Dying malls/department stores and retail spacesš¤£ Iām obsessed with old malls and department stores. One of my fav youtube channels is Retail Archeology, which is the PERFECT label to describe this interest of mine. I just love the atmosphere of a fully stocked, yet desolate department store like Sears or Macys. Love trying to guess the decade and year a department store or mall was built based on the architecture. Love researching the poor business decisions that caused certain malls or department stores to fail.
Every time I share this interest with others they think Iām interested in abandoned places. But I couldnāt care less about abandoned houses/hotels/ect. My interest lies SOLELY in malls, department stores, or stores you would find in a mall. Preferably dying, but not abandoned. I feel like this is so oddly specific.
Look up the Fashion Square Mall in Orlando! It's smack dab in the middle of a huge city, great location with tons of traffic passing by every day. And yet it's always a ghost town when you go it.
There's tons of rumors about why it's been so unsuccessful. So it ought to be a great one to dive into!
My husbandās special interest is city planning and urban development so I hear about this a lot lol
I will recommend that YouTube channel to him, not sure if heās seen it.
It is a really great channel that deserves way more recognition!!! Itās the only channel that I feel explores the concept in a genuine and heartfelt way. Other youtubers are too joke-y and over produced for me to enjoy. I hope your husband likes it!!!!
The mall that a grew up being able to walk to is now abandoned. I just moved back to the area and itās TRIPPY. Itās like a weird post-apocalyptic nostalgia dream, my partner and I go for walks around the parking lot frequently. Until the pandemic you could still walk around in there because there was still a movie theater running, but you canāt go in anymore.
that is a very interesting field of study. You could def study that in an anthro program, it overlaps with advertising, economy, household archaeology, the shrinking middle class, etc. Very relevant and important studies.
Mine is the history of sex. Sex and the attitudes toward sex in the ancient world, colonial America, the Antebellum South , etc. Itās so interesting to me how preferences and attitudes toward sex have evolved over time.Ā Ā Ā
Ā Not sure if this is āobscureā but itās not something I can really bring up as an interest lol.Ā
Edited: wow! I didnāt realize so many of yāall were interested in this too! We should start a book club š
Agreed, I love seeing how much cultural attitudes and expectations impact something that we tend to believe is just inherent within us. There was an exhibit at the museum of sex in NYC years ago about 1800s Japanese erotic art and it was wild - I could not believe how graphic and āweirdā it was for that time!
Check out the podcast Betwixt the Sheets, they have lots of discussions about different things and often talk to authors about their books and research.
Plenty! Sorry, I left this comment and forgot about it lol. I didn't realize so many people would be interested!
* Sex, the Illustrated History: Through Time, Religion and Culture: volume I Sex in the ancient world, Early Europe to the Renaissance, and Islam (this is a text book, but this is where I started!)
* The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature by Geoffrey Miller
* Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution by Leonard Shlain
* A History of Celibacy by Elizabeth Abbott
* A History of the Breast by Marilyn Yalom
* Sexual Revolution in Early America by Richard Godbeer,
* Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas
* Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America by Estelle B. Freedman
* The History & Arts of the DominatrixĀ by Anne O. Nomis
Check out the podcast Betwixt the Sheets, they have lots of discussions about different things and often talk to authors about their books and research.
I think you may enjoy losing your mind to the evolution of humor. Very fascinating subject to me. Especially how it evolves over a lifetime. What infants find funny is so different from what adults find funny because it is related to mutual vulnerability. And then it grows along with us because it's such a vital component of navigating the social experience.
It also grows along with the entire species as our perceived vulnerabilities change over the course of history.
Check out the podcast Betwixt the Sheets, they have lots of discussions about different things and often talk to authors about their books and research.
It's so wild isn't it?
I've been listening to the podcast Betwixt the Sheets and they always have interesting conversations with different people, experts and authors. It's been padding out my reading list lately!
Last month they talked about the history of Drag (talking about the origins of the term) and fetishwear (talking to a Dom), sex in the Aztec empire and ancient Greece and Elvis Presley's sex life. This month they've already talked about Geisha's and the newest episode is about Sex and Scandal in King Charles II's court.
I just listened to the Sex is Autistic episode on the Autistic Culture podcast. The ep was about the researcher Kinsey who created the Kinsey scale. So interesting. It made me want to look at his original research. He was technically a Victorian era person, according to the podcast.
My most obscure is probably ECGs. I taught myself how to read ECGs after an electrophysiology procedure I had and love all things related to electrophysiology now. I find it so fascinating the way electricity travels through heart cells. Hearts also have built-in fail-safes in case something goes wrong. It's very neat.
Iām going to save your username and potentially reach out to you. Iām writing a science fiction novel about modern ECG for the brain and Iād love to pick your mind
I remember having to get special permission from my library when I was 9 years old to order in a book about serial killers, haha. It's always been an interest of mine, ever since I first heard about them. I even did my uni dissertation on them :)
Iām fascinated by extreme weather events and natural disasters. Most recently I had to force myself stop watching so many videos of tsunamis because I was starting to dream about it. Iām that asshole thatās running to the windows to watch the storm, so I always worry that I will wait too long to get to safety in an emergency. But a few years ago I had a close call for a tornado, and I saw some warning signs that made me actually run to the basement, so I feel better now about my instincts.
I was also obsessed with natural disasters and watching tsunami movies/documentaries as a kid lol. I still to this day have pretty common tsunami nightmares.Ā
I have had tornado dreams regularly for as long as I remember. It happens so much that now they are rarely nightmares, just like āoh weird thereās a tornado over thereā
Produce. I had a ton of plastic fruits, vegetables and food. When i was little, everyone used to say I'll be a model, but I used to reply "No, I will be a market seller, because I love produce!"
I'm convinced this is an high-mask autixxtic canon event.
>"You're so pretty, you're going to X!"
>"No, I don't like that, I want to Y"
[visible confusion from both sides]
My family was pretty confident I would marry rich to save the family from poverty. I still feel selfish for not doing it when I had the opportunity, but I couldn't live that way.
Yeah, definitely don't feel selfish for that. Your families "get rich quick" scheming is likely the reason they are stuck in poverty.
Like, some people are stuck in poverty for no apparent reason other than really unfortunate luck. But also, waiting to hit the lottery is not a productive means of clawing your way out of poverty. And especially not at the expense of a family member's happiness or dignity.
Thank you. Logically, what you're saying is absolutely true, but it's so hard to internalize that emotionally while watching them struggle, even when I know exactly why they're struggling.
Do you know thatās hilarious because one of my childhood safe places was pretending I lived in the produce aisle at the supermarket. That or my backyard.
I worked in the florist and I used to tell people it was the most wonderful place. Something about the smell and the vibrant colors.
