Hobbies are typically defined as a regular activity that is done for enjoyment with no intention of financial gain or profit. I have always danced and that was my main hobby and activity for about 10 years but recently one of my goals has been to pick up new, diverse and simply more hobbies. These vary from reading, writing, video games, chess, colouring, baking, doing puzzles, journaling and so on. All of these are now so crucial to who I am as a person and I want to discuss how and why hobbies are so fundamental, specifically from an anti-capitalistic point of view.
As I have defined hobbies are the activities we do for enjoyment but why are they so crucial for us humans? The basic and simple reasons are the following; they promote mindfulness, creativity, decreasing boredom and stress, developing skills and promoting personal development. It seems quite simple really and we could stop here but hobbies can be something more than that; hobbies are a rebellion. Under late-capitalism (a term that describes the most current stage of capitalism characterised by extreme inequality, mega corporations and the latest terrifying technology) we are always conditioned, if not forced, to focus only on profit and certainly not encouraged to do something for the simple joy and pleasure of doing it. In fact, many people are forced to turn their hobbies, for example writing or drawing, into their jobs; defeating the whole idea of it being a hobby in the first place. So in pursuing a hobby we fight against such a prolific system and can also receive many benefits, as listed above. Hobbies can also be so important because we don't need to stare at a computer or phone screen to do them and can encourage us to actually go outside and if we do utilise a device it is done in a mindful and more relaxing way.
Although, others argue that hobbies have been in a way "co-opted" by capitalism and instead promote the idea of consumerism (defined as, the excessive focus on buying and owning things in society leading to the phenomena of "over-consumption"). In fact, often hobbies can condition us to buy unnecessary things. At some point haven't we all bought another cute notebook ("for journaling", of course) even though we have 10 untouched ones at home or for the same reason bought washi-tape in so many colours and patterns and brush pens that now sit in a draw. There are countless examples of this phenomenon because often we feel like we are continuing a self-development journey by simply buying the product (and more) but not actually putting it to use for its purpose is enough to call it "productivity".
More often than not some hobbies can become competitive and the cause of this can be social media. Take for instance BookTok, the side of TikTok that peruses reading as a hobby, it seems pretty harmless on the surface. On this side of TikTok (or any social media like YouTube or Instagram) we can easily encounter 50+ book hauls all including the most trendy books at the time. The influence of BookTok is incredibly strong and sways completely publishing houses and continues to reinforce the idea that tropes (think grumpy x sunshine, enemies to lovers, friends to lovers ecc...) should be the main selling point of a book. Now, books need to be marketable and trendy for them to acquire a publishing house. In my opinion, this hinders unique and diverse (emphasis on diverse) writing and books and so we aren't exposed to the vast world of literature that can teach us so much and expose us to new cultures, interesting ideas; helping us develop critical thinking.
Not only are there giant book hauls there are also "reading wrap-ups" which include quick reviews of the books one has read in a month or a specific time frame. These also reinforce the idea of competitive hobbies, because seeing the huge numbers of books this person has read we suddenly also want to read more to beat that number but in the process don't read at our own pace. What then tends to happen is that often after a week we can't even recall what the book was about because we read it too fast and didn't have time to digest it and comprehend it correctly, ruining the idea of reading in the first place. Obviously, yes BookTok (or any similar variant for another type of hobby) can be a positive thing if it encourages someone to read and if the right content is found we can be exposed to new authors but this requires some filtering of the content we see and not everyone applies critical thinking about the content they consume so it's important to be wary of that fact.
All of this to say yes, hobbies can also very easily feed into consumerism, but they don't have to. Hobbies like writing on a free service, hiking and walking, taking advantage of a local library, listening to music, cooking, baking, dancing and so many more don't (or don't have to) feed into this prolific consumerism around hobbies. You don't have to cut out buying, for example books or something you get joy out of, but it is important to always be mindful and keep always remember principals like thrifting second-hand, local libraries, swapping and borrowing between friends and family and recycling what we already have.
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