Mine is comics. It was a fluctuating hobby since childhood but it finally ended for good this year. I just couldn’t get into them again and didn’t dedicate any amount of time to indulge on what I had around me. Like I used to have a stack of Hellblazer comics, I had a couple of Spider-Gwen graphic novels, a few Batman ones including A Death in the Family and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight graphic novels.
But regardless, nothing stuck anymore. I’ve actually grown exhausted by how overwhelming the comic ecosystem has gotten, even when trying to take it in moderately. I got tired of continuity fractures in many characters that I liked, I got tired of the pointless power-leveling debates between which versions of characters, I never really liked overpowered characters to begin with and I haven’t even scratched the surface as to how politically and socially involved comics has gotten into. And I’m so over with overly redundant story tropes and all of these multiverses and alternate universes that are just used as lazy writing pathways to excuse writers who’ve cornered themselves and are afraid to stick to bold, coherent arcs of some characters.
I hadn’t even touched also on the many, many movies that we’ve been seeing released. Not to mention how many blown chances that has happened because of politics and shit.
So many things that contributed to me just exiting myself from comics entirely, I donated nearly all of the comics I had and then some. I still stick with manga volumes because those are a little different to me than traditional comics, so I have a handful of those around.
I don’t foresee myself coming back to the comic universe any day soon.
I’ve been away from ham radio for a while now. Thanks to hanging out with primarily older hams I know this is a common thing. I know folks who got licensed as kids, got out of it for 30 years, then came back after they retired. Unfortunately the hobby is extremely expensive so there’s a a temptation to force myself into it because I spent all this money. Right now I’m just looking at other areas within the amateur radio space that I haven’t explored, like radio direction finding (aka fox hunting).
As for comics, I can’t possibly imagine enjoying them. I like deep, and more importantly consistent, worldbuilding more than characters, so the constant reboots and alternate continuities would frustrate me. I bounced hard off of Transformers because it’s merch driven and it shows in the messy lore.
I’ve only seen one Marvel movie (Iron Man 2) and I’m still exhausted by osmosis. Luckily it seems like this nearly two decade long trend is finally dying. I count the start of the superhero movie trend with the first X-men movie. The fad was already getting old in the mid 2000s, and I can’t believe it managed to last this long.
I’m quite currious (not enough to get into the hobby) what does one do with Ham radio? Is it just talking to other people over the radio or what?
I haven’t been on the air in a while either. My dipole antennas are out of commission right now because the stakes came out of the ground, and now I have my antennas tangled in the tree and I will need to take them down in order to untangle them.
If you are into HF, we are basically at solar maximum right now, so it is a great time to get some DXing in.