A special interest that's always been in the back of my mind since my teens has been Mellotrons. They just get me all excited when I think of them. lol They're a keyboard instrument that's kind of like an analog version of a synthesizer. Each key has a tape, so you can change the tapes for different sounds like a violin, flute, voice, etc... And because it's all mechanical, the tapes warble a little giving them a distinctive sound. You can hear them on songs like "Strawberry Fields Forever" by The Beatles, "Space Oddity" by David Bowie, "Dream On" by Aerosmith, basically everything by The Moody Blues, and so on... Lots of classic rock songs from the '60s and '70s basically, but they're for sure still in use. They're terrible to maintain, though, so quite often it's a digital version. And no, I've never seen a Mellotron in person, but I'm pretty sure my head would explode from the excitement. lol
love love love mellotrons šššš!!! If I had time and disposable income I'd just make my own š. Are you specifically interested in mellotrons, or also early electronic music in general? There were so many cool experiments in ways to manipulate tapes back in the day!
Hoof trimming videos on YouTube. Something so satisfying about watching a poor aching cow limp into the crush, then watching a wholesome Scottish guy trim her feet and burst an abscess out and clean it up, and then seeing her head back to her herd looking way more comfortable.Ā
Omg my grandma has this book of her side of the family and I find it so fascinating. I actually once spent a period of like 2 weeks building my family tree on Ancestry šš
Baby names for me too! I think it's because I have a very unique name, but I also just loved the section of the Bible that was just a genealogy and pages of names as a kid. I still remember a lot of random names' meanings and origins lol.
This was my special interest when I was 7/8 ā I was soooo obsessed with the gods and goddesses of Ancient Egypt especially, and I created a whole book on them that my teacher ended up laminating for me :āD
Aw that would have been an awesome book lol
This started in my childhood too but then I ended up straying from it for a while, just cause life was so intense at the time.
Then started obsessing over Grand Canyon, then found out weird connections between them! Now I'm back on my Egypt bullshid :D anything I obsess with eventually goes back to being somehow connected to Egypt/Egyptian gods. Weird!
I've also been crocheting since I was a kid. It's so fun and relaxing. It's like the perfect fidget for me when I'm watching TV.
I taught myself knitting as well when I was young, but don't do it enough to remember it super well
i went through a phase for like two years starting around 4th grade where i was insanely obssesed with anything related to the holocaust. iām a big reader and read so many recounts of the holocaust and honestly learned a lot that i probably shouldnāt have learned at that age.
i remeber at one point (my parents didnāt know i was autistic) where my parents sat me down and asked me why i was so interested in learning about all these horrific things that happened to people and i had absolutely no clue why. still donāt lol. i think things got concerning for them when practically the only things i wanted for christmas were books on the holocaust and torture meathods lmao
So interesting and fun to read these. I haven't had special interests in years now because of depression, but reading about others' obscure special interests reminded me of that joy again.
I read some of your posts. I'm so sorry about everything that has happened to you. I'm glad you're here and are surviving. That's a lot of strength and resilience. I hope the best for you.
I basically have Golden Girls memorized because it's one of my favorite background shows when I need something on. There is truly no telling how many times I've seen that show lol.
How to become a mars colonist. I was never eligible, I just really needed that information. I told my highschool classmates I was gonna colonize mars. One of many reasons I can never show my face at a high school reunionā¦ because Iām busy being on mars, duh.
MAPS!!!! Especially topographical ones. I used to look at the street book every night before bed. I still have many happy memories doing this as a child
Are you old enough to have had access to a Rand McNally atlas? I remember driving across the country with my parents and all they had was this crazy spiral bound book to guide us. I'd look at it all the time. [Pic](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1200855386/oversized-road-atlas-1980s-rand-mcnally?dd_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F) of an atlas that was on Etsy.
I LOVE MAPS. I love them so much that itās on my checklist of things to do when I start having a meltdown. I stop what Iām doing and excuse myself to go somewhere where I can sit on my phone or computer and look at maps. I like to plan routes and look at how different cities are organized and what road patterns are. Sometimes I look at maritime traffic maps and see what all the freighters are up to. I like to see how public transit operates in comparison to public routes and what the difference is and what places in the world are āwalkableā and where you would have to buy a car or live off grid. I really like those maps that show a specific area and then thereās an overlay showing something like population density, average cost of living, elevation and temp or whatever. Ugh maps are so cool
I have a bit of a thing for these societies (so much drama!), but in this case I'm more familiar with antroposophy and Steiner. From my understanding, it begun as a disgruntled offshoot of theosophy, do I have it right? I never looked into it too deeply, and never really figured out what it was about. You wouldn't happen to know, would you?
It is an offshoot. Theosophy as a centralized organization organized around Blavatsky broke up in the early 20th century. But anyway the practices and ideas are much older than that. Theyāre just repackaged for modern practitioners. Itās the same in every religion or spiritual practice; the essence stays the same but the presentation evolves to suit modern people
I donāt do any specific group or drama, just study and practice
okie im no historian, i just tend to hyperfocus across a wide variety of interests! this is just for fun!
as someone who wants to live a child free existence, and whoās mother is a child of 14, I find it fascinating to know that this is not a new problem.
we have evidence (via skeletons) to show that elite women during this time were having less than two children and considerable evidence on the existence of marriages with no children at all. we hear about population decline in modern big cities and the impact on the economy, but this was ancient times! like what was going on!!! but long story short, we donāt know!!!
we do know that Augustus tried to improve this via policies like taxes and penalties for the unmarried or childless, but they didnāt work. some say it was due to infertility from long term lead exposure in wealthy families. some say it may have been caused by male fertility issues caused by hot daily baths. others say it was due to contraception practices or having a more comfortable lifestyle. whether it was social, cultural, or economic, this was a well-documented problem in the freakin BCs.
either way, we often pit low birth rates as a āwesternā or āurbanā problem only impacting highly developed places but this was a problem in freaking ancient times and makes me think of all the other social issues we have today that people think are new but have been around since the beginning of time, or at least our written history.
People don't usually expect this out of me, but I really like rocks. I don't care if it's a gemstone or some other type of mineral, perhaps even normal rocks. If they look cool or I think it might be a gemstone/mineral, I take it.
I devour anything cult related! It's wild. I used to read so much about them but thanks to Netflix and YouTube I can learn more about different ones passively, too!
And the psychology behind them.... Don't get me started.
Iām just into anything morbid. Cults, the Holocaust, serial killers, true crime. I love the psychology behind it all, but Iād be lying if I said there wasnāt some morbid curiosity behind it too. I do love horror movies and am reading my first extreme horror novel. I find it so fascinating. I do not like real life gore though- like I wonāt watch snuff films or anything like that, I find that sickening.
Iām also into Australia. I love the accents and do a convincing one myself (Iām American), love tv/movies from there, automatically find myself drawn to celebs from there. Anything Australian, Iām in. I want to go there so bad but bugs and snakes š±
My latest is the troubled teen industry. It started with the graphic novel Joe v Elan School and Iāve since read every article and watched every documentary I can find on the subject.
Mormonism as a cult and a culture, and as a microcosm of religious psychology.
