[HN Gopher] Have 'hobby' apps become the new social networks?
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Have 'hobby' apps become the new social networks?
Author : throwaway55479
Score : 177 points
Date : 2024-09-08 11:32 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > "The thing about Letterboxd is there isn't a 'central town
| square' like there is on X; it's a very single-channel
| conversation," says Gracewood. Comments happen in-line - similar
| to those on the Guardian and Observer websites - meaning that
| it's less possible to performatively repost content into a main
| feed in order to encourage a pile-on. Similar situations exist on
| platforms such as Goodreads and Strava, where it's possible to
| communicate with and message others, but not to publicly shame
| them easily.
|
| > Because hobby apps are nicer places to exist, people spend more
| time on them - and they can eventually turn into services that
| are more than advertised. That includes finding like-minded
| people with whom you'd want to spend your time romantically.
|
| > One reason that people may be starting to find love on apps not
| explicitly designed for that purpose is because the expectations
| are lower - and as such, the atmosphere is less sexually charged.
|
| I feel an 'Ask HN' coming on: "have you found love on HN?"
| Trasmatta wrote:
| It has to have happened at least a few times, right?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| For certain values of 'love', perhaps...
| EarlKing wrote:
| Only if love is denominated in dollars and amounts to a
| seed round, anyway...
| np_tedious wrote:
| I have a crush on dang but it hasn't gone anywhere yet
| throwup238 wrote:
| I get a new throwaway banned every week in the hopes that
| he notices me.
| thimabi wrote:
| Or maybe there's a "Who Is Looking for Love?" coming up on Ask
| HN, much like the job threads :)
| nkingsy wrote:
| If you think dating apps skew male...
| danilor wrote:
| Off topic: What setup did you use to make this comment so
| that you used the ... character instead of three .
| characters?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Autocorrect on an iPhone converts three periods to an
| ellipsis.
|
| . . . => ...
| yismail wrote:
| on macOS, option + ; seems to work ...
| falcolas wrote:
| Windows: Alt+0133 - numbers typed with the number pad.
| The character map app on Windows can help find all of
| these codes for different glyphs.
| thimabi wrote:
| On iOS, you can also long press the period button, then
| select the ellipsis in the pop up menu for accented
| characters and diacritics.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Which means more opportunities for some males. :)
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| All the fun spaces on the internet are extremely male
| dominated. I strongly believe in the autism as extreme male
| brain hypothesis for this reason.
|
| Discord especially is such a sausage fest. Sad to see it
| kill web forums (which I suppose were all sausage fests)
| mrweasel wrote:
| Weirdly enough old-school chat forums were not all that
| bad in terms of male to female ration. Back in the late
| 90s early 2000s I lived in an apartment with two
| roommates. They spend A LOT of their free time on chat
| forums and we'd frequently host parties for their friends
| from the chats. Those where pretty close to 50/50, maybe
| 60/40.
|
| At that time anonymous online chats seemed to have little
| issue attracting young women.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > All the fun spaces on the internet are extremely male
| dominated.
|
| Maybe this is just a reflection of what you consider
| "fun".
|
| > Discord especially is such a sausage fest.
|
| Discord isn't a single integrated community; there are
| plenty of servers that aren't sausage fests, maybe you
| just haven't been interested in, or invited to, them?
|
| > Sad to see it kill web forums (which I suppose were all
| sausage fests)
|
| Some were (and are), some weren't (and aren't).
| mezzie2 wrote:
| > Maybe this is just a reflection of what you consider
| "fun".
|
| This is what I'd suspect. I'm a lesbian and hang out
| pretty equally in very male dominated and very female
| dominated places online. I find it really interesting
| that most hobby/fandom spaces online _do_ unofficially
| segregate by gender to the point where it 's common in
| both to just assume everybody there is male/female (and
| straight, of course, because this all kind of relies on
| straight gender roles).
|
| > Discord isn't a single integrated community; there are
| plenty of servers that aren't sausage fests, maybe you
| just haven't been interested in, or invited to, them?
|
| Yeah, I'm in several female dominated servers and have
| been in the past. I will say that more of the female
| dominated servers are private/not advertised,
| specifically to keep them from being overrun and keeping
| them a manageable size.
|
| In general, the women care more about curating the social
| space for ease of connection and are more conscientious
| when it comes to things like considering how big a server
| can be before it's a pain to mod, what the impacts of
| creating another channel would be, what the impacts would
| be of creating restricted channels would be, etc. Guys
| wing it more.
| haunter wrote:
| >The thing about Letterboxd is there isn't a 'central town
| square' like there is on X; it's a very single-channel
| conversation,"
|
| The problem with Letterboxd that it's gamified and there is an
| incredible amount of noise and it's getting worse.
|
| Top reviews are all just copy paste like baits.
|
| "Me when watching a Ghibli film :cryingemoji:" 20k likes
|
| "Yes I'd let Ethan Hawke visit me every single night" 10k likes
|
| etc
|
| It's a good site but also must users are writing dogshit
|
| Just look at the popular reviews page
| https://letterboxd.com/reviews/popular/this/week/
| yunwal wrote:
| I'm not seeing what's so bad about the popular reviews. I
| guess my one complaint would be that no one is writing
| reviews and so they should stop calling it reviews when
| they're really tweets about movies, but I think if Letterboxd
| were actually 100% in-depth reviews I'd log off immediately.
| Usually people writing a short quip about a weird/funny thing
| they noticed is way more enlightening than trying to go
| through some intellectual exercise after every movie you
| watch.
| haunter wrote:
| Letterboxd advertised itself as "Goodreads for film" yet
| here we are.
|
| We still don't have a Goodreads for film
| saagarjha wrote:
| "Me when I used Rust at work" 500 karma
|
| "Yeah I'd let Jim Keller design my CPU" 200 karma
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Can't be overstated how good having a setting centered on some
| common activity with low stakes social interaction is for
| building relationships, romantic as well as platonic.
|
| Hookup culture just isn't for everyone, and the notion that it is
| has been the cause of a lot of grief and agony.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| especially good when that common activity isn't: we're both
| drinking at this bar
| sublinear wrote:
| Easiest way to meet someone is for them to be a friend of a
| friend. I rarely date someone outside my extended circle even
| if I was trying to. We inevitably happen to know someone in
| common.
|
| That said, bars are a great way to expand that circle. Dating
| is just one aspect of socializing. People who go to bars
| specifically just to "pick up" are creepy.
| tasuki wrote:
| > People who go to bars specifically just to "pick up" are
| creepy.
|
| What does that mean?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| That a lot of people go to bars to hang out with their
| friends, or especially hang out with their friends + meet
| some new friends of friends.
|
| And it's kind of weird to just go to a bar, alone, and
| try and find other lonely people to fuck for a single
| night.
|
| But hey, that's what some people are looking for.
