this is such an interesting video, i've also been trying really hard to try tackle the idea of consumerism in my content - you couldn't have worded this better! absolutely running the risk of sounding ungrateful here, i've found it pretty challenging to not push consumerism as a content creator especially since we do get sent things to keep, and sometimes our metrics for success are determined by the sales we generate. anyways that small rant aside, excellent video man. absolutely got a few cogs turning in my brain bahahhah
wonderful message man! I've wanted to tackle the consumerist side of this hobby for so long but was unsure of how to do it. I also love your rotational strategy- it's exactly what i do to avoid dropping too much money LOL
It is really interesting I came I across this video today as I just entered the custom keyboard building space. I modded and customized a prebuilt last year and was itching to come back, only straining due to cost. Now that so many prebuilts and barebones kits are cheaper than ever I felt I had the ability to try things without breaking the budget. However, once I purchased all my parts for my new custom build, I had this feeling of melancholy. After days of researching and doubting my choices, I realized nothing gave me that dopamine hit that looking for the perfect value part for my new build did. Only a few days after purchasing (before my parts even came in), I started looking for a different keyboard to purchase. I had no intention of buying multiple but just wanted to see what else is out there (and possibly FOMO or a sunk cost feeling), and almost ended up buying another board. Consumerism as a hobby is something I dealt with even when building/upgrading my PC so this video was a great reminder of this and some of the dangers around it. I don't think I will ever not buy things because it makes me happy or gets the hamster in my brain running but it will be important for me to set and respect boundaries I have set for my consumer behaviors.
Since I got interested in mechanical keyboards, I watched a lot of videos about what to think about, got one fullsize for my home computer, and one fullsize for my work computer, and now I'm done until I'm ready to experiment with a split or compact.
I totally agree with your view on the topic, but i feel it should also be noted, that many companies specialized on products for such nieche hobbies often try to lever the enthusiasm for selling stuff no one needs or wants. It is really easy to advertise to a group that is already interested in a specific topic and less critical of the products viability, sometimes too easy in my opinion. So i would like to propose a healty culture of "yeah this is the latest cool shit, but i don't like it, because i don't see enough benefits over my current setup to justify it".
I feel like there has been some stagnation with keyboards in the last little bit. There are new interesting things, but they are few and far between. Thinking of things like the Wooting 60HE, the NK Cream+ switches, and maybe Zeal Clickiez.
@@JordanDoesKeebs I would love to chime in on these, but im a total keeb noob :D i just bought a rk61, modded stabs and tape and slapped some nice tecsee saphires in there, covering them with a chinese pbt git keycap set :P
I got into this hobby around the same time, 2021. Bought a gk68 that I'm still using to this day. After buying it I got some lube tools, and some things like 2 syringes and some bandaids to tune the stabs. It turned out great, did the holee mod, lubing, put foam, coins as weight(I know lol) and pcb tape. It was extremely fun building it. Then I ordered some gmk clones and those were great too and some big gaskets to do a funny mounting style but it didn't work out well and in the end I decided I was going to plan an endgame build starting with buying a gmk set and waiting for it to arrive before building it. And well I still haven't gotten it because mykeyboard, an eu vendor, just went bankrupt a few months ago and right before doing so, and because they didn't have money to refund me, I got like 4 keycap sets, 2 of which are gmk, to replace my group buy order. So at least I still got something I guess, but times have changed and now budget sub 100 dollar keyboards are even better than those premium kits from when I started. So yeah, I got a lucky65 on the way to upgrade from my gk68, tho I'd love to mod it as much as I did to my gk68 it's just not necessary anymore, the stabs are great, the hmx switches I ordered are preluded and thight and great for only 30 bucks, the keeb was 60 on sale and I have plenty of keycaps to put on it. So literally just slap the switches and keycaps and boom, build done. Doesn't seem as fun but definitely more convenient and overall I love how much things have improved. And funny enough I'm into watches too, but I'm on the controversial side, I like reps and they just look and feel drastically better than legit watches in the same price range, aesthetically they are extremely close to the real things and some you wouldn't tell if you didn't have a microscope or something, and they also show the worst thing about watch collecting, most of the premium stuff is simply overpriced. I also took a little dive into watchmaking/taking a watch apart and putting it back together and yeah I loved it. I love putting things together if it wasn't apparent. I have 2 and don't plan on buying anything else anymore because one is a sports watch 15720 for daily use, and the other is a pepsi for occasionally going out. Another hobby that ties into this is gunpla. Plastic model kits of giant mecha. Cool, childish even, but when you realize how complex they can be you realize why they're not advertised for kids. But this one can easily fall into this consumerism as a hobby ideal. But they're model kits and you need tools to make them, same tools you could use to modify them, and with spray cans or a dedicated set up with a small compressor that could set you back one or two hundred bucks you can also paint them. You can also make dioramas of them this way. I have 3 of them and I've been in this hobby for twice that of keebs. Hobbies are fun, but this consumerism debacle I feel ties in more into the fact that we're in a highly capitalistic world that wants to squeeze every bit out of the average joe rather than with these hobbies themselves. That's the truth we have to accept, not that these hobbies are cringe as some other guys were saying, no, these are valid things to enjoy but what we should look for is to stay away from falling the deep trap that is spending. That's it. Be reasonable and you'll be good. Else you'll just be another one of those people with a wall full of funkos or .