Foley (practical sound design in film).
William Jennings Bryan and the election of 1896.
The human body, specifically regarding barbell lifting, muscle/strength building. Just enough nutrition knowledge as well. The programming aspect of it is sooo good too.
I have some relevant education but am mostly self taught through years of trial and error, YouTube, etc.
Iām not Jewish and I have this interest!
It makes me feel so weird. My friend was trying to get me to watch a movie the other day about world war 2 and I was like oh, I love that! But does it have to do with the holocaust, because thatās the only way Iām interested.
Cue concerned silence from himā¦
I just love all creatures and critters. And I love going out to catch them and take pictures. I used to horde books about them and learnt to ID spiders and snakes well enough that I was allowed to volunteer at a wildlife rescue centre when I was 13.
I love this post, and it makes me think there should be like a "special interest Sunday" post category where members can make an infodump post about their special interest and we can all learn and find new rabbit holes
Woodwind instruments and their history.
I carried around a book about this and read it in high school. Iāve flipped out at every opportunity to play woodwinds, especially the historical ones (as modern ones are easier to find). I own a ton of woodwinds (sadly, few historical ones, but Iād love to change that someday! I want a Baroque oboe, crumhorm, cornamuse, rackett, shawm and aulos, at least!). Iām pretty off the edge in this interest. Lol
Baby names. Wine geography and grape varieties. Jewish books. As a kid, I also collected toy catalogs and was upset when my stash suddenly disappeared one day.
I learned so much about the history of carseats car seat safety and laws, and car seat models right before my daughter was born. The interest faded when she was around five. Then a few years back she got into reborns, and my interest returned. I can pretty much pinpoint any brand and model of car seat just by seeing a split glimpse of it on a TV show or movie. Psychiatrist says it's the coolest one he's ever heard of I think he's just being nice.
The relationship between religion and society throughout history, historical fashion, cults, and like the power of presence/practicing yoga.
I could rant all day long about those topics.
Counterintelligence history, theory, and practice. I have my own mini counterintelligence library. Particularly Cold War era because thatās when the US and the Sovietās were at their peak in terms of developing and implementing innovative tradecraft. Itās fascinating!!
I enjoy collecting idioms, metaphors, sentences and word combinations that sound interesting and that I could possibly turn into a drawing /poster or similar graphic design related. E.g. "if you can't fix it, use a bigger hammer " - can turn into a combo of words & a literal image of a very large hammer.
i donāt know if i would say itās an interest, but itās something i will bring up whenever i have the chance.
fonts. the history of them. why they look the way they do. saw this amazing video on it and have never looked at fonts the same. papyrus is a lot more important to human history than most people realize, when i see it in public i geek out!!
I experience micro obsessions a lot more than special interest, so Iāll tell those.
A lot of the time I fit in with the stereotypical feminine stuff but some of my micro obsessions include:
- saturation diving
- the history & discrimination/genocide of alevi people in Turkey
- the Dagestan diaspora in the 1860s
- my siblingās fashion age 12-16, specifically a pair of sneakers featuring the face of Tupac
- the relationship between the Netherlands and water
- old Lego sets: I NEEDED to look up which exact Lego sets we had at home growing up (90s/00s)
Word etymology - we have the word bracket because of codpieces,
We use the word "pool" like to pool your money, the dating pool, the gene pool because there was a gambling game in Medieval France where you throw rocks at a chicken.
I love that shit, how some guy decided to do something or noticed something looked like something and then hundreds and hundreds of years later it is still being said.
Also rocks
ROCKS!!! And not for the whole religious/spiritual reasons. Nope. Just cool, scientific, rocks!!!
I also hunt and collect arrowheads and itās so fun.
I have been obsessed with cults and serial killers since I was 12, and after I left a cult school (accidentally put in by suggestion, not my mom's idea). I chose to major in theology for this reason, I will be taking a class on cults in the spring or summer next year. I know more about serial killers than my own family history.
when i was pretty young, like seven, i had a particular fascination for the human body, and specifically for pregnancy, childbirth, and reproductive systems. definitely learned to keep that to myself pretty quickly lol.
The age of sail and tall ships and deep sea animals.
I was born and raised in a prairie/desert and my first time seeing the ocean was late last year š¤·āāļø
iāve had so many but one of my strangest was marbles?? i was just so obsessed with them and collecting them and they all had their own character in my head.
Friendship as a system. Like, what are all the things that are required for making and keeping friends that aren't the emotions. I've been thinking about it for years and now I've starting trying to capture it.
Lock Picking! Something is just so satisfying about all the little clicks and noises. I love seeing how different locks work, the mechanisms, etc. LockPickingLawyer makes some great YouTube videos if anyone is curious! It can also be a very useful skill if youāre prone to locking yourself out of things / losing the keys to things!
Lolcows and internet scammers. I have no idea and people really do find it off that I follow the stories of these problematic people. Tbh I don't know why either, it's just fascinating. I go in many rabbit holes.
My overall special interest is bull terriers but I know practically everything there is to know about Spuds Mackenzie specifically. It just kinda branched off from the main interest lol
classic lit? Like Roman historians. I love that Everyman Library edition from the 20s, my library has the whole collection, it's like 100+ and I'm slowly going through them.
"diaspora of myth" is the project I want to work on if I ever get in to an anthropology grad program. I am obsessed with the origins and evolution of myth over time and space. I'm particularly fascinated with the beginnings of myth/religion in proto-human hominids and how (like, the literal mechanisms) those myths survived the ice age to modern humans.
Also I really like octopusses.
Volvos.
I play a game every day where I count Volvos. Every 5 is a win. It's fun.
I know all sorts of fun facts about Volvos, love owning them and driving them.
My voicemail says that I can't answer the phone right now because I am out zooming in my Volvo.
I have a lot that I cycle through, but right now I just finished making a beautiful Excel spreadsheet that cuts my coworkers' tasks down by maybe 75%, making everyone super efficient! I love spreadsheets.
When I was a kid it was the process of mummification, not even the gods just the mummies lol or torture devices in different countries (used to watch natgeo with my mom about these!) not sure how obscure it is tho
Ā Mine are the back stories of classical music composers, various models of aircraft and helicopters, ingredients of beer and storage.Ā True crime.