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| I'd argue this isn't weird but anthropologically speaking
| the norm. This being considered "weird" in and off itself
| is more like a very recent social development.
| nox101 wrote:
| you gotta love this idea that you're a creep if you're
| alone. Only show up if you already have friends. So if
| you have no friends there's no way to get any because
| you're a creep if you're alone
|
| we need a new woke meme to shame people who shit on
| people who don't have friends
| NeoTar wrote:
| There's a difference between going to a bar alone, and
| going alone with the sole intention to find a one-night-
| stand. It's the latter people find creepy.
| nox101 wrote:
| > Easiest way to meet someone is for them to be a friend of
| a friend
|
| That assumes your friends have friends to introduce you
| too. Mine almost never have.
| etrautmann wrote:
| Yes, I've always loved the camaraderie around climbing gyms and
| the community that develops naturally when you go to a gym
| consistently. Romantically it's quite hard though, if a
| relationship is built around an activity, there are a number of
| challenges if someone's interest shifts or a big skill mismatch
| etc.
| hammock wrote:
| Just like work or school friendships, if you don't shift
| those hangouts to other contexts (meals unconnected to the
| activity, family introductions, travel, etc) then they won't
| stick outside of that initial context, however deep they feel
| at the time
| bee_rider wrote:
| Could that be a good filter-function? "How gracefully does
| this person handle our skill difference" seems like a nice
| thing to know about somebody.
| dgfitz wrote:
| More "how does someone handle a skill difference?" Because
| very rarely are two people at the exact same skill set at
| the same time. In the context of climbing the disparity can
| be enormous.
| andrepd wrote:
| Lack of third spaces mean people flock to those apps,
| especially when they're no longer in school or college.
| Clearly, those are poor replacements.
| wslh wrote:
| > Hookup culture just isn't for everyone, and the notion that
| it is has been the cause of a lot of grief and agony.
|
| I agree, and that's why I find it important to study and
| understand the social dynamics of hookup culture through
| research [1].
|
| [1] What is Hooking Up? Examining Definitions of Hooking Up in
| Relation to Behavior and Normative Perceptions:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3546226/
| dagelf wrote:
| Umm.. yes it can. Common interests are WAAAY overrated. It's
| barely even a starting point... asymmetry is there it's at, why
| "partner" with yourself, when you can partner with your literal
| compliment, someone who has what you lack.... to make not just
| a bigger half, but an actual whole?!
| eska wrote:
| Sure, but there must be at least _some_ common ground.
| Otherwise how are you going to spend time together?
| nogbit wrote:
| The point that is being made is that you do new things you
| haven't done before. Explore!
|
| For example, If you are a gym rat in the morning you can
| still do that yourself without the other person and then
| later in the day do the new things you never done before.
| The other person benefits as well. You don't always have to
| be glued to the hip of the other.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| So you argue that you should both enjoy exploring new
| things together in common.
|
| No one is arguing that you should spend every minute with
| your partner, but if you want to spend time together, you
| should have an activity that you both enjoy (which might
| be exploring new things!), otherwise the relationship
| will be hard.
| dxbydt wrote:
| on the contrary, most relationships got started only
| because both partners enjoy exploring each other's
| bodies. any other activities they might have in common is
| some afterthought that is tacked on after the
| relationship acquired a stable footing. i still don't
| have any activity in common with my wife, and we've spent
| 2 decades & change...
| Almondsetat wrote:
| It's not about common interests, it's literally just about
| showing up and being exposed to the same people for a
| prolonged amount of time. The activity is just an excuse.
| sim7c00 wrote:
| fully agree with dagelf here. me andmy wife share nothing in
| common but the fact we enjoy eachothers presence. imho its
| really important to have your own thing. if it all revolves
| around some external commonality, its bound to fail once that
| thing is gone for either.
| treflop wrote:
| It's not about common interests, it's about having a third
| place (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place).
|
| A lot of interests need a common space.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I spent years attending various language courses where I
| literally sat and talked to people, but I never became friends
| with any of them. If anything, it usually felt like stepping
| into a world of individuals hand-picked to have nothing in
| common with me, except for the fact that they were trying to
| learn a language too.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| I have that feeling at work. I've spent years talking to
| people daily but never gotten to know them. But for stuff
| like hobbies I've never had trouble filling the time talking
| about the hobby. You don't find it interesting to talk about
| why you're both learning the language, or what books/media in
| that language you enjoy?
| robjan wrote:
| Language courses generally have a clear end date so it's not
| surprising that many people wouldn't be super invested in
| making or maintaining new relationships in them.
| notjoemama wrote:
| Cool. So online activists can become more engaged irl? Sounds
| great unless the activism is the kind you disagree with.
| Imagine this brining together a collection of white
| supremacists or antifa. Or pro-life versus pro-choice.
|
| This is the problem with the tech world. They are so
| preoccupied with whether they can, they don't stop to think if
| they should.
|
| Yes, that's from Jurassic Park.
| SR2Z wrote:
| Look, even if it's white supremacists, it's still good for
| their mental health to meet up irl.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Ummmmmmm gonna need some kinda citation there. Radicalized
| groups that meet increase one another's radicalization as
| they bounce off of one another and egg each other on.
|
| I want people to get together more, it's absolutely good
| for them, but I think there's certain groups that should
| absolutely be discouraged. Like sorry if the only thing
| that gets you going is fantasizing about obliterating
| ethnic groups but you might have to take one for the team
| and stay depressed. Or take up something better like model
| railroading.
| twixfel wrote:
| so how do you encourage everyone except white
| suprematists to get out more? What does that raising
| awareness campaign look like? Tbh getting out more is
| probably more necessary for such people than anyone else.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > so how do you encourage everyone except white
| suprematists to get out more?
|
| Shut down and disperse groups of white supremacists.
| Amend the right to free assembly to exclude hate groups,
| because we don't need to tolerate that if we don't want
| to.
|
| And before you say "well who decides what's a ha-" there
| is a well articulated subjective process for determining
| that already, and most of the groups that meet the
| definition are indeed supremacist/nationalist groups of
| any sort. It is not perfect, because no human made system
| is, but I fail to understand why that then means we must
| tolerate all of these with zero effort put to police
| them. We know what's a hate group, just like we know
| what's a hate crime. The fact that idiots in the media
| and on the internet misuse or over-generalize the term
| doesn't change anything.
|
| > Tbh getting out more is probably more necessary for
| such people than anyone else.