love the ending because my cat also does that on my chair! But to further the conversation, I think an important point about trying new things is something that we haven't had much access to because of covid: meetups. We are able to try new things without owning them or having to purchase them through something like a meetup. Learning more about your preferences is really important and something like a meetup is a really good way to learn more without spending some time and money to attend that meetup. Another way to support others in finding their preferences is something that really is a foreign concept to some: try not to make money off of the stuff you buy. It shouldn't be about getting a great deal or making a bunch of money off a rare board, it should be about enjoying what you enjoy. I don't mean giving away super expensive or rare stuff, but maybe taking a loss on a board for someone in your local community or giving someone a good deal they wouldn't otherwise be able to find. Fostering knowledge and helping spread that will enable more people to know what they like and help the hobby out more in general, at least imo.
I totally agree with you about meetups! What a great opportunity to try all sorts of things. I had a blast last year at my first one and I've just got my ticket for the 2023 Toronto Meetup. I also agree with your sentiment about flipping. I've never had the moral dilemma, because I lose every Keycult raffle I enter, but it just feels terrible to see sealed units go for sale online for 1.5K...
It's nice seeing a video to reassure what I've been thinking ever since finishing my second build two days ago. While I've just started getting into the hobby, I don't see myself building more keyboards anytime soon. Partly because I want to save my money, but also that I'm very happy with the keyboards that I've made. I don't like replacing something that I enjoy using.
I think I needed to see this video. I have 3 mechanical keyboards (and don't get me started on keycaps!) and I keep eyeing new ones in different layouts, wondering if it would be better. I think I know that, deep down inside, I don't need anything new, and it's just consumerism.
I think you have to change how you think about keyboards. For me, keyboards are just input devices that works for a computer. It's not something that can work independantly away from a PC and depends on your usage, there are a lot of functions that you don't need to spend that extra buck for. I've been typing on a trusty G80-3000 (MX Blue) for almost 20 years, it's a hand down from my brother who likes Topre better and I just gladly took that G80-3000 for free. So when that keyboard finally broke and I really don't want to repair it anymore, I just looked at my using habits and decided that I'm still going with MX blues and I don't need RGBs or any of those nonsense. Also I game with joysticks and I know I never liked gaming with keyboards except for the usual typing that's required while chatting. What I need is a keyboard that I feel comfortable with, both to the touch and the feel of the switch when I'm typing on must let me feel as good as the G80-3000 that I'm used to. In the end I ended up with two Leopold keyboards after typing throught the whole shops available inventory. A FC-900R BT (MX2A Blue) for home use and a FC-980M BT (MX Blue) for work. Both are prebuilds since I'm impressed how good it feels on the fingers and it'll just be spending more usless money on custom keyboards and usless functions while trying to replicate that distinct Leopold feel. I even given up on replacing the keycaps as that's how good these prebuilds are out of the box. (I tried some custom keycaps on the Leopolds in the shop, but the feel to it completely changed once I swapped it.) For me it's my personal feel above everything else when it comes to keyboards and it's funny how I still gravitate towards good old Cherry switches on a solid build and the two Leopolds are the end game for me after poking my head into the hobby for a few short weeks. Leopolds are like the Lexus of keyboards, they're pricy but still available, nice to use but you don't get to brag on them since they're so basic. But under the hood, these keyboard Toyotas are those who just refuses to break after sustained use. And I have to admit, the original Leopold Graphite Blue and Ash Yellow double shot thick PBT keycaps tends to grow on you after a while and you really don't want to have it changed because they just stand out from the rest of the crowd.