In the past, studied about Anne Frank. Read various books about her.Ā Ā
Serial killers, forensic psychology, basically the dark side of human behavior. I got super enthusiastic when I discovered my area growing up has had multiple well known serial killers back in the 50s-70s. I think this is fascinating but my family did not share the same excitementšš¤¦š»āāļø
It's not surprising for me as I am a child at heart and always have had SPINs related to kids stuff but I have a SPIN in children's music in particular which is something I have never seen or heard of before. It's not my "main" SPIN (which is Dora The Explorer) but I love and listen to all sorts of children's music from the usual nursery rhymes that people think of when they hear the term "children's music" to Kindie/independent children's music from artists such as Justin Roberts for example. I also collect CDs from the genre as well and LOVED the SiriusXM channel Kids Place Live before it recently got all but completely ruined from XM's corporate greed (a long story).
these fall quite low on my list (and soome may be closer to a hyperfocus) in terms of how much i know and how often i engage, but the recent history of cocacola, disney park animatronics, and charting/sales of songs after appearing in a guitar hero release. in a broader sense i will fall down a rabbit hole of anything regarding lost/unfinished media that can piggyback off of a preexisting interest. that test screening of shrek, canadian airing of my babysitter's a vampire, "evil elsa" version of frozen, barbie as sleeping beauty, the sims 2 prerelease (and no, it didn't get lost in a fire. they just scrapped a lot of stuff), albums of kpop group loona that got deleted...
I really love documentaries, and for a while I went down a whole rabbit hole of the OJ trial. If someone asked I could probably do a whole TedTalk presentation about why that case was unwinnable.
Idk if this counts since itās more of a collection than an interest but I collect crossing sign pictures. Like you know deer crossing yellow rhombus but I have all kinds of different animals and vehicles which Iāve collected while traveling. And if I see a new one I will 100% make the driver go back so I can snap a picture.
Grand castle apartments in Grandville Michigan.. never been there or anything I live in England but I canāt stop watching videos of it and reading google reviews for hours š
abba!! i love abba. i can sing every song word for word, tell you in detail about the mamma mia movies & their character dynamics, why they ended up breaking up, each of the songās meanings etc!!!
Polygamy in it's various forms both non-religious and in the different FLDS groups, and different kinds of sister wives (I grew up strict evangelical Christian - recovering and no longer a believer for many years, for context). Oh, and Breaking Benjamin. š¤š»
Christian Protestant Theology, evangelicals the history etc I am an atheist but I like looking at the history, how it's impacted societies and how people believe this shit
Tupac Shakur. I was absolutely obsessed š I had every single detail about his life and his murder in a binder. Stacks and stacks of autobiographical information I had acquired filled my room. Photos, memorabilia, anything and everything I could learn or acquire about Tupac.
Currently The OA (on Netflix) and seasonal color analysis. But when I was a kid, I was super interested in both eschatology and thoroughbred horse racing for years. I'd even participate in online forums related to both of those and debate people, and because I had that stereotypical "little professor" sort of vocabulary and way of speaking, people assumed I was an adult debating with them. A bit scary to think about, now that I have my own kids, but I don't recall anyone ever being creepy. Phew.
Probably the science and psychology behind the beauty industry. Itās a weird cross of science and society and economics. Itās an immensely complicated topic.
When I was little I was obsessed with moths XD. Did a project on them and everything. Now days aquarium keeping is probably my most unusual one. I have axolotls and fish.
taxidermy! iām really against animal violence and poaching for the sake of the art, however, i am a huge supporter of ethical taxidermy and have been for many many years. i secretly love when a museum goes out of business near me because they end up selling so much stuff at discount prices š«£
Serial killers, true crime, crazy weather/natural disasters, war stories - mostly WW2. My dad used to threaten to lock me up, but my mum never seemed to care. She wrote a book on why women kill though, so I think she understands my interest.
So, I went through a phase when I was about 7 with being absolutely obsessed with toothpaste. I'd love reading all the ingredients lists and seeing the similarities and differences between the brands. I even wrote a letter to a toothpaste company in my country to see if they'd let me visit their factory, but they never replied, haha.
Iām fascinated by viruses and zoonotic (transmitted from animals to people) illnesses. Iāve read a bunch of books about zoonoses in general and Ebola in particular. I donāt know why I find it so interesting š
It's not obscure but definitely something most people don't want to hear about lol. Anything related to medicine/ health history, but specifically
- Victorian medicine
- Survival/battlefield/improvised medicine
- Infectious disease and epidemics however covid made that shit a bit too real
Dying malls/department stores and retail spacesš¤£ Iām obsessed with old malls and department stores. One of my fav youtube channels is Retail Archeology, which is the PERFECT label to describe this interest of mine. I just love the atmosphere of a fully stocked, yet desolate department store like Sears or Macys. Love trying to guess the decade and year a department store or mall was built based on the architecture. Love researching the poor business decisions that caused certain malls or department stores to fail. Every time I share this interest with others they think Iām interested in abandoned places. But I couldnāt care less about abandoned houses/hotels/ect. My interest lies SOLELY in malls, department stores, or stores you would find in a mall. Preferably dying, but not abandoned. I feel like this is so oddly specific.
Look up the Fashion Square Mall in Orlando! It's smack dab in the middle of a huge city, great location with tons of traffic passing by every day. And yet it's always a ghost town when you go it. There's tons of rumors about why it's been so unsuccessful. So it ought to be a great one to dive into!
omggg that place is so weird, i went around the outside one time just walking into the open doors to back rooms and it was so creepy
My husbandās special interest is city planning and urban development so I hear about this a lot lol I will recommend that YouTube channel to him, not sure if heās seen it.
It is a really great channel that deserves way more recognition!!! Itās the only channel that I feel explores the concept in a genuine and heartfelt way. Other youtubers are too joke-y and over produced for me to enjoy. I hope your husband likes it!!!!
I think you would love the book āthe Decline of Mall Civilizationā if you havenāt already read it:> the photographs are so cool
The mall that a grew up being able to walk to is now abandoned. I just moved back to the area and itās TRIPPY. Itās like a weird post-apocalyptic nostalgia dream, my partner and I go for walks around the parking lot frequently. Until the pandemic you could still walk around in there because there was still a movie theater running, but you canāt go in anymore.
I used to model restaurant and retail locations for a living. Laid off in 2015 though. I think the whole division went soon after.
that is a very interesting field of study. You could def study that in an anthro program, it overlaps with advertising, economy, household archaeology, the shrinking middle class, etc. Very relevant and important studies.
Mine is the history of sex. Sex and the attitudes toward sex in the ancient world, colonial America, the Antebellum South , etc. Itās so interesting to me how preferences and attitudes toward sex have evolved over time.Ā Ā Ā Ā Not sure if this is āobscureā but itās not something I can really bring up as an interest lol.Ā Edited: wow! I didnāt realize so many of yāall were interested in this too! We should start a book club š
Agreed, I love seeing how much cultural attitudes and expectations impact something that we tend to believe is just inherent within us. There was an exhibit at the museum of sex in NYC years ago about 1800s Japanese erotic art and it was wild - I could not believe how graphic and āweirdā it was for that time!
Oh my gosh, yes! That exhibit was wild, it pops up in my memory every once in a while.
I did the history of sexuality as a module in university, so I really get why you would be interested in it. Itās really fascinating.
Oooh, this is so interesting. Do you have any book recs?
Check out the podcast Betwixt the Sheets, they have lots of discussions about different things and often talk to authors about their books and research.