|
| I would agree, just not for hateful reasons. Come up with
| something else.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| > Amend the right to free assembly to exclude...
|
| Im glad you are not in charge
| FredPret wrote:
| IRL interactions are more complex and nuanced in a way
| that tends to push people to the center.
|
| There have been instances where people meeting IRL pushed
| one another further to one side (Marxists, Nazis) but in
| every other case IRL interactions help people have a more
| rounded view of the world.
|
| In a social media world, you only get to see one facet of
| an opinion at a time, and it's always the simplest and
| most inflammatory view that makes the rounds.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Uhh, one of them bashes the skull of the other in when they
| meet up. Blunt force trauma is not good for mental health.
| ramon156 wrote:
| Yeah and it's also not part of socializing. This is a
| nothing burger
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Yeah that's actually largely a good thing. A big problem is
| the political echo chamber these people live in online. In
| neutral activities that are not strongly politically coded,
| they'll meet people from outside that echo chamber, and will
| inevitably face contradictions to their world view.
| peppermint_gum wrote:
| So we shouldn't make it easier for people to meet each other,
| because some of those people might be white supremacists?
|
| I'm sorry, but I think you may be spending too much time
| online.
| tiznow wrote:
| What's the problem exactly?
| bilsbie wrote:
| The only downside is I got injured and lost like 20 pickleball
| friends. They were good friends but we only bonded around one
| activity.
| treflop wrote:
| This is commonly referred to as your "third place," after your
| home and your work.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
|
| Most kids have a third place growing up, being an extension of
| school or another place like the skate park. If you leave
| school and don't find a new third place, finding new
| friendships becomes difficult.
| snarf21 wrote:
| It is also extremely powerful for mental health. Having
| something to look forward and that anticipation has enumerable
| benefits. Also, every hobby has people who _LOVE_ to help
| newbies and will talk infinitely about all the minutiae of all
| the things.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| I do use Strava a lot to record my rides and stuff, and even more
| since I could afford a Wahoo - but I really hate the 'social'
| side of Strava. It tries to make you 'competitive' so hard.
|
| Granted, as a professional loser I'd like to find someone that
| likes cycling too, though cycling alone is great too - still, I'd
| rather find that person in one of those rides than in some weird
| thing like Strava fly-by's or something.
| jamil7 wrote:
| Yeah, I used to use Strava to track rides when I was cycling a
| lot and at some point realised it just made feel bad about my
| own performance. I run a lot more than I ride now and only take
| my keys with me. I check the time before I leave and know
| roughly how far and log it in my calendar. Running without any
| tech or music/podcasts/audiobooks has also helped me focus on
| technique and breathing and gives me a proper break from
| everything.
| alx_the_new_guy wrote:
| Garmin Connect is actually fairly decent. Tracks activities
| (also sleep, which I find pretty useful), fairly detailed
| stats, little to none social features and a little
| gamification with challenges and achievements.
|
| Also the watch reminds you to move from time to time.
|
| Komoot is great for planning of "trips" and "stealing" other
| people's routes. I've done couple of them and you kind of
| never know what you're gonna see there (hopefully not
| agressive dogs), all of them were pretty enjoyable. It has a
| bit of a social aspect, but barely anyone uses it where I
| live, so IDK how it is.
|
| One thing I miss from Strava are segments (or whatever
| they're called) - short parts of your route with it's own
| leader-board. Has "speedrun, but IRL" vibes, which is pretty
| cool IMO.
| jamil7 wrote:
| Yeah I use Komoot a fair bit for planning rides and hikes,
| it's great and pretty widely used here in Germany.
| theChaparral wrote:
| Garmin connect also has segment feature. Might have to set
| it up on the website, not sure.
| ktosobcy wrote:
| This so much... most of the time I use those online services to
| track my own progress (reading books, rides taken, etc) and it
| always results in WTF when someone leaves a like on my
| activity... Would love for a global setting "disable all social
| aspects"...
| cuu508 wrote:
| Strava has "Privacy Controls" section in settings. There
| isn't a single global off switch, but it's not too hard to
| set everything to private either.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| > It tries to make you 'competitive' so hard.
|
| I've found that it's really what you make of it. My city has a
| bunch of cycling subcultures - social slow rolls, fast road
| riding, sightseeing and exploration, commuting and errand-
| running - and different people like to see and talk about
| different types of rides and sometimes dabble in different
| subcultures, but generally people care way more about seeing
| the rides, and whatever fun banter or background context you
| add when you post it, than analyzing your speed and elevation.
|
| I really love the social aspect of Strava because I'm friends
| with all the other people I follow on it. In some way I think
| it is more intimate than traditional social media. You could
| get a better picture of my life and how I spend my time from
| seeing my physical displacements during the day than by seeing
| the super filtered Instagram stuff that I only choose to share
| when I'm having a good time and doing something interesting.
| stevage wrote:
| Yeah, I'm happier since I switched my Strava to private. My
| friends can see where I have been riding, but I'm not competing
| with the broader community.
| tchock23 wrote:
| Don't ever sign up for Zwift then. Zwift makes Strava look like
| an app made for introverts.
|
| On Zwift your followers can be automatically notified when you
| start a ride, and you have zero control over them receiving
| that notification.
|
| It's creepy how much they push the social aspect.
| abound wrote:
| I use RideWithGPS for this reason. It also has social features
| (if you want them), but making everything private is three
| dropdowns on a single settings page.
|
| It also has a great route builder.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| For a long term relationship, sex is the icing on a cake made of
| shared values and interests.
|
| It isn't surprising at all that focusing on real life shared
| interests and values first instead of sex first would be a good
| strategy for finding a long term partner.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Agreed 100%.
|
| The issue is that a long term relationship (and sex) is often
| considered creepy to pursue in venues not designated for that.
| BaculumMeumEst wrote:
| I mean if you're creepy about it, sure, but as long as you
| can pick up on social cues you can feel it out without
| rubbing anyone the wrong way.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| The solution is to not pursue sex or relationships, but to
| simply have enough of a social life that it happens anyway.
| That completely gets rid of the leisure suit larry energy
| that going out hunting for a partner inevitably gives you.
| Qem wrote:
| > The solution is to not pursue sex or relationships, but
| to simply have enough of a social life that it happens
| anyway.
|
| One thing I find odd about having problems finding
| partners/establishing relationships, it's that for every
| other psychological problem, say, addictions, depression,
| et cetera, one thing people always says to be of utmost
| importance is to acknowledge the problem itself. To not
| pretend it's nothing, or that it's something else. With
| relationship-making there's a complete reversal on that.