Thanks for the kind words, it means a lot! Easy to get caught up in hype with a hobby like keyboards, so I feel like its always good to remind each other to be responsible from time to time :)
Big agree on the point you made about being content with you already got. Can't tell you how many hours I spent scrolling through ICs and mechmarket looking for something nicer than what I had at the time. Rotating your collection is also a great idea. I've been a bit reluctant about downsizing but honestly thinking about it, I got one or two boards I could live without.
Honestly I think it's pretty disingenuous for most people to call mechanical keyboards or watches a "hobby". Don't get me wrong, I have probably owned 50+ different watches and a few boards myself. But to me, a hobby is something that truly requires practice and skill. For me, that's mountain biking, video games, and disc golf. Everything else is just a collection.
Agree. I don't want to sound gatekeepy about hobbies but exactly what part about "watches" or "keyboards" is a "hobby?" Imagine if someone told you their hobby is photography, but all they do is buy expensive cameras and never actually take interesting pictures. I don't think anyone would say that their hobby is photography. Maybe if you were designing and building keyboards from scratch I'd classify it as a "hobby," but buying the latest group buys or pre made kits and basically putting together what is effectively adult legos doesn't really seem like a hobby to me.
@@ashwin3073not necessarily disagreeing, but I think lots of people consider buying and building Lego sets a hobby, too. I know multiple people who do this and own dozens or hundreds of sets.
@@fireflyslight8155 Im being a bit opinionated (and pedantic), but to me thats just consumerism/a collection. The line between consumerism and hobby for me with the lego example is if you are building MOCs, maybe bringing them to conventions, etc. Theres some creativity involved in that at least. Buying and building an off the shelf set then keeping it permenantly as display piece afterwards isn't really a hobby to me, but to each their own. It depends on your definition of hobby I guess. If your definition of a hobby is "an activity that is not done out of obligation and makes you happy," then yea fair enough. Theres nothing wrong with that definition either, I just think my definition is different from what the video creator thinks.
There's an element of curation to hobbies that involve collecting stuff. But for example with photography, if you never also learn to take photos with expensive cameras, I'd say you're missing out on much of the potential
definitely solid advice! I felt personally attacked by the 3 65% keyboards comment (just received a jris 65, already owned a bakeneko65), and have been eyeing the envoy, haha! I definitely think the social aspect of the hobby (especially going to meetups if possible) would be great for beginners especially. Being able to try out multiple mounting styles without dropping down money on many boards is definitely a huge win. Highly recommend beginners try out a bakeneko60 as a first board, that gummy o ring and the variety of plates/pcbs available is huge imo! Curious to hear your thoughts on the new Tofu!
65% is such a nice balance between size and functionality, so its hard to blame you! And that Envoy... that's a perdy looking rectangle. Gotta agree with you about the meetups too. I didn't get to go to my first meet up until summer of last year and it was a great learning experience even being deep into the hobby.
@@JordanDoesKeebs Yes, the envoy looks super clean, especially in polycarbonate! It's great to have something that's not a limited time / limited run GB! That video you had on the meetup was great!
One thing to note is how predatory some companies are in the hobby... GMK for example, could always have BoW keycaps available, they would always sell, injection molding one of the cheapest manufacturing methods after tooling is paid for, there's zero reason to charge 100$+ for keycaps thru Group Buys other than to keep the premium / exclusive mysticism alive.
I've only dabbled in MKB but I have some other pricey hobbies and have to prioritize the fun funds. It's really fun to jump down a rabbit hole and join a passionate community. Your income, and self control are the most important aspects. I like nice shit but I'm not rich so I'm very strategic on purchases it avoids a lot of pain, after all what good is shiney stuff if you have to eat Ramen all nonth.
I already planning to stop buying new keeb if I already have all the "usable" format. From 28 to 108. From that point, I guess buying new keycaps is already enough since almost all the 60 to TKL looks all the "same" except the case.
some people sound like hobby elitists in these comments. Every hobby requires some degree of consumption. If someone enjoys doing it on their free time, even if it is collecting something, I don't think it makes it less of a hobby or just consumerism. If collecting things bring you joy, cheers to you.
