There’s an Aztec city building game called Tlatoani. It’s in early access, but has enough meat on the bone that it’s one of my goto games.

Out of curiosity I checked Steam DB for active player numbers. I have discovered at any given point I am 10% to 25% of the given player base BY MYSELF. I am 1 of 4 people playing this game right now in the world. With the prevalence of the internet I always assume whatever weird bullshit you’re into there’s at least a thousand people talking about it; making memes outsiders could never comprehend. It’s actually novel to fly under the radar for once.

What do you do that doesn’t have a community associated with it?

  • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    12·
    8 days ago

    Thermodynamics, specifically refrigeration cycles.

    Its probably my autism showing but the fact that we can just move funny fluid around and make heat move is absolutely fascinating. I can spend a lot of time making theoretical refrigeration cycles with different fluids, thermoelectrics, heat capacities, repurposing car junkyard AC systems, etc.

    Millions of people do it for work, sure. I doubt any of them are “into it”.

  • pruwyben@discuss.tchncs.de
    12·
    8 days ago

    Earlier this year I tried out a Steam demo of a game called “That Time I Found a Box” and got hooked on it. It’s a very unique card game where you create and enhance the cards as you play. I played it for days and eventually beat the demo - the devs told me I was the first person to beat it.

    The full version just came out on Steam - I’d recommend taking a look. It’s a bit janky and not for everybody, but it does something unique that really clicked for me.

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
    9·
    8 days ago

    I’m really, really into what I can only call technological bootstrapping. Like, we started out on this planet with nothing, and then built everything. How did that happen? Primitive tech is another name but the emphasis is usually on the very first stages.

    That itself has gotten me into obscure things like metrology, greenwood working and small-scale semiconductor fabrication.

    • ErmahgherdDavid@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      8 days ago

      That’s cool! Can you recommend any resources on this? I’ve thought a lot about this sort of thing. I’m guessing semiconductor fabrication requires a lot of complex upstream tasks and isn’t the sort of thing that’s feasible at home. Would love to be wrong!

      • SabinStargem@lemmy.todayEnglish
        2·
        8 days ago

        “The Book”, is a book that uses illustrations to explain how to recreate civilization. Dunno if it is good. That said, you can also try “How Things Work”, which explains the workings of many inventions, with many wooly mammoths interspersed throughout.

  • AmericanEconomicThinkTank@lemmy.world
    8·
    8 days ago

    I try to curate zines from around the world into local exhibitions, do hand translating alongside if need be, imitate the original paper best I can.

    It’s kinda fun lol. That and kinda similarly, but I love♡ spending time on online software radio sites, just listening into different channels like I was there myself.

  • Tuukka R@piefed.eeEnglish
    6·
    8 days ago

    Whenever I’m going abroad within Europe, for a bit over month before that, I start buying stuff only with banknotes. I put all of the coins made in Finland or (other) Baltic countries in a separate pocket and then make sure to use those during my travel.

    It feels nice that people get to see coins that they don’t see that often. And at the same time, I’m increasing the relative amount of non-Finnish coins in Finland, which I also think is good, as that helps people here notice that there’s more to the EU than just Finland :)

    I would guess it’s unlikely that all that many other people do the same.

  • Tuukka R@piefed.eeEnglish
    6·
    8 days ago

    Well… I’m using an instance that has 10 active users according to https://piefed.fediverse.observer/list :)

    I wanted to move from Lemmy to PieFed, because its development is faster than that of Lemmy’s and because its maintainers have values I have nothing against and because I want to help a cool project grow.

    And then I had a bunch of criteria that I wanted my instance to fulfill, and piefed.ee was the only PieFed instance that fulfilled all of my wishes. So, now I’m apparently one out of ten :)

    • ragica@lemmy.ml
      1·
      8 days ago

      Glad you found a happy cozy home. Appreciative that I can reply to you from heart of the old beast!

      Relative to all the well known commercial social media platforms though aren’t we all into something here hardly anyone else knows about, whether 10 users or a few thousand?

  • smeg@infosec.pubEnglish
    6·
    8 days ago

    I have a lot of obscure interests, but not as obscure as yours.

    • Finding former Pizza Huts in North America. It’s just such an iconic building design. There’s a documentary out now on them, but I’ve been fascinated for almost a decade now.

    • Meshtastic

    • John le Carré novels. He was huge decades ago, but basically nobody knows the name now besides Boomers and genre fans.

      • Wugmeister@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        4·
        8 days ago

        If I was an Apple user it would be the Orion browser. There’s just no downsides to it other than it being only available for Mac and Iphones.

        Everything else i have to add disclaimers when talking about them. For example, I use Brave as my daily driver and I’ve had an easier time getting other people to switch to Brave than any other browser becuase having an awesome adbocker integrated into the browser itself is just that good. However, Brave is run by crypto bros, so it comes packaged with a crypto wallet and some AI bloatware. Thankfully there’s a setting to turn the integrated crypto ads off, but the fact that those things are there at all is a BIG red flag. But it’s an easier sell to normies because it’s built on Chromium and works with the Google ecosystem in a way that Firefox-based browsers don’t.