| Default advice it's to forget it and delude yourself
| pretending you're trying just to do some hobbies.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| It's very similar to how the best way to become unhappy
| is to try to be happy. Happiness is a side-effect of
| living a well balanced life. The harder you try to be
| happy, the more you displace the things that make you
| happy. It only comes when you aren't chasing it, but
| doing the things you find interesting and rewarding
| instead.
|
| Lengthy romantic relationship dry spells aren't "the
| problem", but rather typically a symptom of other issues,
| and often issues that are exacerbated by putting sex and
| relationships on a pedestal.
|
| The best thing you can do in order to find a romantic
| relationship is to just be a well functioning person that
| has their shit together. Have friends, have interests,
| get out of the apartment, do stuff with your life. Incel
| brainrot never got anyone laid.
| naveen99 wrote:
| I thought long term relationships (and sex) were for children.
| twixfel wrote:
| A happy, long term relationship can be an end in and of
| itself, otherwise couples with fertility problems presumably
| should just break up.
| PLenz wrote:
| It's a cycle. The internet started with usenet and specific
| interest newsgroups and niche forums a la phpbb. Then the wide
| open of social media. Now back to specific again. A generation
| from now it will shift again.
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| Network effects, monopolization, a lack of diverse payment
| models on the internet, and reduced interest in system
| administration have primarily lead to the centralization of
| communities on a few platforms, which has lead us to this
| problem.
|
| If you could somehow solve 2, 3 and 4, I assume there'd be many
| thriving topical communities in parallel, just like the forums
| of yore that you speak of.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > It's a cycle
|
| Strava is for running, too.
|
| Lrf, guvf vf n cha.
| EarlKing wrote:
| > Lrf, guvf vf n cha.
|
| And here with the birth of broadband I thought we'd moved
| past the age of line noise.
| dotancohen wrote:
| $ echo Lrf, guvf vf n cha. | rot13 Yes, this is a
| pun.
| ethanol-brain wrote:
| I have been using the internet since 1995, and I have yet to
| see the cycle. From where I sit, it has been more of just a
| steady trend toward compartmentalization and aggregation.
|
| (Not to say that there aren't a large number of great projects
| off the main path.)
| chungus wrote:
| https://archive.is/FA3UY
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Sharing a common interest is the best way to meet lots of new
| people. It creates low stakes interaction opportunities and
| removes the creep factor (if you are at a meetup for fans of
| model trains along with like a dozen other people, it's not weird
| that you are talking to some of them).
|
| Better than any app, go get a hobby in person and get out there
| to meet people who are into it. Chances are you present yourself
| way better in the real world vs online. Online dating, especially
| the Tinder variety, really skews to work for some demographics
| and not others (I am not talking about gender here so much as
| age, location, etc.).
| Trasmatta wrote:
| This is the common advice, but it's also resulted in many of
| these hobby based events being overrun by people who are
| primarily there looking to find a date. It can be a weird
| dynamic.
|
| My suggestion is get a hobby that you explicitly are interested
| in, but don't go in with an expectation that you'll find
| someone, or make that your primary goal.
|
| > Chances are you present yourself way better in the real world
| vs online
|
| For many of us I don't think this is true
| katamarimambo wrote:
| And even for those with better intentions, the low stakes
| interaction will become high stakes as attraction and
| expectations increase. When rejection almost inevitably
| happens at some point, bringing feelings of innability and
| jealousy, it will be tougher to deal, specially for the less
| experienced following this path.
|
| In this sense hookup culture can relieve such pressure and
| allows for decoupling the sexual needs, and romantic ones
| even - personal note: I think it's weird how people online
| talk as if it's mandatory to mistreat/abandon the people you
| hook up with. I build a small but nice network of "friends
| with benefits" which for me are simply friends who enjoy a
| specific activity. Like, exactly the inverse of what everyone
| is recomending and it worked for me.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Let's be honest, the kinds of people who are usually
| looking for this advice are actual incels who are seething
| with rage about the fact that they haven't, and can"t hook
| up and have wild casual sex.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> For many of us I don 't think this is true_
|
| Probably depends on the details of the online communication.
|
| A video call, a synchronous one on one text chat, an
| asynchronous one on one text chat, and a public broadcast
| like HN or Twitter all create very different experiences.
|
| HN's format makes it easy to show aloof, professional
| detachment and conceals my age and looks. For dating, though?
| That ain't an advantage.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| All very different experiences, and the quality of the
| communication depend on the people in question.
|
| Some people are great communicators over text but really
| struggle with in person communication. And vice versa.
| bradlys wrote:
| > My suggestion is get a hobby that you explicitly are
| interested in, but don't go in with an expectation that
| you'll find someone, or make that your primary goal.
|
| The issue here is that you need to have hobbies that are
| explicitly good for finding partners. For instance, I love
| riding motorcycles. I am happy to do group oriented aspects
| of the hobby like track days or group rides, etc. The amount
| of women in that activity is near zero. The same is true for
| cars. It's almost entirely men. Even if you say there's 10%
| women showing up - that's still a horrific 9:1 ratio.
|
| I find it super annoying because my hobbies are so masculine
| and male dominated. I have to actually go out and do things
| that I'm not really that passionate about or interested in as
| a way to meet women - and then I have to be really good at
| said hobbies.
|
| Fortunately, I am someone who is able and willing to suffer
| through things that I don't enjoy for a goal but it is going
| to contradict all the most popular advice out there of "do
| what you love and love will follow". It's just simply not
| true. All the women I've met were through activities or
| hobbies that I had no real interest in doing. I was simply
| doing them to improve my odds in regards to dating women.
|
| Who cares if you're interested. Just do the fucking work.
| werid wrote:
| curious how that works out. you start dating, stop doing
| the hobby you're not really interested in, but she
| continues, and finds out you were only in it to find a
| date?
| bradlys wrote:
| Super common. Seen this happen a lot with some hobbies
| that I've pursued. The men will show back up when/if said
| relationship dies (after all - it worked the first time).
| A lot of women do this too. They might've had a genuine
| interest but it wasn't sufficient to keep them going.
|
| For some of the hobbies I have, you'll find that there's
| very few single women but a massive amount of single men.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| What I find interesting is that it seems like the vast
| majority of hobbies are male dominated, maybe this is not
| true and a bias of my world view. All sports are male
| dominated to the point where female only activities are
| sanctioned, anything around collecting, games (board games
| and video games), cars/motorsports, woodworking,
| metalworking.
|
| The only hobbies I know of that are female dominated is
| Yoga and crafts. All the others are more evenly spilt
| between the genders (like book clubs, dancing, cooking,
| gardening). If you are looking to find a romantic partner
| the majority of people who are into crafts are married.