Lol agreed. I think there is totally something to be said about consumerism and overconsumption and so on with hobbies based on collection, mainly with relevance to social media and trends (as well as "retail therapy"), but I think inherently associating shame with the idea of wishing to collect things helps nobody 😅 Humans aren't even the only animals on Earth who like to collect fun little things. And also what you said of every hobby requiring some degree of consumption, including art and creation. I think that the careful consideration of each purchase (can i afford it/will i get enjoyment out of it in the long term/etc), as well as making use of secondhand markets if possible, is the kind of thing we should be encouraging instead. I got into keebs because I became interested in sound design due to my own creative pursuits, and now I pay so much attention to all the little sounds around me. And since I spend so much time typing, as many do, learning that there was a whole other world of potential sounds my keyboard could make was instantly fascinating... I would say that the hobby enriches my life in this way. And that enrichment is the entire point of a "hobby" in the first place. No I do not NEED a bunch of different kinds of keyboard switches, but it brings excitement to a part of my life that was previously much more mundane. And it is these little things that really add up over time.
I never viewed this as a hobby more as a refinement of my craftsmanship. A cook needs a good knife in order to be efficient and a desk worker a good keyboard. As soon as you reach a point where nothing bothers you anymore, you should stop. That is when you get caught up in perfection and/or consumerism.
I treat keyboard hobby as a collecting hobby. I also collect anime figures, I know that I don't really need them and from the perspective of others I am just wasting money on toys. But I like them and think that they are beautiful so I buy those that I like, put them on the shelf and just look at them and It makes my day a bit better. Keyboard hobby Is a bit more practical In my opinion though, I am a programmer so I spend a lot of time with my keyboard so I want It to be the best for me, I have a bunch of keyboards now and I use all of them from time to time and when I don't I mount them to my pegboard and they serve as a decor
How dare you. People do need 3 65% keyboards lol. I 100 agree with the Rotation thing. I used to do this until I got too lazy to post my keyboards for sale lmao
I do think consumerism can be a problem in the hobby, but especially when it comes to flex culture, i.e. when people put others down for "lesser" boards and put "grail" (read: expensive/exclusive) boards on a pedestal while refusing to consider anything other than those grail boards as "worthy." Just look at the continued dominance of the unikorn as the end-all-be-all when the bakeneko exists and is available at extremely low prices. The bakeneko is literally the unikorn with a little less weight, and it is fairly easy to get your own backplate bakeneko made custom for fairly cheap. Despite it all, you will find people insisting that the unikorn is superior to any bakeneko variant, even cnc'd customs. I've heard every excuse under the sun about how the bakenekos are garbage - whether it be anodization quality, sound, and even the o-rings! For a less insular analogy from a different, more mainstream hobby space, all you have to do is look at the common projects white sneakers. They have a cult-like following and are the de-facto grail minimal white leather sneaker in the space. This lead to a youtuber cutting in half the common projects and other significantly lower priced sneakers from alternative brands, and examining the quality and construction of each brand. To what should have been nobody's surprise, it turns out that pretty much all the brands priced 200 dollars cheaper than the common projects had identical build and quality with only slight variation of visual aesthetic. Despite this evidence, common project fans took to reddit and wrote a highly upvoted scathing rebuttal to the video series, writing that the youtuber had extreme biases (despite the series premise being literally cutting the shoe in half and comparing), did not know anything about leather (the youtuber is a professional leatherworker), and that the youtuber was using incorrect leather vocabulary (he wasn't, but even if he was pedantry shouldn't refute anything). To this day, anytime you see conversation of white leather sneakers, the common projects will invariably be touted as the best quality shoe one can buy, despite all evidence to the contrary. In the end, I feel that as long as you are buying keyboards to use them as keyboards, and that using those boards bring you joy without financial strain, then it really is just a hobby and not consumerism. If you like a board because you like it and not because it "elevates" your position in the hobby, then you're good! After all, every single hobby requires monetary investment, and the level of monetary investment does not define whether it is a hobby or not. Just look at the price of good golf clubs or fishing gear- I think you will find that keyboards are actually not that expensive of a hobby after all!
What I don't understand is why all keyboard hobbyists listen to lofi beats. Where's the thumping Techno? Where are the loud keyboard lovers? Thicc instead of Thocc. It feels like most videos only focus on "Thocc" sound and nothing else. I rarely see anyone doing an actual deep analysis of gaming performance besides Optimum Tech.
