Hobby Intolerancen/a

CROSSPOSTED: (ext link)

I've seen a myriad of discussions on this topic, and I feel compelled to share my thoughts on the matter. I consistently see people who are into the figure collecting hobby talk about being derided, disapproved of, put down for and otherwise insulted by:
+ Family members
+ Friends
+ Random strangers!
+ Co-workers
I'm not so naive or idealistic as to think that this wouldn't happen, or to be surprised by its occurrence. However, I DO take issue with the forms it usually takes.

As I see other collectors speaking of this on a regular basis, I have to assume it is very common. The level and type of "prejudice" shows variation from person to person and seems to be divisible into different categories or reasons.
Obviously, there is really no hobby that SOMEone will not take issue with, no matter how innocuous or "normal." Collecting anything carries a bit of a stigma among hobbies in general, at least in my experience, because it's often associated with hoarders and obsessive-compulsive acquisition behavior, so the average figure collector may be working against this negative image at the outset in the eyes of many people. There's also, of course, the monetary issue, but more on that in a bit.

Secondarily, figure collecting may face a special stigma from people who have inbuilt prejudices about Japanese pop culture in general. These are individuals who think all anime is like hentai, or think everything has panty shots or tentacles in it. To these people, anime and anything associated with it is basically just weird porn. This can be hard to overcome even if you don't have any ecchi or scantily clad figures, and if you DO have any, doubly difficult.

Disapproval by random people is much easier to shrug off because you won't necessarily care what the person thinks in the first place. It can feel very hurtful when someone who doesn't know you at all decides to say negative things about your hobby, but it's important that you shouldn't care about the opinion of someone who you don't even know. This one doesn't seem to be so much the problem for most people, and doesn't seem nearly as common. Most random strangers don't comment on other random strangers to their faces.

Coworkers can be the worst of the lot. You're required to deal with them on at least a surface level very frequently, and they're unlikely to care whether what they say is hurtful. Complaining about it to one of the higher-ups isn't likely to help unless the person is harassing you very severely. If you feel like your work environment is very unpleasant or hostile, by all means, speak up to your superior!
You may be lucky and have coworkers who are accepting or even enthusiastic about your hobby, like if you work at a comic book store, and in that case share away! Maybe you'll make some new friends.
This is one case where I would advocate some greater discretion. If you're unsure about your work environment and think people might react by mocking you, try not to mention your figure collecting hobby or let people find out about it. BUT: you shouldn't work TOO hard at concealing it, because the more it looks like you're hiding something, the more inclined people may be to try and discover your "big secret." On the whole it's better to refrain from speaking to people about it, and to give any information ONLY on an absolutely need-to-know basis.
If coworkers do start harassing you over your hobby, it's probably best to react coolly, not apologizing for your hobby but not lashing out at them. "You have your interests, I have mine. Let's leave it at that, okay?" [Thanks iTheShirt]

Parental (and familial in general) disapproval of one's hobbies is not specific to figure collection. I think it's exceedingly likely that most of you reading this have experienced parental disapproval of your hobbies or interests at some point in your lives. This is simply a byproduct of the act of parenting and is probably unavoidable to some degree. Sometimes parents and other family members learn to accept your hobbies, or at least tolerate them over time as their child ages and becomes, at least in their eyes, more capable of making their own intelligent decisions.
The issue isn't so much with the fact that the parent has this feeling in the first place as it may be with their acting on it. A parent who feels that figures are a waste of money and constantly tells their child as such is really being very unkind. A parent who feels the same but simply accepts the child's hobby and doesn't try to harass them for it is being a mature adult. But, a balance is necessary. Noticing and saying nothing is no good, either. Probably the best thing a parent can do is to try to work with their child on their hobby, because it's obviously important to them. Obviously parents don't want things showing up charged to their cards that they don't approve of, but good parenting means trying to work with your children, not harass them for what they like. [Thanks CloudStrife-xx]

I absolutely cannot emphasize enough that you should NOT be ashamed of your hobby just because other people don't understand it. Indeed, you'll often be unable to make other people understand it even if you try, although there are a few ways to go about it.
One, you can explain that figures are art! This approach works especially well if you have some more scantily clad or ecchi figures--point to the abundance of female and male nudity in classical painting. Few people would call a Renaissance painting perverse, so by comparing your figure to that, you may be able to shift the person's mental image.

You obviously can't help who your family is; you were born into it and you usually just have to make the best of it.
What you CAN help, however, is your choice of friends.
Naturally, everyone has varying interests and opinions, and there's nothing wrong with that. As I said before about parents, if you have a friend who is disapproving of your figure collecting hobby, then fine. (I wouldn't keep friends who were disapproving of something that important to me, but if it doesn't bother you that they think that...)
The problem is if they comment negatively about your hobby. If your friend says that your figures are stupid toys, perverted, a waste of money, or anything else that hurts your feelings or makes you upset, then first explain to them that it is upsetting to you. In many cases a good friend won't say anything further about it.
HOWEVER. If the person doesn't desist in their negative comments after you've explained that it upsets you, then IT IS TIME TO FIND A BETTER FRIEND. No one needs to surround themselves with negativity. If your friends are not outright supporting of your hobbies, the LEAST they can do is not be derisive of them.

The question of money is where things can sometimes get a bit muddy. If you have your own source of income and are spending it responsibly, then NO ONE has the right to tell you what you should do with it. That is, for example, if you have a flow of income and spend it all on figures, but do not have other expenses, then that's fine. If you spend some on figures and some on making sure you pay rent/gas/anything else you might need to pay for, that's fine also.
When someone is spending irresponsibly, preordering dozens of figures only to have to scramble and cancel a lot of them when they realize they have other expenses to pay, it is at this point that other people may have some license to intervene or express disapproval. This is a tricky issue and I won't pretend to have all the answers for exactly when someone should be interfered with in this kind of situation. The bottom line is that a hobby should never be a detriment to your life, but at what point it becomes someone else's problem is entirely too complicated to assess with a single statement. These things usually have to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

The bottom line is that it's VERY important to remember that you collect because it makes you happy! Don't let other people's negativity discourage you from doing what you enjoy when it doesn't hurt anyone.