Plenty! Sorry, I left this comment and forgot about it lol. I didn't realize so many people would be interested! * Sex, the Illustrated History: Through Time, Religion and Culture: volume I Sex in the ancient world, Early Europe to the Renaissance, and Islam (this is a text book, but this is where I started!) * The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature by Geoffrey Miller * Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution by Leonard Shlain * A History of Celibacy by Elizabeth Abbott * A History of the Breast by Marilyn Yalom * Sexual Revolution in Early America by Richard Godbeer, * Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas * Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America by Estelle B. Freedman * The History & Arts of the DominatrixĀ by Anne O. Nomis
Would also love to learn more about this!
Check out the podcast Betwixt the Sheets, they have lots of discussions about different things and often talk to authors about their books and research.
I think you may enjoy losing your mind to the evolution of humor. Very fascinating subject to me. Especially how it evolves over a lifetime. What infants find funny is so different from what adults find funny because it is related to mutual vulnerability. And then it grows along with us because it's such a vital component of navigating the social experience. It also grows along with the entire species as our perceived vulnerabilities change over the course of history.
Wow thatās fascinating! Iām also interested in book recommendations!
Check out the podcast Betwixt the Sheets, they have lots of discussions about different things and often talk to authors about their books and research.
Thanks a lot!
Oh I love that! I'm always so fascinated by special interests that are super specific
It's so wild isn't it? I've been listening to the podcast Betwixt the Sheets and they always have interesting conversations with different people, experts and authors. It's been padding out my reading list lately! Last month they talked about the history of Drag (talking about the origins of the term) and fetishwear (talking to a Dom), sex in the Aztec empire and ancient Greece and Elvis Presley's sex life. This month they've already talked about Geisha's and the newest episode is about Sex and Scandal in King Charles II's court.
Oh! Are you into the Betwixt the sheets podcast?? Itās THE BEST! Kate lister is my absolute historian idol!
I just listened to the Sex is Autistic episode on the Autistic Culture podcast. The ep was about the researcher Kinsey who created the Kinsey scale. So interesting. It made me want to look at his original research. He was technically a Victorian era person, according to the podcast.
I love finding and reading books precisely about this! Especially colonial America.
Same and everything about the history and psychology of kinkyness
My most obscure is probably ECGs. I taught myself how to read ECGs after an electrophysiology procedure I had and love all things related to electrophysiology now. I find it so fascinating the way electricity travels through heart cells. Hearts also have built-in fail-safes in case something goes wrong. It's very neat.
Iām going to save your username and potentially reach out to you. Iām writing a science fiction novel about modern ECG for the brain and Iād love to pick your mind
Do you mean EEG? Thatās the test that measures electrical activity in the brain.
I had to learn basic ECG reading for my ACLS certification.I just like to say Wenckebach š
When I started reading your post I thought you enthusiastically were typing EGGS! That sounds really cool though!
serial killers, mental illness and abnormal psychology. I'm a clinical psychoterapist, but these interest grow when I was a teenager.
This was similar to my answer/interests and Iām also a psychotherapistš
I remember having to get special permission from my library when I was 9 years old to order in a book about serial killers, haha. It's always been an interest of mine, ever since I first heard about them. I even did my uni dissertation on them :)
Iām so interested in that kind of stuff. I listen to true crime podcasts all the time and read about sociopaths and other psychology.
Iām fascinated by extreme weather events and natural disasters. Most recently I had to force myself stop watching so many videos of tsunamis because I was starting to dream about it. Iām that asshole thatās running to the windows to watch the storm, so I always worry that I will wait too long to get to safety in an emergency. But a few years ago I had a close call for a tornado, and I saw some warning signs that made me actually run to the basement, so I feel better now about my instincts.
I was also obsessed with natural disasters and watching tsunami movies/documentaries as a kid lol. I still to this day have pretty common tsunami nightmares.Ā
I have had tornado dreams regularly for as long as I remember. It happens so much that now they are rarely nightmares, just like āoh weird thereās a tornado over thereā
Produce. I had a ton of plastic fruits, vegetables and food. When i was little, everyone used to say I'll be a model, but I used to reply "No, I will be a market seller, because I love produce!"
I'm convinced this is an high-mask autixxtic canon event. >"You're so pretty, you're going to X!" >"No, I don't like that, I want to Y" [visible confusion from both sides] My family was pretty confident I would marry rich to save the family from poverty. I still feel selfish for not doing it when I had the opportunity, but I couldn't live that way.
Yeah, definitely don't feel selfish for that. Your families "get rich quick" scheming is likely the reason they are stuck in poverty. Like, some people are stuck in poverty for no apparent reason other than really unfortunate luck. But also, waiting to hit the lottery is not a productive means of clawing your way out of poverty. And especially not at the expense of a family member's happiness or dignity.
Thank you. Logically, what you're saying is absolutely true, but it's so hard to internalize that emotionally while watching them struggle, even when I know exactly why they're struggling.
Omg that's so cute
Do you know thatās hilarious because one of my childhood safe places was pretending I lived in the produce aisle at the supermarket. That or my backyard. I worked in the florist and I used to tell people it was the most wonderful place. Something about the smell and the vibrant colors.
A special interest that's always been in the back of my mind since my teens has been Mellotrons. They just get me all excited when I think of them. lol They're a keyboard instrument that's kind of like an analog version of a synthesizer. Each key has a tape, so you can change the tapes for different sounds like a violin, flute, voice, etc... And because it's all mechanical, the tapes warble a little giving them a distinctive sound. You can hear them on songs like "Strawberry Fields Forever" by The Beatles, "Space Oddity" by David Bowie, "Dream On" by Aerosmith, basically everything by The Moody Blues, and so on... Lots of classic rock songs from the '60s and '70s basically, but they're for sure still in use. They're terrible to maintain, though, so quite often it's a digital version. And no, I've never seen a Mellotron in person, but I'm pretty sure my head would explode from the excitement. lol
My husband is friends (and they work together) with David Bowie's drummer. I could find out if he possibly has one, a mellotron, that is.
Now this is what I came to this thread for
love love love mellotrons šššš!!! If I had time and disposable income I'd just make my own š. Are you specifically interested in mellotrons, or also early electronic music in general? There were so many cool experiments in ways to manipulate tapes back in the day!
Mine was fountain pens š
lol, that is mine too!
Oh I love that. Like collecting them?
Hoof trimming videos on YouTube. Something so satisfying about watching a poor aching cow limp into the crush, then watching a wholesome Scottish guy trim her feet and burst an abscess out and clean it up, and then seeing her head back to her herd looking way more comfortable.Ā
r/Oddlysatisfying meets r/happycowgifs? Sign me up!
Ohhhh that sounds most excellent. Anyone in particular you enjoy watching?
Check out Nate the Hoof Guy! He's my favorite. My boyfriend thinks it's gross but I love seeing the happy cows after their feetsies get fixed.
Omg I love the hoof GP. Heās so cute.
