Finding Your Community: A Response

Community is a crucial part of the hobby for me and many others. It is a means to flow ideas, feedback, and general (for the most part) wholesome interactions. Despite the internet’s existence finding communities for your hobbies, or more specifically, finding the right community for some can be a daunting process.

It can be tedious because of location, social interaction anxiety, and a myriad of other factors.

It is not always easy.

When I was starting to venture out to the Gunpla community I was nervous. I did not know anyone who built them so there was not anyone to help me connect with other community members. I had to step out of my comfort zone and find people to connect with.

An example is the lovely dudes at The Cutting Mat podcast who recently put out an episode about finding your community. This post is a response to their latest episode. (Sorry for taking so long to listen guys)

I have done responses to their episodes in the past. The community that they foster is one that I have found to be homely. There’s a good solid foundation of respect that they bring to the hobby. As fellow neurodivergent content creators, they often understand the struggles that I face.

Did I find them right away? No. It took me some time before I met Joel, even before the podcast was a concept idea. Then slowly I found my way to the rest of what I consider to be my “community”. It may be all online, but it is a community, nonetheless.

They touch on several key points in the episode with which I can resonate.
The first is the fear of missing out. I think most of us can say that it sucks to miss fun hobby events. I would love to attend all the local events near me or travel a few hours to one. The reality is that it is just not possible. Life often gets in the way of that.

The jobs in my current career path are often brutal when it comes to schedules. I often start too early to get anything significant done in the morning and too late to do anything at night. Weekends are often workdays. It does not leave much room to attend community events unless I use a vacation day.

So yes, I often feel bummed that I do not get those community interactions because there is a plethora of people, I miss meeting. There are too many cool folks in this hobby.

On the same hand, as much as I love attending community events, I still get incredibly nervous when attending. I still am self-conscious about my speech disability at times. I worry that if I am socially awkward (it happens) at times then people will automatically shun me like “Look at this weirdo and all her weird balls!”. Then I start to mask and I stop being authentically me.

(I like Joel’s reference to a weird social alarm. My social alarm makes things seem worse than they are.)

IPMS Granitecon 2021 was one of the first hobby events I showed up at fully ready to be my silly self and that took some time to prep for. Luckily, I met a good chunk of the IPMS community. Talked to a bunch of them. Learned a good chunk about cars and planes that I promptly forgot.

My noggin reminding itself as I walked into the venue not to be a weirdo

Shoutout to that one guy who went on a whole history lesson and walked me through the Pacific War. I am not sure if you were an actual history teacher, but you did a solid job.

The group touched on coming back to the community when you are away for a while. Stepping away from the community for a bit, even if briefly, feels as if I missed some groundbreaking event. There are always new builds and other cool things that go unnoticed and then I feel down for not being there to support my fellow community members or missing new community members.
It is wild.

Also, the comment about the hobby being a part of identity is a solid discussion point and one that warrants a future post. There is a lot that can be said on that topic.

Overall, Joel and the guys drop some rad talking points (more than I can write about) so I suggest checking it out for yourselves. If you have some thoughts or opinions, feel free to reach out to me or the dudes directly. They are chill enough to discuss it.

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