I *do* play (Undertale & Deltarune have been the only ones in the past few years) I still like watching Let's Plays for the alternate routes I didn't play.

So my weird hobby is "vicarious gaming".

 

I collect many other types of dolls, action figures, figurines, and plushies.

My biggest hobby (outside of BJDs) though is collecting and painting miniature for tabletop games, and also playing said games (including D&D, Malifaux, Star Wars Legion, Deadzone, OPR, etc.).

 

i too was into that for a brief period back in the late-90's. built-up a small collection of WARHAMMER 40K figures and vehicles,
before losing interest and focusing all the way into Mecha modelling and Anime in general from the turn-of-the-millennium onward...

 

Nice! I've got a couple of Gundams myself. What I'd really love to find though, are some model kits or figures of the Knight Sabers and their Motos from the original Bubblegum Crisis... but that's nigh on impossible the last time I really looked

 

In the last couple of years I got into historical costuming through youtube, and I sometimes wear historical clothing. (my preferred era is 1896-1914) Talk about expensive hobbies, oof. Even if I could sew, (I thought I could, turns out real clothing is just out of my scope) the proper materials can get super expensive.

 

Another magpie here
I have a lot of small, random collections - coins, rocks, first aid kits, books, playing cards and dice, tins/jars/boxes, notebooks and pens/markers, chopsticks and korean style spoons, teddy bears, dolls....

I also love kpop and kdramas, and true crime.