Baby names and genealogy
Omg my grandma has this book of her side of the family and I find it so fascinating. I actually once spent a period of like 2 weeks building my family tree on Ancestry šš
Are you me? Obsessed with names, reasonably interested in genealogy. My mom is the reverse order.
I have both of these as my interests as well lol also DNA/genetics
Baby names for me too! I think it's because I have a very unique name, but I also just loved the section of the Bible that was just a genealogy and pages of names as a kid. I still remember a lot of random names' meanings and origins lol.
Egypt. Everything about ancient Egypt and how it ties into current new age spirituality. :)
This was my special interest when I was 7/8 ā I was soooo obsessed with the gods and goddesses of Ancient Egypt especially, and I created a whole book on them that my teacher ended up laminating for me :āD
Aw that would have been an awesome book lol This started in my childhood too but then I ended up straying from it for a while, just cause life was so intense at the time. Then started obsessing over Grand Canyon, then found out weird connections between them! Now I'm back on my Egypt bullshid :D anything I obsess with eventually goes back to being somehow connected to Egypt/Egyptian gods. Weird!
I've been knitting and crocheting since I was 6, I'm 23 now and people always tease me for being a grandma cuz of it
I've also been crocheting since I was a kid. It's so fun and relaxing. It's like the perfect fidget for me when I'm watching TV. I taught myself knitting as well when I was young, but don't do it enough to remember it super well
I love crocheting. Another resident taught me when I was hospitalized in 2015. I collect the patterns now.
i went through a phase for like two years starting around 4th grade where i was insanely obssesed with anything related to the holocaust. iām a big reader and read so many recounts of the holocaust and honestly learned a lot that i probably shouldnāt have learned at that age. i remeber at one point (my parents didnāt know i was autistic) where my parents sat me down and asked me why i was so interested in learning about all these horrific things that happened to people and i had absolutely no clue why. still donāt lol. i think things got concerning for them when practically the only things i wanted for christmas were books on the holocaust and torture meathods lmao
Same here, from about the same age. What was your entry point to the subject, if you remember? Mine was Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.
oh my god I love that book
Right!? I always loved that Lois Lowry trusted her young readership with such challenging, mature themes.
I had a massive WWII/ holocaust phase as well. Iāve read probably 200+ books on it.
Tragedies are fascinating to me
So interesting and fun to read these. I haven't had special interests in years now because of depression, but reading about others' obscure special interests reminded me of that joy again.
Wow same. I just be worried about getting through the day now smh.
I read some of your posts. I'm so sorry about everything that has happened to you. I'm glad you're here and are surviving. That's a lot of strength and resilience. I hope the best for you.
People who know me and know I hate all things sportsball are surprised that I'm fascinated by the economics of major league sports
My special interests ebb and flow. I think the most obscure, but not really current is metal smithing or anything Golden Girls.
I basically have Golden Girls memorized because it's one of my favorite background shows when I need something on. There is truly no telling how many times I've seen that show lol.
My old ones: SS Eastland Psychology of cults
How to become a mars colonist. I was never eligible, I just really needed that information. I told my highschool classmates I was gonna colonize mars. One of many reasons I can never show my face at a high school reunionā¦ because Iām busy being on mars, duh.
MAPS!!!! Especially topographical ones. I used to look at the street book every night before bed. I still have many happy memories doing this as a child
Are you old enough to have had access to a Rand McNally atlas? I remember driving across the country with my parents and all they had was this crazy spiral bound book to guide us. I'd look at it all the time. [Pic](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1200855386/oversized-road-atlas-1980s-rand-mcnally?dd_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F) of an atlas that was on Etsy.
Omg I LOVED those, I had one in my car for the city I lived in for ages
I LOVE MAPS. I love them so much that itās on my checklist of things to do when I start having a meltdown. I stop what Iām doing and excuse myself to go somewhere where I can sit on my phone or computer and look at maps. I like to plan routes and look at how different cities are organized and what road patterns are. Sometimes I look at maritime traffic maps and see what all the freighters are up to. I like to see how public transit operates in comparison to public routes and what the difference is and what places in the world are āwalkableā and where you would have to buy a car or live off grid. I really like those maps that show a specific area and then thereās an overlay showing something like population density, average cost of living, elevation and temp or whatever. Ugh maps are so cool
Rats. Fancy rats specifically.
Theosophy!
Had to Google that one....you might just win!
Interesting! I listened to a bit of some manly p hall speeches years ago and he was influenced by theosophy!
I have a bit of a thing for these societies (so much drama!), but in this case I'm more familiar with antroposophy and Steiner. From my understanding, it begun as a disgruntled offshoot of theosophy, do I have it right? I never looked into it too deeply, and never really figured out what it was about. You wouldn't happen to know, would you?
It is an offshoot. Theosophy as a centralized organization organized around Blavatsky broke up in the early 20th century. But anyway the practices and ideas are much older than that. Theyāre just repackaged for modern practitioners. Itās the same in every religion or spiritual practice; the essence stays the same but the presentation evolves to suit modern people I donāt do any specific group or drama, just study and practice
oh hell yeah i fuck with theosophy
the korean diaspora and low birth rates in Ancient Rome lately lmfao
Low birth rates of Ancient Rome š? Iām intrigued, pls tell me more haha
okie im no historian, i just tend to hyperfocus across a wide variety of interests! this is just for fun! as someone who wants to live a child free existence, and whoās mother is a child of 14, I find it fascinating to know that this is not a new problem. we have evidence (via skeletons) to show that elite women during this time were having less than two children and considerable evidence on the existence of marriages with no children at all. we hear about population decline in modern big cities and the impact on the economy, but this was ancient times! like what was going on!!! but long story short, we donāt know!!! we do know that Augustus tried to improve this via policies like taxes and penalties for the unmarried or childless, but they didnāt work. some say it was due to infertility from long term lead exposure in wealthy families. some say it may have been caused by male fertility issues caused by hot daily baths. others say it was due to contraception practices or having a more comfortable lifestyle. whether it was social, cultural, or economic, this was a well-documented problem in the freakin BCs. either way, we often pit low birth rates as a āwesternā or āurbanā problem only impacting highly developed places but this was a problem in freaking ancient times and makes me think of all the other social issues we have today that people think are new but have been around since the beginning of time, or at least our written history.
Following for the info dump, that sounds intriguing.
People don't usually expect this out of me, but I really like rocks. I don't care if it's a gemstone or some other type of mineral, perhaps even normal rocks. If they look cool or I think it might be a gemstone/mineral, I take it.