|
| I don't know if there is any evidence to support or refute
| my claims, but that is how I see things.
|
| I do agree with you that if you want to find a romantic
| partner of the other sex you should optimize your
| activities. Unless you are gay or a woman you will never
| meet a romantic partner at the local car meetup or magic
| the gathering tournament.
| cardanome wrote:
| For me a hobby group is for doing that hobby. I want to focus
| on that and not on building potential romantic relationships.
| If it is something I am really passionate about I am
| basically in asexual mode and don't even "see them that way".
|
| I am sure many people's brain are wired differently and
| things "just happen" for them but I need to be more explicit
| to make anything happen. It also feels boundary crossing,
| especially with activities where there is physical contact.
| And even if you take a rejection well, I imagine it doesn't
| feel great for the other side to get unwanted romantic
| attraction. It has so much potential to create unnecessary
| drama.
|
| I wish there were places you could just got to find romantic
| partners. Not like speed dating but where you can casually
| hang out. Sure bars and clubs do work for a certain crowd but
| are not that great if you are not into the "party scene" and
| lots of people there don't really want to meet other people
| but just party with friends.
| nemo44x wrote:
| This is why clubs exist and have for centuries. Country clubs,
| rotary club, computer club, Masonic, etc. There's a ton of them
| but you don't see younger people joining them as much today.
| falcolas wrote:
| > There's a ton of them but you don't see younger people
| joining them as much today.
|
| That's because they're primarily filled with old people, with
| "old" interests. Short of a coordinated visit, you'll always
| be in the minority. Heck, I'm in the minority, and I'm in my
| 40's the few times I accept an invitation to go to one of
| these places.
|
| There's also the occasional left-over haughtiness about the
| value of being let into the club. Left over from when they
| were exceptionally popular. This can push people away too.
| osigurdson wrote:
| >> "free speech"
|
| Does not belong in quotes.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Musk has a selective view of what free speech means.
|
| His view of free speech is different to the majority of people
| reading that article, seems reasonable to put quotes around it.
| Beijinger wrote:
| Is it? I always thought the uttermost definition of "Free
| speech" is that you have the right to have a stupid, ugly or
| wrong opinion? And as long as you don't violate any ToS (e.g.
| Hackernews, as a private enterprise or organization) or laws
| (kill XYZ type of people) you are within the rights of "free
| speech".
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Musk's version of "free speech" should be in quotations.
| Twitter was banning accounts, even Paul Graham's, for
| saying "This is the last straw. I give up. You can find a
| link to my new Mastodon profile on my site."
| janmo wrote:
| I can really recommend HelloTalk which is a language learning
| app. Meetup.com also used to be a good option but not so much
| anymore.
| SunlitCat wrote:
| Option for meeting a (romantic) partner or learning a language?
| ;)
| dagelf wrote:
| Sounds like a case of... if it's too easy too find, too many
| people find it...? Aka. "Google ruins everything"?
| osigurdson wrote:
| I used to use Strava a lot but now I don't even think of
| recording rides, runs, heartrates, etc. A lot of people I know
| are the same.
|
| The real "killer app" is Trailforks.
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| I heard Roblox and Valorant are also great ways to find dates,
| but perhaps for a younger demo.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Anecdotally run clubs are the dance halls of today (i.e. go to
| meet women)
| SunlitCat wrote:
| Actually many sport activities seem to be largely women based,
| which kinda says much about men not really caring about their
| health. :)
| mhh__ wrote:
| Hence the arbitrage.
|
| A very attractive mild acquaintance was either bored or
| lonely or whatever and set up her own run club, one guy
| showed up. Without wishing to think like a PUA these are good
| odds.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Go into most gyms and it's the opposite phenomenon. Men know
| that some types of physical activity (weight lifting)
| actually get them laid and others (I.e running) are the
| equivalent of what food does to get away from predators. The
| men who get good at that type of physical activity tend to be
| treated like the food is.
| hooverd wrote:
| Women don't like men who do cardio?
| bradlys wrote:
| Women like men who look good. Men who lift weights
| usually look more attractive than someone who has a
| "runners" body. (Skinny and not muscular) Some runners
| will look jacked but that's probably due to steroids
| and/or weightlifting. Running alone doesn't give one
| bulging biceps or a large chest.
| hooverd wrote:
| Men describing what they think women want physically
| usually reads like someone describing a Tom of Finland
| drawing. I agree that people generally prefer a
| physically fit partner.
| bradlys wrote:
| Are you really going to say that most women yearn for a
| man who has a body that looks like Kipchoge?
| christianqchung wrote:
| Probably <1% of American men look like Kipchoge. The
| average runner is just going to be healthier than the
| average American, not jacked to the point of uncanniness.
| This is also true for weightlifters.
| bradlys wrote:
| My point stands. Someone who is not on steroids and is
| closer in looks to Sam Sulek than Kipchoge will have more
| success. There's enough studies out there on this that I
| shouldn't have to even be saying this.
|
| Most women like strong looking men and not flyweights.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Guys is it gay to run
| hooverd wrote:
| There's nothing straighter than being being around sweaty
| shirtless men with big bulging muscles.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| There are plenty of women who prefer guys with runners'
| physiques over guys with muscular physiques.
|
| There was a dating website now-owned by Match Group that
| did a study years ago (pre-acquisition) that showed that
| college-educated women preferred guys with runners'
| physiques by _a lot_ over guys with weight-lifters '
| physiques, and women without college degrees preferred
| muscular men by a lot over skinnier guys. In both cases, it
| wasn't even close. Unfortunately this study was taken down
| after they got acquired or I would link to it.
|
| _others (I.e running) are the equivalent of what food does
| to get away from predators_
|
| Running is how predators in nature catch most of their
| prey. Strength is not relevant until _after_ they 've
| caught their prey.
| ianburrell wrote:
| It was OkCupid that posted lots of data analysis posts
| before being acquired.
