I hate the disparaging of gatekeeping as inherently bad. Mountain biking has seen an uptick of people riding electric fat bikes, essentially just dirt bikes. It's bad enough when beginners are using normal bikes to ride in wet muddy conditions on trails that can't handle it or skidding into corners, it does so much more damage when they're tearing up the trail with a heavy motorized bike with wide tires. More gatekeeping would keep the trails in better conditions.
Personally, I live by ‘buy the gear that lets you grow in your new hobby’. You don’t usually need to buy the most expensive item, but you certainly should not buy the cheap shit either.
Take photography for example. You don’t need a $5000 pro camera to get started, but at leat something better than a simple point and shoot would be preferable to start. Like a decent prosumer DSLR. That way you can learn manual photography, how to edit raw, you can experiment with lenses, etc.
I’ve never once regretted buying better gear than I needed. I’m still thanking past me for investing a bit more in things that are still useful to me today.
I bought the Bambu P1S 3d printer. I've never 3d printed and knew very little except for the dozen or so YouTube videos recommending it and how to use it, learned about filaments and everything else I now know I learned on the way.
I could have gotten one of a dozen <$500 3D printers. But would that just leave me wanting in the future? Will I be stuck with a cheaper tool after learning and experiencing the ceiling of it?
I see this mentality working on people who aren't interested in a hobby enough to justify a large purchase, people just trying out and see if they're interested kinda thing. But what if the subpar gear turns the person off from their poor experience?
There's a trade-off, depending on the hobby, I guess. For some hobbies, very cheap gear won't even work properly. "Buy once, cry once," is something I hear often.
We have one in Finnish "välineurheilija". "Väline" is "sports equipment" and "urheilija" is athlete, so it's literally just "equipmentathlete" and used derogatorily towarsd people who — instead of actually practicing — just show up in very expensive gear.
I've heard "wallet warrior" been thrown around in gaming communities for people who just pay for high end accounts without having any skill to back it up.
Think it's the trap that if you continue with the hobby, all the starter gear is useless and all the money could have been spent on better equipment.
I paint miniatures. Not as often it as much as I would like to because of dividing my time between work, two year old and chores, but I have had the hobby for the last six years.
I have yet to purchase an airbrush, and I can get a perfectly decent starter set for lets say 20 USD. But I can also get a better set with high end compressor, better paint gun.for 60 USD. I know that if I keep getting better at using the airbrush I will eventually get the high end stuff, why not "save" money and get it right away.
what about people like me that get the highest end off brand stuff from aliexpress? apart from my used kona frame, my whole bike is aliexpress parts including rims, hoses, and bolts
IDK. When I pick up a new hobby I try and go mid tier. I'm not going to buy the 1000 dollar gear but also not the 50 dollar gear.
Though I did go and buy a way too expensive camera a few years ago. But it was more a return to a hobby than a new one. Don't regret the purchase, don't plan on upgrading any time soon.
My buddies and I used to go paintballing in the woods near us. We'd throw on layers and grab our basic guns and go have fun. We invited this guy we knew from school, and dude went to the store and bought a paintball carbine, and a Gilly suit and just sat there picking everyone off. We didn't invite him a second time
Why care? Don't yuk someone's yum. Envy is a bad look tbh.
I'm probably someone he hates, bought a shit load of hardware for my Farming/Truck Sims. But I use them ~40hr week and it makes me happy. But I guess go fuck myself because I can afford it.
Paying for expensive gear at the beginning may not be a bad idea, given the possibility: should you quit the hobby and try to sell your stuff, no one is going to buy your knockoff cheap equipment, while more quality stuff holds its value
Invited a new guy to MTG Commander night. Showed up with a deck full of expensive cardboard because a deck he found online had all of them. Cool dude and still plays with us with more reasonably priced cardboard now.
Although gatekeeping is a bad attitude, I think the worst part of beginning a hobby is not getting super expensive gear as a beginner, but getting the wrong super expensive gear as a beginner.