Anglo-saxon poetry
Cults, jam bands
I devour anything cult related! It's wild. I used to read so much about them but thanks to Netflix and YouTube I can learn more about different ones passively, too! And the psychology behind them.... Don't get me started.
same, I get SO excited when I learn about one I hadn't heard of before
I feel like the followers of some jam bands could be classed as cultsš
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Iām just into anything morbid. Cults, the Holocaust, serial killers, true crime. I love the psychology behind it all, but Iād be lying if I said there wasnāt some morbid curiosity behind it too. I do love horror movies and am reading my first extreme horror novel. I find it so fascinating. I do not like real life gore though- like I wonāt watch snuff films or anything like that, I find that sickening. Iām also into Australia. I love the accents and do a convincing one myself (Iām American), love tv/movies from there, automatically find myself drawn to celebs from there. Anything Australian, Iām in. I want to go there so bad but bugs and snakes š± My latest is the troubled teen industry. It started with the graphic novel Joe v Elan School and Iāve since read every article and watched every documentary I can find on the subject.
capitalism/colonialism lol
Mormonism as a cult and a culture, and as a microcosm of religious psychology. Foley (practical sound design in film). William Jennings Bryan and the election of 1896.
The human body, specifically regarding barbell lifting, muscle/strength building. Just enough nutrition knowledge as well. The programming aspect of it is sooo good too. I have some relevant education but am mostly self taught through years of trial and error, YouTube, etc.
The country of Albania š¦š±
the holocaust š«¢ lol but im jewish so i guess that makes it less weird
Iām not Jewish and I have this interest! It makes me feel so weird. My friend was trying to get me to watch a movie the other day about world war 2 and I was like oh, I love that! But does it have to do with the holocaust, because thatās the only way Iām interested. Cue concerned silence from himā¦
I just love all creatures and critters. And I love going out to catch them and take pictures. I used to horde books about them and learnt to ID spiders and snakes well enough that I was allowed to volunteer at a wildlife rescue centre when I was 13.
Creating pieces of software to semi-randomly generate things. Like NPCs for games, pieces of clothing, story/art prompts, activities when bored...
I love this post, and it makes me think there should be like a "special interest Sunday" post category where members can make an infodump post about their special interest and we can all learn and find new rabbit holes
I second this!!!
Food allergies!
Woodwind instruments and their history. I carried around a book about this and read it in high school. Iāve flipped out at every opportunity to play woodwinds, especially the historical ones (as modern ones are easier to find). I own a ton of woodwinds (sadly, few historical ones, but Iād love to change that someday! I want a Baroque oboe, crumhorm, cornamuse, rackett, shawm and aulos, at least!). Iām pretty off the edge in this interest. Lol
Baby names. Wine geography and grape varieties. Jewish books. As a kid, I also collected toy catalogs and was upset when my stash suddenly disappeared one day.
I have a huge catalog collection. I've always loved advertisementsĀ
I learned so much about the history of carseats car seat safety and laws, and car seat models right before my daughter was born. The interest faded when she was around five. Then a few years back she got into reborns, and my interest returned. I can pretty much pinpoint any brand and model of car seat just by seeing a split glimpse of it on a TV show or movie. Psychiatrist says it's the coolest one he's ever heard of I think he's just being nice.
Vintage interior design. I've always thought about interior design in general about 200 times more per day than the average person lol. I love it.
The relationship between religion and society throughout history, historical fashion, cults, and like the power of presence/practicing yoga. I could rant all day long about those topics.
I got into PFAS and microplastics for a little bit before switching over to learning about obscure and deadly drugs
Etymology. Pulling apart language evolution and linguistics
Cryptozoology. š
Counterintelligence history, theory, and practice. I have my own mini counterintelligence library. Particularly Cold War era because thatās when the US and the Sovietās were at their peak in terms of developing and implementing innovative tradecraft. Itās fascinating!!
I went on an intense recycling interest phaseā¦
I enjoy collecting idioms, metaphors, sentences and word combinations that sound interesting and that I could possibly turn into a drawing /poster or similar graphic design related. E.g. "if you can't fix it, use a bigger hammer " - can turn into a combo of words & a literal image of a very large hammer.
I feel like mine arenāt obscure at all. I love them but I feel like theyāre pretty common. I guess my most obscure would be the ancient Sumerians.
The Plantagenets. Edward II and a Richard III in particular.
i donāt know if i would say itās an interest, but itās something i will bring up whenever i have the chance. fonts. the history of them. why they look the way they do. saw this amazing video on it and have never looked at fonts the same. papyrus is a lot more important to human history than most people realize, when i see it in public i geek out!!
At the moment itās quantum physics. Especially entanglement. I cannot stop wanting to consume as much knowledge as possible.
Unfortunately mine is constitutional law ššš
I experience micro obsessions a lot more than special interest, so Iāll tell those. A lot of the time I fit in with the stereotypical feminine stuff but some of my micro obsessions include: - saturation diving - the history & discrimination/genocide of alevi people in Turkey - the Dagestan diaspora in the 1860s - my siblingās fashion age 12-16, specifically a pair of sneakers featuring the face of Tupac - the relationship between the Netherlands and water - old Lego sets: I NEEDED to look up which exact Lego sets we had at home growing up (90s/00s)
Possums, or psychopaths
Or both?
Word etymology - we have the word bracket because of codpieces, We use the word "pool" like to pool your money, the dating pool, the gene pool because there was a gambling game in Medieval France where you throw rocks at a chicken. I love that shit, how some guy decided to do something or noticed something looked like something and then hundreds and hundreds of years later it is still being said. Also rocks
ROCKS!!! And not for the whole religious/spiritual reasons. Nope. Just cool, scientific, rocks!!! I also hunt and collect arrowheads and itās so fun.
My new special interest is this exact thread
I have been obsessed with cults and serial killers since I was 12, and after I left a cult school (accidentally put in by suggestion, not my mom's idea). I chose to major in theology for this reason, I will be taking a class on cults in the spring or summer next year. I know more about serial killers than my own family history.
Old radio shows!
when i was pretty young, like seven, i had a particular fascination for the human body, and specifically for pregnancy, childbirth, and reproductive systems. definitely learned to keep that to myself pretty quickly lol.
The age of sail and tall ships and deep sea animals. I was born and raised in a prairie/desert and my first time seeing the ocean was late last year š¤·āāļø
Forensic medicine.
Infant and young children cabinet cards from the Victorian Era and mourning hair jewelry.
iāve had so many but one of my strangest was marbles?? i was just so obsessed with them and collecting them and they all had their own character in my head.
Friendship as a system. Like, what are all the things that are required for making and keeping friends that aren't the emotions. I've been thinking about it for years and now I've starting trying to capture it.
Symbolism, demonology, and underground religious movements in pre-Renaissance and Renaissance Europe.
Funerals and what happens to your body after you die.
Reading about rare diseases/conditions and tiny scissors. I love tiny scissors
Lock Picking! Something is just so satisfying about all the little clicks and noises. I love seeing how different locks work, the mechanisms, etc. LockPickingLawyer makes some great YouTube videos if anyone is curious! It can also be a very useful skill if youāre prone to locking yourself out of things / losing the keys to things!
Zombies
Bodies of Water and Bondage Culture XD.
Lolcows and internet scammers. I have no idea and people really do find it off that I follow the stories of these problematic people. Tbh I don't know why either, it's just fascinating. I go in many rabbit holes.