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| I'm wonder what the appeal is of meeting with strangers for the
| purpose of running.
| TomK32 wrote:
| You start out as strangers but I can say, after attending my
| local parkrun for a few times I got to know the other
| runners. Often it's half an hour of chatting at a nice tempo.
| Though I didn't meet any of them anywhere else, which isn't
| my intention anyways and I barely ever meet up with people.
| bradlys wrote:
| You do the activity - you run and chat with some folks if you
| can. Otherwise, you just go to the social after. A lot of
| them meetup at a bar or something as the final destination to
| socialize post-run. Same with socializing before everyone is
| together and starts running.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| If your goal is to meet a human person, it is probably best to go
| to a social media site that is largely made of humans.
| mrkramer wrote:
| That use to be Reddit but be careful bots run amok ;) kidding
| aside, in the age of LLMs how you can be sure that you are
| talking to human? Sometimes I'm not sure tbh.
|
| Reddit is perhaps the mother of all hobby social networks. You
| can not beat Reddit at least not yet or as long as majority of
| users are indeed humans.
| mattrighetti wrote:
| We will see how long this lasts.
|
| We try to search for meaningful relationships, which socials
| stole from us apparently, by switching to different socials,
| pretending they're going to do better than the previous ones.
|
| Wouldn't ditching socials altogether get us in a better place on
| this matter? It is utopia at this point I guess. Some socials
| could actually be useful to make new friends/relationships but it
| seems to me that the very people that constantly complain about
| the "anti-social" aspect that our lives have taken are the ones
| that go on and try 1000 different dating apps, give up on friends
| after a couple of months to try and find new "better" ones.
| xiaoxiong wrote:
| Strava is the only social network I'm on anymore, and I pair it
| with a number of weekly, in person group rides. It's a great way
| to maintain connections, and a wonderful source of encouragement.
|
| Typical social network dopamine hits probably aren't great for
| your health, but when it's paired with 100 miles of exercise, I
| think it has a net positive. I'll definitely admit to pushing
| myself further than I typically would for those Strava kudos.
|
| That said, I don't think something like Strava is particularly
| useful without the in person aspect to go along with it. Heck I
| don't even know how you'd gain followers without doing group
| rides.
| tchock23 wrote:
| I find Strava is also helpful for solo activities that aren't
| in-person. Knowing that an IRL friend/follower will see my
| activity pushes me to work harder.
| xiaoxiong wrote:
| Yeah definitely, gives you something to talk about at the
| next group ride too haha.
| dagelf wrote:
| Sparknotes spawned a quiz site, TheSpark, that eventually morphed
| into OKCupid... that started out being successful because it
| gamified making quizzes for people, and then stumbled on the
| miracle of asymmetrical matching. Ie. matching people not based
| on common interests per se, but on curiosity... or "satisfying"
| their curiosity. Turned out to be a great way to get to know
| yourself, and what you are really looking for... I'm sure a lot
| of people figured out what to look for in their true ideal
| partners, and some even managed to meet them on the site...
| Match.com takeover obviously completely ruined everything...
| rooting for more copies, hell, even a decentralized protocol,
| that can bring back notjust the romantic, but also the platonic-
| and self-insight-giving parts of TheSpark...
| Renaud wrote:
| I wish there were more offerings for socialising around hobbies.
|
| Strava looks great for some sport activities, but I'd like to
| meet other nerds into 80s computing, hobby electronics, comics,
| sci-fi, home automation, kayaking, city exploration, etc
|
| You invariably end up with lical Facebook groups, which are just
| a flow of posts, and require a FB account, or some non local
| reddit group, or small scale website you have no idea exists.
|
| Something is missing. It sure would require mass appeal to be
| useful, but a 'Tinder for your hobbies' might be nice. Get
| matches from people near you who enjoy a cross-section of the
| same stuff.
|
| Add some social aspects for those who like to show off or share
| (don't force it though), make discovery easy, let people organise
| events...
| robjan wrote:
| Doesn't meetup.com somewhat fulfil this, although it's most
| useful to people living in big cities
| yunwal wrote:
| Meetup.com in large cities has become a money-grab, spawning
| a bunch of semi-professional "event planners" who charge much
| more than the cost of putting on the event. Feeling like
| you're paying for the privilege of talking to other people is
| demoralizing. People want a place to meet other people that
| doesn't feel like they're paying to be "set up".
| haunter wrote:
| WoW did this 20 years ago tbh. It was a social network for most
| before the game itself.
| vxxzy wrote:
| Anyone wanting to get a feel for unintended uses of a product
| should go look at google map reviews of locations in India. It is
| fascinating and ingenious.
| weakfish wrote:
| Howso? I took a peek around New Delhi and didn't notice
| anything
| brushfoot wrote:
| "Users near you" functionality is sorely needed in online spaces,
| considering how much interaction has moved online.
|
| Reddit has worked around their lack of it to some degree with
| location-based subreddits like r/AtlFilmmakers. But subreddits
| are high maintenance, and they isolate content. Plus, the naming
| conventions aren't standard. Maybe there's r/AtlFilmmakers for
| filmmakers in Atlanta, but another subreddit for musicians uses
| the state in the name instead of a city.
|
| It's a bit like folders vs. tags. It would be nicer to have a
| single filmmaking subreddit with the option to filter on users'
| locations -- and default filtering _out_ of location-specific
| posts in other places.
|
| That wouldn't just make for better dating, though it probably
| would compared to something like Tinder. It could also lead to
| stronger local communities and better health outcomes.
| diggan wrote:
| > "Users near you" functionality is sorely needed in online
| spaces, considering how much interaction has moved online.
|
| Funny this got mentioned as France just successfully got that
| very feature removed from Telegram by arresting the founder and
| citing that feature as the one being used most for abuse.
|
| Bunch of sources about that here:
| https://ground.news/article/telegram-to-start-moderating-pri...
| moi2388 wrote:
| That might have been cited as the reason, but I think we all
| know the real reason is that France is fighting against
| Russian troops in their former African colonies, and Russian
| troops mainly use Telegram for their communications.
| older wrote:
| Who are those "we" you're talking about?
| moi2388 wrote:
| Anybody aware of what's happening in Africa between
| France, Russia and Wagner
| older wrote:
| Is it some kind of secret bunch of people who know this?
| t-3 wrote:
| The secret bunch who pay attention to Africa. It's not
| exactly shouted from the rooftops in western countries as
| public opinion is not quite as favorable towards
| colonialism and patronage as they were 100+ years ago.
| older wrote:
| I'm more interested to know how this secret bunch of
| people links all that to arrest of Telegram's CEO (who is
| a French citizen) in France. Sounds like a regular
| conspiracy theory and claims like "we all know..." just
| give more of the same conspiracy vibe.
| t-3 wrote:
| Yeah, I highly doubt Russian soldiers/mercenaries using
| Telegram is the main reason France went after Durov, but
| the conflicts and influence wars between Russia and
| colonialist powers in Africa is well-known and has been
| happening for a while.
| broken-kebab wrote:
| The last part doesn't sound very convincing. Russian
| mercenaries are not glued to Telegram, and can quickly
| switch to Signal if needed. I think "we all know" that real
| reason maybe more related to French gov't being a bit more
| direct about their wish to have a hand inside popular
| messengers.
| saagarjha wrote:
| It's one thing to list yourself as being in Atlanta and quite
| another to basically publish your exact location.
| dqv wrote:
| TikTok is the only app I've encountered that gets this right.
| I've made connections with people from my town and places just
| outside where I live. I'd love to see more apps do what TikTok
| does.
| morkalork wrote:
| How does Tiktok do it? Edit: I meant how does Tiktok help
| person above meet people locally?