As a homebrewer, my super janky setup has barely evolved in the 8 years I've been in the hobby. It's a very hands-on process, hard to control for temps and most of my tools are either upcycled or built from hardware store materials, but I know exactly how it works and can let my imagination run wild when creating recipes. Plus, it's fun to spend an afternoon with friends drinking beer while actually brewing beer. I see a lot of people splurging for a Brewfather and losing interest pretty quickly because everything is automated, so your "hobby" is mainly waiting for a timer to beep, or people "investing" in kits and making barely-better-than-low-end commercial beer.
I'm not really into photography anymore but when I started out, I was shooting film because camera bodies were super cheap back then, people discarded them because they were only interested in the lenses. People were buying 800-1000€ m4/3 cameras in droves and put expensive vintage lenses on them to get that "instagram look", which is useless except for driving up the price of good lenses because the sensor is so small that most of the character of the lens is lost. With a bit of patience, you could snag a full-frame, used Sony a7 for less money and actually getting what you paid for in the lens.
Very surprising to see so many peole lashing out at "gatekeeping".
Frugality is a very important thing (something something global warming?), a beginner can not get any meaning out of the very best gear, diminishing returns are a thing.
Wasting resources because you are unable to resist the temptation of marketing is dumb, selfish and harmful.
No, of course I'm not talking about safety gear. No, I'm not advocating for buying the cheapest stuff.
In fishing they’re called Googans (no idea of the etymology), but I dislike the idea of gatekeeping in general. If someone’s doing something dangerous, or their googanism is somehow ruining your enjoyment of your hobby, I get it, but otherwise why should you care?
Maybe gatekeeping is a poor method to encourage beginners in your hobby? Perhaps it might be better to encourage them simply to avoid the worst quality cheapos. It's nearly always better to learn on equipment that isn't garbage. It cuts down on waste, and at least you can sell it if the hobby doesn't work out.
It's really common advice to not start with the cheapest gear. Yes a lot of us learned to play on dime store guitars but would have suffered less with a quality instrument. The same is true for just about everything.
You bought the most expensive gear for a hobby you don't yet know much about? I've met many in this hobby, and have never met anyone this dedicated! Good on you, mate! Can you keep me posted on your progress? I'm genuinely interested! Let me know if you need any help or advice, as I'd be ecstatic to help!
I hate these ~/mike types of gatekeeping bullshitters. People in a hobby being excited about newcomers to the hobby, is the reason we still have hobbies.
How about "people supporting my hobby"? People buying better gear (be it climbing gear, better bikes, airbrush kits for models, or whatever) show manufacturers that people want improved gear which ultimately raises the baseline quality of gear in general.
Real life isn't a video game where we each have to progress up a skill tree to "earn" better gear.
Maybe try engaging with the newbie with the fancy gadgets and making a friend who shares your hobby?
Depending on the hobby, this is some fucked up gatekeeping.
My first thought was riding a motorcycle as a hobby, and that is one activity that many people severely underestimate how much expensive gear you should be wearing for your safety before you even consider doing it.
Not me sitting here with hundreds of dollars in TTRPG manuals when my playgroup only meets once a week and we are in the middle of a pathfinder campaign.
I feel particularly called out because I spent all day today reading Mothership manuals and adventures and I have no idea when I'll get to play it.
EDIT: I’d like to clarify I agree about the gatekeeping this reinforces and this really doesn’t get used often, and if anything it sees more use among friends for silly reasons, like missing a Velcro on a shoe or something. Like I said I don’t know the origin because I don’t really engage with the “joke” that much.
We used to call them Ag-Nags (AGNG’s)… all gear, no game. It was a derogatory term, but it was more reserved for the type of person that would go buy the best gear and never invest the time to learn how to use it or why it had value other than the sticker price.
Go out and learn something new. Enjoy something new. If you have money to buy gear, that’s fine… but know that most people that pioneered whatever sport/hobby your delving into did a lot more with a lot less. Enjoy it for what it is and worry about the gear less… sometimes the squeeze makes the juice that much better.