        I would love to push Librewolf more, but it doesn’t have a mobile version, and apparently installing UBlock Origin on your own is just too scary for the normies. So now wherever I meet a person and see they have an IPhone, the next words out of my mouth are “Have you heard of the Orion browser?”

        • Brave Little Hitachi Wand@feddit.ukEnglish
          3·
          8 days ago

          When I find out a thing I like is the preferred option of someone whose niche fixation is that type of thing, it gives me life.

          All I really want from the internet is to have a council of difficult nerds telling me what all the best shit is so I can become the perfect being.

          I’m never leaving Lemmy lmao

        • goeticThunder@lemmy.world
          2·
          8 days ago

          Yes, absolutely, 100% yes. Using Orion + Kagi is absolutely the best change I’ve ever made to my browsing experience on Mac.

    • metallic_substance@lemmy.world
      2·
      8 days ago

      I was in the top 1% for Beatles listeners a few years back. That was shocking, but it was a deep-dive I did over like 6 months, so I guess it makes sense. Still, given their popularity it really surprised me an made me question Spotify’s metrics

  • BodePlotHole@lemmy.world
    3·
    8 days ago

    My favorite thing in the whole world is dropping LSD, and listening to obscure music or watching weird shit…

    Dude I can’t find ANYONE to hang out with me… I wave that flag in every social situation I find myself in. I really thought there would be more people into it.

    Well, that or I’m completely unbearable to hang out with. If that’s the case I just wish people would tell me.

    • breakfastburrito@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      8 days ago

      I am big into old obscure media, love ubuweb, but I would still hesitate to join a kind of unknown person for an activity like that. It’s just a big plunge.

    • calliope@retrolemmy.com
      3·
      8 days ago

      Oh, that’s just a risky proposition, that’s all!

      I would wager most people don’t know themselves well enough on psychedelics to trust watching weird shit with someone who is also on psychedelics.

    • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      8 days ago

      I mean that’s a giant leap for any new friend. Lsd isnt so common that the average person has experience with it. So how to have a good trip and trip safely is a necessary starting point. It’s also a multi hour to days long thing. Thats a heck of a lot of time for most People to spend not working, no family obligations, and no other needs/wants. Basically its a rare population who’s willing to trip and of those willing it’d probably be a once a year thing at best. That said of people willing to trip I would think the music and videos would be about par.

  • Zachariah@lemmy.world
    3·
    8 days ago

    There’s a lot of Robotech/Macross stuff out there, but I rarely see anyone post online about it, and I’ve never met anyone in person who even knows what it is.

    • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
      1·
      8 days ago

      and I’ve never met anyone in person who even knows what it is.

      I guess it doesn’t exactly come up randomly in conversation.

      But I intend to be the change I want to see in the world.

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      8 days ago

      Never hear it spoken of, nor any online comments. We teens were hooked. A serious animated series about young adults?! We called it “japanimation”, maybe we just made that up, never heard the word elsewhere, but we had never heard the word “anime”.

      Haven’t revisited as I’m afraid I’d be deeply disappointed.

          • pootzapie@lemy.lolEnglish
            1·
            8 days ago

            This looks amazing…I was literally thinking of the robotech books today because I heard some music that sounded like the background jazz and was thinking how Jack McKinney bio mentioned he played in fusion jazz bands! Also called it japanimation back then… how cool!!

  • thatradomguy@lemmy.world
    3·
    8 days ago

    I tried to find an in-person calligraphy meetup around my area and mind you, I live in one of the bigger metro areas in the country. Couldn’t find squat. Don’t know if my Google Fu was weak or I just don’t know what to actually look up but there’s nothing specifically for calligraphy as far as I can tell. Also, I don’t count online spaces.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
      1·
      8 days ago

      If only you were an Arab or Chinese. I don’t think Calligraphy ever had mass appeal the same way in the West.

    • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
      1·
      8 days ago

      I’ve actually met a few people who are into calligraphy but they don’t strike me as the “meet-up” type of people.

  • AmidFuror@fedia.io
    3·
    8 days ago

    When watching incest porn, I try to figure out how everybody can be in a step-relationship with everybody else there. How is it possible for step-mom, step-dad, step-bro and step-sis to all live in the same house with no one else?

    • Fyrnyx@kbin.melroy.org
      1·
      8 days ago

      I am pretty sure they are just roles to play for people.

      “Okay you’ll be the hot step-sister and you’ll take the dick of your hot step-father coming in about this time.” sort of deal.

      It’s just roles to get those seeking the content watching.

  • Eq0@literature.cafe
    3·
    8 days ago

    I’m an avid reader, and I like reading in original language. That has brought me in a variety of rabbit holes, including trying to learn Russian, then Japanese. Unfortunately, I forgot most of it. I also forgot most of my ancient Greek, but my Latin is still vaguely useful. My German and Spanish never reached the “I can read anything” level, that is a shame because I really want to read the Don Quixote and Goethe… But I’m proud to easily read in 3 languages, struggling in 2-3 others (depending how much dictionary use is allowed).

    I haven’t been able to find a community of people that like this. Most like a specific culture and go deep into a single language.