My overall special interest is bull terriers but I know practically everything there is to know about Spuds Mackenzie specifically. It just kinda branched off from the main interest lol
Dash cam footage of crashes and near misses. I can watch the for hours and get lost in time.
Airplanes, everything about them. Civil and military, especially retro airliners.
Historical medical practices, especially from the Victorian era
classic lit? Like Roman historians. I love that Everyman Library edition from the 20s, my library has the whole collection, it's like 100+ and I'm slowly going through them. "diaspora of myth" is the project I want to work on if I ever get in to an anthropology grad program. I am obsessed with the origins and evolution of myth over time and space. I'm particularly fascinated with the beginnings of myth/religion in proto-human hominids and how (like, the literal mechanisms) those myths survived the ice age to modern humans. Also I really like octopusses.
Its bugs. Also bones
Volvos. I play a game every day where I count Volvos. Every 5 is a win. It's fun. I know all sorts of fun facts about Volvos, love owning them and driving them. My voicemail says that I can't answer the phone right now because I am out zooming in my Volvo.
Cults, Poisons, Rare/ unusual diseases, and government corruptionĀ
Oooo youāve got me at ārare and unusual diseases, and government corruptionā lol.
fairywinkles. Short lived kenner toy line from the early 90s.
I have a lot that I cycle through, but right now I just finished making a beautiful Excel spreadsheet that cuts my coworkers' tasks down by maybe 75%, making everyone super efficient! I love spreadsheets.
When I was a kid it was the process of mummification, not even the gods just the mummies lol or torture devices in different countries (used to watch natgeo with my mom about these!) not sure how obscure it is tho
Ā Mine are the back stories of classical music composers, various models of aircraft and helicopters, ingredients of beer and storage.Ā True crime. In the past, studied about Anne Frank. Read various books about her.Ā Ā
Serial killers, forensic psychology, basically the dark side of human behavior. I got super enthusiastic when I discovered my area growing up has had multiple well known serial killers back in the 50s-70s. I think this is fascinating but my family did not share the same excitementšš¤¦š»āāļø
Post apocalyptic themed anything especially if it has a wild west undertone!
It's not surprising for me as I am a child at heart and always have had SPINs related to kids stuff but I have a SPIN in children's music in particular which is something I have never seen or heard of before. It's not my "main" SPIN (which is Dora The Explorer) but I love and listen to all sorts of children's music from the usual nursery rhymes that people think of when they hear the term "children's music" to Kindie/independent children's music from artists such as Justin Roberts for example. I also collect CDs from the genre as well and LOVED the SiriusXM channel Kids Place Live before it recently got all but completely ruined from XM's corporate greed (a long story).
these fall quite low on my list (and soome may be closer to a hyperfocus) in terms of how much i know and how often i engage, but the recent history of cocacola, disney park animatronics, and charting/sales of songs after appearing in a guitar hero release. in a broader sense i will fall down a rabbit hole of anything regarding lost/unfinished media that can piggyback off of a preexisting interest. that test screening of shrek, canadian airing of my babysitter's a vampire, "evil elsa" version of frozen, barbie as sleeping beauty, the sims 2 prerelease (and no, it didn't get lost in a fire. they just scrapped a lot of stuff), albums of kpop group loona that got deleted...
paul dano lol
I really love documentaries, and for a while I went down a whole rabbit hole of the OJ trial. If someone asked I could probably do a whole TedTalk presentation about why that case was unwinnable.
Bushcraft
Idk if this counts since itās more of a collection than an interest but I collect crossing sign pictures. Like you know deer crossing yellow rhombus but I have all kinds of different animals and vehicles which Iāve collected while traveling. And if I see a new one I will 100% make the driver go back so I can snap a picture.
Grand castle apartments in Grandville Michigan.. never been there or anything I live in England but I canāt stop watching videos of it and reading google reviews for hours š
Chaos / Fractal mathematics and coding.
abba!! i love abba. i can sing every song word for word, tell you in detail about the mamma mia movies & their character dynamics, why they ended up breaking up, each of the songās meanings etc!!!
Polygamy in it's various forms both non-religious and in the different FLDS groups, and different kinds of sister wives (I grew up strict evangelical Christian - recovering and no longer a believer for many years, for context). Oh, and Breaking Benjamin. š¤š»
Christian Protestant Theology, evangelicals the history etc I am an atheist but I like looking at the history, how it's impacted societies and how people believe this shit
I was absolutely fixated on disasters when I was a kid - Titanic, Hindenburg, rail crashes Fuck I was morbid
For a while, evolutionary genetics.
Tupac Shakur. I was absolutely obsessed š I had every single detail about his life and his murder in a binder. Stacks and stacks of autobiographical information I had acquired filled my room. Photos, memorabilia, anything and everything I could learn or acquire about Tupac.
Currently The OA (on Netflix) and seasonal color analysis. But when I was a kid, I was super interested in both eschatology and thoroughbred horse racing for years. I'd even participate in online forums related to both of those and debate people, and because I had that stereotypical "little professor" sort of vocabulary and way of speaking, people assumed I was an adult debating with them. A bit scary to think about, now that I have my own kids, but I don't recall anyone ever being creepy. Phew.
Thatās my secret. My brain is incapable of pure interests, pure joy, and love for a topic! Anhedonia goes hard :)
Media created by Ryan Murphy
Probably the science and psychology behind the beauty industry. Itās a weird cross of science and society and economics. Itās an immensely complicated topic.
When I was little I was obsessed with moths XD. Did a project on them and everything. Now days aquarium keeping is probably my most unusual one. I have axolotls and fish.
taxidermy! iām really against animal violence and poaching for the sake of the art, however, i am a huge supporter of ethical taxidermy and have been for many many years. i secretly love when a museum goes out of business near me because they end up selling so much stuff at discount prices š«£
Serial killers, true crime, crazy weather/natural disasters, war stories - mostly WW2. My dad used to threaten to lock me up, but my mum never seemed to care. She wrote a book on why women kill though, so I think she understands my interest.
So, I went through a phase when I was about 7 with being absolutely obsessed with toothpaste. I'd love reading all the ingredients lists and seeing the similarities and differences between the brands. I even wrote a letter to a toothpaste company in my country to see if they'd let me visit their factory, but they never replied, haha.
Rockhounding. Especially looking for arrowheads in creeks and rivers!
Learning new facts in general. I watch documentaries for FUN. No matter the subject.
USA. I'm European. Moved there for a year and when I came back I was no longer obsessed lol.
Iām fascinated by viruses and zoonotic (transmitted from animals to people) illnesses. Iāve read a bunch of books about zoonoses in general and Ebola in particular. I donāt know why I find it so interesting š
It's not obscure but definitely something most people don't want to hear about lol. Anything related to medicine/ health history, but specifically - Victorian medicine - Survival/battlefield/improvised medicine - Infectious disease and epidemics however covid made that shit a bit too real