Early adopter.
Early, because in terms of skills way too early big investments in a hobby that is likely to be abandoned quickly.
[Edit]: Maybe poser is better.
In cabinetmaking my teachers used to say "doctors and lawyers" and it stuck to my life outside cabinetmaking. In music there's so many people who can hardly play or only play in their basements who have gear my gigging punk ass would never even think of owning. I went to a pedal Expo recently and I had no idea what half the stuff was and I play in a couple of pretty successful bands.
I have an idea, focus on what you like and don't leave any time to tear people down because it's just shitty and pointless and ruins hobbies for everyone.
Granted, if it is a new activity or hobby where rookies don't destroy gear, it makes sense to me. It lets me skip the constant upgrading as my skills increase.
I'll buy a zillion dollar airbrush and learn to use it, and feel incentivised to take care of it. I didn't do the same with my first Jeep when I got into offloading. My first one was a cheap junker that I could roll if I did a rookie move.
As for a slur for people like me....I dunno, whatever makes you feel superior I guess. If it is creative or funny enough, I'll happily adopt it and use it 👍
We see this a lot with skiing. I grew up working at mountains to afford it and my equipment is decent.
Then Joey (not sure where the name originated) will bomb past you on $5000 worth of equipment and end up in traction after wiping out on the first icy patch they see.
I had a coworker who was a sneaker head (traded in limited edition shoes). They called people who bought bad deals or was generally inexpirenced "Timmys" because the persons orders looked like a kid with their parents credit card.
You fool, you have not ascended in your hobby yet. The true best gear is the gear you end up using and it is never the most expensive gear you have or could have
The initial buy-in, especially at a Games Workshop/ Warhammer store is astronomical.
You'll need paintbrushes to start - here, try these, the most expensive paintbrushes you'll ever buy. And paints too, how about our mindboggling range of expensive paints?
When I took up mini painting again as an adult, with dirt-cheap acrylic paints and brushes, and achieved far better results than I ever did as a kid with the "proper" stuff, it was a real eye-opener.
Not exactly, but strong overlap between this and "gear heads." They obsess over the tech, specs, and ofc gear. Ask them about anything subtler than that and it's clear they don't actually care about the activity in itself - just getting swept up in hype cycles and flexing on other gear heads.
Can also mean people that are really into cars or motorcycles, but I don't think it's as pejorative in that case?
Not to bash on newbies, but it's definitely a thing. It's really only sad if it causes them to waste their money on something that ultimately isn't for them. If they're actually enjoying themselves then that's cool.
Anyway I love gatekeeping on this kind of shit because I have a privation fetish, so grain of salt on my opinion.
It is both an insult as well as an addiction/habit.
Amateur and Pro TT players usually have trained from childhood as early as 3 years old tend to have an almost god-like superior ability to learn and relearn in the sport at any age.
But most folks get into TT at an older age around their late-20s.
TT reflexes cannot be gained at the later stages of life. Almost a miracle for an older player to "git gud".
Hence, you will find the older players have the income to buy equipment used by the Top-10 players in the world. Hence "Equipment Junkie".
The number of permutations and combinations in TT equipment is crazy for such a "simple" looking sport.
Real problem is when you buy all this expensive stuff and your game gets WORSE not better. You "lend" your equipment to other players and all of them seem to play better than you with your own equipment.
So you spent a lot of money, and don't want to let anyone touch your equipment ( because it would be embarrassing for them to become "better" players using your stuff while you wallow in misery of not benefitting from your own purchases ).
So EJs tend to have a extremely absurd amount of equipment that they have spent exorbitant prices purchasing and do not want to sell it to others ( again for fear their purchase is fuelling other peoples abilities at their own expense ) but they keep buying the next "Top-10" world TT players latest equipment without even understanding the sport.
It is an endless cycle which continues as more new blood is added to the mix and more EJs end caught up in the craze.