Ever since quarantine began all those months ago, people have gone a little stir crazy. By this point, everyone knows the feeling of sitting in your bed for seven hours in a row and doing nothing but endlessly scroll through your twitter feed, refreshing every three minutes in an attempt to find more content to interest you. Thankfully, some people have taken it upon themselves to inspire the lowly peons (everyone else, including myself) with their new hobbies.
However, some of these hobbies are a bit more unique than others. Considering everyone’s options have been incredibly limited now that going outside may result in you catching the plague, people have gotten a little creative when it comes to finding new interests.
Now, the standard hobbies of reading, writing, and art are still alive, and well; it’s just that a few more niche hobbies are getting their chance in the spotlight.
- Baking Sourdough Bread
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Baking is a quintessential thing to know how to do; being able to create your own food by hand and partake in the fruits of your labor is a wonderful thing. However, an odd niche of baking has exploded in popularity since quarantine began. Namely, sourdough bread. With it being more difficult to leave the household in order to purchase food from the grocery store, especially in the earlier parts of the quarantine, when they were nearly overrun by people panic-buying, it has been easier to create food at home.
However, beginner bakers have decided to jump straight into the deep end and begin making sourdough. I understand the love for sourdough bread, I really do, but seeing ten different people discussing sourdough starter recipes on my twitter feed has been an odd shift from the normal posting. Before quarantine, I had no idea how attached people can become to the mason jars of yeast they develop for their bread, but the odd parental relationships towards sourdough starters has been amusing to witness.
- Video Gaming
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Food-related hobbies aren’t the only ones that have exploded since quarantine began. Video gaming has emerged as another hobby that people are picking up. Video games, as a whole, is not a new hobby by any means, but seeing people who had no prior gaming experience go out and purchase a gaming console in preparation for their own personal quarantines has been interesting, to say the least. Personally, it’s been something I’ve been very excited to see. As a woman that plays video games, it feels a bit lonely at times, and seeing other women pick up the hobby with their newfound free time has been wonderful.
I’ve been beating around the bush, but the game that sparked this newfound interest in gaming is the newest release in the Animal Crossing franchise. Animal Crossing: New Horizons has exploded in popularity; the cutesy art style and the easy gameplay make it an appealing first game to own. I’ve seen people who have had no prior interest in gaming rush to buy a Nintendo Switch (which, even now, is difficult. They’re sold out almost everywhere!) just so they can play the Animal Crossing game with it!
I’m no stranger to dropping hundreds of hours into video games, as embarrassing as that may be to admit. But seeing new gamers post about how proud they are to have an island with 300+ hours logged into it is always a wonderful feeling!
- TikTok Creation
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Finally, another interesting hobby that I’ve seen pick up over the course of quarantine is TikTok creation. Before quarantine, Tiktok was an incredibly popular app that had already established itself as a good time-waster. However, after people were locked in their homes for days at a time with nothing to do, the few remaining people who had yet to download it eventually caved.
Initially, there was still some dislike of Tiktok, former Vine fans being upset that the app had replaced their old favorite, and others disliking the content as they thought it was embarrassing. Now though, more people than not enjoy and create their own Tiktoks in their spare time. The aesthetics that have emerged from Tiktok are becoming more popularized as well; the E-boy and E-girl trends have only increased in popularity as time has gone on! People are more open to expressing themselves in bright and blatant ways when there’s less pressure to perform for people in society.
There are definitely more hobbies that I’ve forgotten to mention or simply haven’t seen, but these are just a few examples! Finding new interests and communities to interact with during times like this is incredibly beneficial, as many other socialization opportunities have been taken away. People being able to indulge in their interests when real life has little to offer is amazing, as is meeting new people who share your newfound interests with you! So, while quarantine leaves a lot to be desired, not everything that has come out of it is bad.