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| By giving people what they want. A lot of this emergent
| behavior falls out of doing good search science. By
| optimizing other metrics YouTube etc are giving people less
| of what they want and more of what YouTube wants. YouTube
| would be useless if I couldn't ban so many channels from my
| recommended feeds.
|
| At the early stages of TikTok there was some controversy
| that diverse, disabled, marginalized etc people were being
| underrepresented compared to other platforms and we now see
| how that turned out.
|
| I don't necessarily think it's a good idea to give people
| what they want and I consider TikTok to be so addictive
| that I've avoided using it, but it's definitely a
| successful idea.
| goatsi wrote:
| >At the early stages of TikTok there was some controversy
| that diverse, disabled, marginalized etc people were
| being underrepresented compared to other platforms and we
| now see how that turned out.
|
| The controversy was that they were being actively
| suppressed as a moderation decision.
|
| https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-
| moderators-us...
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| There is more than one way to give people what they want,
| and in my haste I clumsily muddled two of them. All the
| platforms are being moderated heavily with thumbs on the
| scales to advantage one group over another.
|
| My personal preference would be to have no thumbs on the
| scales.
|
| Additionally I hate TikTok for the intentional addictive
| mechanism that requires an attention 'ante' to find out
| if a video is interesting by preventing jumping to a
| later point in the video to see where it is going.
| Basically gambling but with attention instead of
| currency, the algorithm optimized to give the user just
| enough to keep them coming back but not too much to
| satiate their desires.
|
| Search Science is one of those research domains where it
| appears things are going backwards, google barely works
| anymore, facebook videos was terrible from the start and
| AFAIK stayed that way, YouTube only works for me because
| I have a subscribe list to people I support on Patreon.
| Amazon is being flooded with duplicate listings which
| should be trivial to de-dupe and clean up but I guess
| they suck at search science as well. If Amazon doesn't
| fix their search and fake good problem people might as
| well buy from Temu. Almost forgot, Twitter can't find
| bots that are so easy to find that they become 'X in bio'
| memes.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| FWIW, you can fast forward or jump to any point in a
| TikTok video - just start dragging on the bottom of the
| screen and a scrubber will appear. Or tap to pause and a
| playback bar will dispay.
|
| In practice, you are right that there is an attention
| ante; most videos are short enough to sit through them to
| see the payoff without making the effort to scrub.
| cal85 wrote:
| > we now see how that turned out
|
| how? no idea what you're referring to.
| dqv wrote:
| Yeah. It's highly addictive. I have screentime for "fun
| apps" set to 30 mins now because it _will_ suck you in
| for hours if you're not careful.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I can honestly say I've never viewed a single tiktok
| video, and I intend to keep this true.
|
| Fuck that noise.
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| It also has a lot of educational content, etc. - just
| like YouTube or Twitch.
| dgfitz wrote:
| So does the Bible
|
| Edit: as does the Art of War, the Quran, the 1981 fall
| almanac, etc. education is almost a farce in 2024
| foobarchu wrote:
| Are you okay with instagram reels and YouTube shorts, or
| is it all short form content you object to? Large swaths
| of tiktok is cross posted to other platforms, so if you
| use those other ones then chances are you have watched
| plenty of tiktok content.
| bilsbie wrote:
| Is it a setting or something?
| dqv wrote:
| It just adds the additional dimension of user location
| (where a user has tagged their post with their location, a
| lot of people just tag no location or Big Butt Mountain).
| So if you've taken an interest in chess, it will show you
| popular chess videos, but also throw chess videos in from
| people close by.
|
| On other apps like FB, it does show location-based content,
| but nothing I'm ever interested in (it doesn't seem to
| understand interests+location, only interests _or_
| location). So like sure, it has posts from my neighbor, but
| it will be about lawn care or something else I'm not
| interested in.
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| Same, I met one of my friends on TikTok, commenting about an
| event nearby.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Unfortunately "Users near you" has the same problems AirTags
| has to deal with.
|
| If you're looking for someone, these features often make
| finding the names of their new accounts trivial. It also tells
| you that person is within the app's range.
| fragmede wrote:
| Airtags are _very_ near you. Knowing someone is within 50
| feet /a couple of meters is much different than knowing
| someone is within 30 mins drive of you, in a dense urban
| environment.
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| All you did was describe the feature. That is the entire
| point.
| jerlam wrote:
| Strava has a feature called Flyby that allows you to find out
| other Strava users who you ran past (flew by) on your activity.
| With a single click you could get the other user's entire
| route, likely including their home (start/finish).
|
| After some backlash about safety/privacy, it was disabled on
| everyone's account and required people to manually opt-in:
|
| https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/10/strava-flyby-feature.htm...
|
| Very few people opted back in so the feature became useless.
|
| Most people still have the setting that matches them with
| people who have run with them on a group run (same exact route
| at the same time).
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Wasn't it also Strava or a similar app that revealed military
| bases by the staff on patrol having the app on?
|
| I mean given sattelite imagery is a thing I doubt army bases
| are secret, but that was still a bit of a whoopsie, on both
| the personnel's part and the app's.
| jerlam wrote:
| Yes, Strava's heatmaps revealed some military bases. And
| it's been implicated in the assassination of a Russian
| general.
| foobarchu wrote:
| Good gravy that sounds like a stalkers dream
| bradlys wrote:
| This article reads "we noticed certain apps have been increasing
| in users. Everyone is complaining about dating and dating apps.
| Maybe users have found love on these other apps!" But then
| doesn't show any proof or even anecdotal evidence of some users
| who would share their experience. "Yeah, I saw he would get the
| weekly record for the section between 14th and 34th. I just had
| to reach out... We're expecting our 2nd child this autumn - we're
| naming them Cassette."
|
| No, this "article" as far as I saw was simply conjecture.
|
| If there's any amount of this happening - it's hellishly small or
| limited to people who don't go out at all. If you didn't meet the
| love of your life in college, dating apps still seem to be the
| reigning king of the well educated white collar professional (HN
| audience). I think I've only met one couple that met at a
| club/bar - almost all others met through a shared hobby (where
| they met face to face originally) or at a party with mutual
| friends. By far the leading one though is college + dating apps.
