When People Hear You Have A Hobby

Ryan : I like talking to myself. Ryan : That's weird but how can we monetize it The rest is history

"If you turn a hobby into a career, you lose a hobby" Best advice I learned from my professor.

As a home baker, I felt this. People are always telling me to monetize my baking and I always tell them, if I did that, I'm pretty sure I'd learn to hate this thing that I currently love so no, for now I just make stuff for family and friends.

The best piece of advice my dad ever gave me: People say find what you love to do and make that your job. But really, you should find something you like to do, or can at least tolerate, and keep the thing you love to do for yourself. Otherwise you'll turn what you love to do into work, you'll grow to hate it, and you won't have something you love to go anymore. Sadly, he had to learn this the hard way.

As soon as Ryan mentioned his kid, I thought we were about to get a glimpse of the greatest nightmare child that has ever existed

This was great, reminded me of the Fisherman story: An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village late one morning when a small boat docked. Inside the small boat was just one fisherman who had already caught several large fish. The American complimented the fisherman on the fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The fisherman replied, “only a little while.” The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had caught plenty enough to provide for his family’s needs for quite a while and even to give some fish away to others in the village. The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, and stroll into the village where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.” The American scoffed. “I am an experienced businessman and can help you,” he said. “You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could have a fleet of fishing boats, open up your own cannery and control all of the distribution,” he said. “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to a bigger city to run the expanding enterprise.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will that all take?” To which the American replied, “Oh, 15 to 20 years or so.” “But what then?” asked the Mexican. The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time was right, you would sell your company and become very rich. You would make millions!” “Millions – then what?” asked the Mexican. The American said, “Then you could retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you could sleep late, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, and stroll to the village where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos.”

I'm a software developer and this applies to all my side projects. Whenever I tell people about a cool thing they immediately ask how I'm going to make money off it. It's like i already make money off my programming, it's called a job. The side project is specifically not to make money. Just having fun building some things for the sake of creating. But nope, they just ignore all that and ask about shoving disgusting ads into my beautifully designed UI. Fuck no, I release my software for free just because. I'm not linking it here though, don't want any weird YouTube people looking at my stuff. But not you reading this comment, you're cool. I'm talking about those other YouTubers.

This is what happened for me with beading. I used to make jewelry as gifts for friends and people always said i could sell it. It made me feel confident for a while but then i actually tried to sell it and it never took off. Ultimately, it made me feel like the things i made weren't actually good and I started to think that all my friends were giving me the "this belongs on the fridge" treatment. It took away the joy i had from just making stuff for people i cared about.

When I was a kid they started the “everyone can go to college” craze. Now it’s “everyone can start a business”

“No you do want that, thats the dream, that’s everybody’s dream” was so dystopian and accurate to the mindset of society today 😢

Ryan George isn't only every character in his videos, he's all of us.

Whenever people ask me if I intend to make money off one of my hobbies, my answer is always "It's a hobby. This is what I SPEND my money on."

Photographer here--I took my fun hobby and added a bunch of stress and deadlines to it. Loved the sketch so much!!

The actor for the bird must've been real hard to find, but you definitely made the right choice. They fit their role perfectly.

I've had entirely too many conversations like this about my hobbies with my mother. Usually, I ask her why she doesn't try to turn her hobbies into side hustles.

This reminds me of my dad. I got Technoblade and Philza plushies last year (I RARELY buy merch from content creators but thought I would treat myself), and when they arrived I was so happy and my dad asked, "So now that you have them, what are you going to do with them?" "Uh, hug them? Cuddle them?" looks of judgement

God, this hits hard. So many times I have shown off something I enjoy doing, Art, Tinkering with tech, even working with clay, and my parents will ALWAYS say "Nice, you can make some good money off that if you start selling, start taking some requests" It's gotten so bad to the point I just keep my hobbies to myself, ngl

This is especially funny when you realize that Ryan's YouTube career probably started as a hobby. 😂

I actually go through this a lot... I have many hobbies & people often ask me why I'm not a millionaire, or when I finish a project, they'll say things like, 'You should make a bunch of those & sell them'...to which I often respond, 'No, that turns a hobby into a jobby, & I don't want that'...& then that begins a conversation just like this... people just don't seem to grasp the concept of doing something for the pure enjoyment of it...

In my opinion, everyone should have a hobby and a job and they should not be the same thing. The job is something you enjoy but know you are going to have to put in the grind for to make money and will be hard work. The hobby is something you do to relax and create beauty