National Association of Weird & Idiosyncratic Hobbies and Pastimes.
Can navel fluff and lobster racing bring the country together?
Today I’m launching the National Association of Weird and Idiosyncratic Pastimes (NAWIP)
This organization has no charter, bylaws, or board of directors. As of yet, there are no meetings or conferences planned because this just occurred to me this morning.
Here’s the mission: Advance social harmony and improve individual happiness through the practice and perpetuation of wacky, odd, strange, and idiosyncratic hobbies and pastimes.
We–or more accurately–I believe the world is a better place when people spend their free time doing whatever floats their boat, rings their bell, or light’s their fancy, rather than participating in tribal bickering and memetic consumption.
NAWIP has no quarrel with common pastimes like golf, woodworking, needlepoint, or doom-scrolling on Twitter. We celebrate anything people like to do for its own sake, so long as it doesn’t bother other people too much.
However, conventional pastimes are well-supported by corporations and governmental authorities. Runners can easily find clubs to join in any town or city, kitting circles are commonplace and video gamers are well-served in multiple dimensions. Golf courses are even subsidized through favorable tax treatment. (Golfers are good at getting government handouts)
But folks who like to ride tiny bicycles or build Viking ships out of juice boxes travel their paths alone.
Even the friendliest local knitting circles tend to be a little less welcoming to a crafter who enjoys making afghans that look like giant vaginas and scarves shaped into penises. Garden clubs tend to be very inclusive, but if you like to grow highly toxic and thorny plants, don’t be surprised if you aren't included to participate in the garden tour.
People pursuing alternative pastimes need safe spaces to express their offbeat proclivities. NAWIP is here to lobby your hobby.
With all the chatter these days about diversity and inclusion, you’d think alternative avocational lifestyles would be celebrated on magazine covers and big brand marketing. But what do we see? People sipping cocktails on pleasure boats, kids playing baseball, couples hand in hand walking through parks. Surfing and volleyball.
When was the last time you saw someone showing off their small animal taxidermy in a Target advertising campaign?
NAWIP hopes to build a broad and inclusive community to advance awareness and acceptance of strange pastimes like extreme ironing and collecting navel fluff so that people who practice these activities in silence and shame can gather with kindred spirits to validate and share their uncommon interests.
Do you have an unusual hobby, interest, or pastime? Who's ready to take their lifesized #elvis made from #Fruitloops out of the closet to share with the rest of the nation?