| IRL meeting as a way to form a relationship after college seems
| pretty uncommon for my well off and well educated crowd.
| tinybrain wrote:
| What happened to Meetup?
|
| I moved to a new city in 2015 and made a handful of long term
| friend groups, all started from meetup. I moved to a new city in
| 2024 and it's basically empty... except for some Wiccan book
| clubs, or MLM pyramid schemes or whatever.
|
| I don't get it. Seems like there would be competition in this
| space to replace Meetup, but there's nothing? Or did we all just
| collectively give up on meeting strangers.
| skhunted wrote:
| In my area Discord took the place of Meetup. Meetup went
| downhill when WeWork bought them.
| tinybrain wrote:
| Hey thanks for the tip. I searched my local subreddit and
| found some Discord invites, maybe I'll find better luck
| there.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I didn't make it past "Singletons."
| Beijinger wrote:
| "Goodbye Tinder, hello Strava: have 'hobby' apps become the new
| social networks?"
|
| I don't know, but has anyone tried using Tinder in the US
| recently? Just scammers, crazies, wackos and strange people - if
| you can get a match. Tinder has gotten totally useless, in fact,
| it has become a marketplace for lemons:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
|
| Your chance of finding a decent date would be bigger on a Hire a
| dog walker app or hire a cleaner app. Some years ago, I was told
| that Couch Surfing is a dating app. Kind of.
|
| Good luck.
| mrkramer wrote:
| I think the most straight forward dating app would be the one
| for "one night stands" because both people know exactly what
| they want but then again you would need to demand STD checks
| for all users perhaps on a monthly basis. This is just my
| humorous thought experiment idea.
| Beijinger wrote:
| At a time I was thinking with a buddy (and someone from HN)
| to make an up where you (speak women) can only date me and my
| friends. For men it would be invitation only.
|
| Supposed name was my name K: kandfriends
| alistairSH wrote:
| Using Strava to match with cyclists is so weird to me... it's a
| meat space activity, so go find a local group ride.
| bilsbie wrote:
| New simple "social network" idea:
|
| Paste in a list of your interests (maybe use a list of subreddits
| you're subscribed to, or you X inferred interest list)
|
| And it will suggest people to chat with ranked by most common
| interests.
|
| Could be a weekend project. Anyone want to team up?
| BlackjackCF wrote:
| Neat idea. I think the challenge with social networks isn't the
| technical implementation, but actually getting people to
| regularly engage with it.
| leobg wrote:
| Has been on my list for a long time. Would love to build it.
| Email in profile.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| I think you invented facebook
| jules-jules wrote:
| If you build this I will come.
|
| Something like feeding your Reddit username to
|
| https://redditmetis.com/
|
| And suggest other users to chat to based on the analysis
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| I don't like how the article arbitrarily mixes seeking hobby
| mates with pursuing romantic interests. While practically both
| realms naturally border on each other an intersect it is
| important to set an initial semi-offical mode of expectations.
| Networks like Couchsurfing died because mostly men started to use
| it as an app for hooking up. And that just kills the vibe and
| also undermines the trust.
|
| Anybody here from Germany who would share practical experiences
| with such apps?
|
| I'm quite apprehensive of the idea that this is now how you meet
| people. Of course it doesn't necessarily have to be but myself
| being in my early forties, single, few friends, full time
| computer job have to say that it is a challenge.
| bilsbie wrote:
| Friend making wise, I've been trying to reach out to interesting
| sounding people on X and on Reddit.
|
| I'm still trying to figure out how to sound casual and just
| interested in chatting and not having the first message sound too
| weird.
|
| But I've made a couple friends and had a bunch of good chats.
|
| I wish reddit, X, and even HN would be more encouraging of direct
| messaging people. That would mimic real world networking better
| where you're usually breaking off into one on one or small
| groups.
| praptak wrote:
| I remember when I used to play Go online. Obviously the servers,
| in addition to supporting playing Go and observing the games, had
| chat functionality.
|
| The popular saying on the chats was "Give a man a chat server and
| he chats for a day. Give him a Go server and he chats for life."
| amelius wrote:
| Just give people full control, and the protocol will be
| successful. Look at e-mail for an example.
|
| Of course, this doesn't mean that it can be monetized easily.
| bitnasty wrote:
| "Hobby apps" _are_ social networks. Just because some social
| networks try for mass appeal with generic features like
| microblogs and photos doesn't mean that other social networks
| with very specific features like GPS logging of bike rides are
| not.
| petesergeant wrote:
| I'm currently building this for TV shows. Our idea is that the
| social aspect should be limited to your real life friends and
| family only, because that's where the really magical discovery
| happens. We've got a small number of very dedicated users who all
| know each other in real life, and they use the app as an adjunct
| to their real life conversations. We've finally got it in the App
| Store, so seeing if we can scale it over the next few months
| should be fun!
| mrkramer wrote:
| There is always place for niche social networks e.g. the most
| weird niche social network that I remember(and that is legal) was
| Ashley Madison[0]; I found about it in 2015 when it was all over
| the media because of the embarrassing breach.
|
| Apparently it was and is used by married people who seek affairs
| or in another words people who want to cheat on their partner. If
| you can build community and business around that then you can
| build community and business around anything.
|
| Btw I think dating sites invented the whole chatbot affair thing
| because Ashley Madison was using fake chatbot accounts to catfish
| and lure people into buying Ashley Madison membership or whatever
| they use to monetize their product.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Madison
| isaacdaoust wrote:
| Notably absent hobby in the article is music. I'm currently
| working on a website that will function as a "hobby app" for
| digital music/album collection.
|
| https://discollect.app my public profile:
| https://discollect.app/profile/clo0oz2hw0005fv02qbxn866c
| TomMasz wrote:
| Strava got me to join a few clubs (I'm not in any IRL club) but
| the messaging I just ignore. Not everything has to be a social
| network. I'm looking at you LinkedIn.
| fcatalan wrote:
| Small Twitch communities do it for me.
|
| I'm quite of an introvert. And all my long term friendships have
| faded or my friends have moved cities or countries.
|
| But around lockdown I took up miniature painting and started
| watching a bunch of 50 to 100 viewer channels about the hobby.
| With those numbers the streamer knows you by name by the second
| time you show up and you soon bond with others in chat.
|
| This got me in contact with the small local hobby club, but also
| by the time I could attend an in person nationwide convention my
| family was astounded: dozens of people they knew nothing about
| were greeting me, stopping for hugs and chats, giving me stuff
| from their stands...
|
| I've seen both romantic and business relationships emerge in that
| environment.
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