I felt so weird finding the “mech keyboard” community. I’ve been furiously typing since the 80s and the last of my old keyboards finally died and I was looking for a quality replacement that felt like a couple of well known examples from the era. I hoped to find videos showing how different typing styles compared on different keyboards, I would have settled even for people actually *talking* in actionable, science-tangent fashion…but 99% of videos seem to be ASMR-lite sounds of keycard tapping and half a dozen “truths” that have been repeated endlessly over the internet. I’m not trying to judge, god knows I have some weird hobbies/focused. This one seems mightily disconnected from where it all started from.
@@janetsbrick Exactly. It's just like everyone is slamming how inferior clicky switches are while I'm sitting there happily typing on MX Blues for the past 20 years and still prefer blues over anything else. lol TH-cam keyboard reviews are so useless these days that I still ended up sitting in a PC store and furiously type through their whole inventory for a whole afternoon to decide what brand and which switch I like for my replacement. To me it's more of a flex then practical advice and review at this point.
@@mahoslash in the end I just went for a Unicomp Model M and am happy with it. It’s full sized, which I like, feels solid and has good action. I tried a couple different Cherry MX based keyboards and I actually liked the MX Black switches the best, but they still lost out to buckling springs.
@@janetsbrick I actually picked out two keyboards in the end. The Leopold FC-900R BT (MX2A Blue) and the Leopold FC-980M BT (MX Blue). The prior one was a full size one for home use while the latter one was a 98 key layout for work. (I need a more compact full size keyboard.) Both are prebuilds but Leopold makes very solid keyboards, it even feels better to type with compared to my all time favorite G80-3000. I've been typing on MX blues for most of my time with a PC after we retired the buckling spring keyboards from our home and I started to have my own computer. 20 years of MX blues makes it's mark on me and everything just felt odd to the touch when I tried other switches. The closest I can tolerate as a replacement were MX silvers but the MX blues just felt right for me. Good thing that recent keyboard enthusiasts around the world just can't give clickies a break and all seems to hate it like MX blues had murdered their family. Managed to get the two Leopolds with the color scheme that I really liked and I think they'll be my end games for sure.
i dont understand the point you make. every hobby based on consumption rather then creation is cringe. you see a lot of times how people who really create do not obsess about their tools but choose what gets the job done because they are focused on other things. the only way this thing even became a trend was because it is easy to make contet, just buy and promote a relatively affordable product and shill it to other people. everything about this "hobby" is so disgusting just like collecting funko pops. i really feel bad about the empty lives people who obsess about keyboards live.
I agree with this completely. How some people call what is effectively buying an expensive tool a "hobby" and not actually doing anything with it is not what I would call a hobby. Like what is a "watch collection" hobby? You're literally just buying products to fit into some group or push content about how you bought some product. I cringe when these keyboard youtubers call "building" a kit keyboard or buying $100 keycaps and switches a "hobby."
@@ashwin3073building keyboards meant hours of soldering and lubing. But now you just buy a kit, switches and keycaps, slap them all together and boom you've got a great keyboard, hurray. Like seriously the only good thing is that now we've got cheap kits with features that just 4 years ago you'd only see on 400+ dollar keyboards. That's the best thing that happened overall with this whole hobby/community. Like I got into the hobby in 2020 and bought a gk68, it's been holding up really great but I wanted to upgrade to a premium and expensive keyboard cause yeah, that's how it was and at one point I bought into a gmk group buy and decided to wait until it arrives to build that one endgame keyboard that I would never upgrade from. And yeah that didn't pan out how I wanted, I bought from mykeyboard that just went bankrupt a few months ago and to not loose 200 euros I got 4 keycap sets on discount from them as a replacement that are technically worth a bit more than that but whatever. And now I start watching videos on the hobby again and there's tens of dozens of keyboard and kits under 100 bucks that are what I've ever wanted, so I ended up getting a lucky65 and some cheap silly hmx switches that are 10 times better than the switches there were out there when I started a few years ago. And yeah I'm going to build this when it arrives, finally experience a gasket mount keyboard and well hopefully not have to build and worry about this for the next ten years. Tho I'm salty about that kit I never got and would need to pay for it again at oblotzkys if I wanted it but I'm not aure at this point, I think I'll just stick to this one gmk clone I bought from aliexpress with my gk68.
Agreed 100% and so glad you address this and believe that more people should too, if not for anyone, then for themselves.. but I do feel like you missed a huge thing.. why some people haven't left the hobby and its the fact that the better (or rather smarter) creators in this space aren't "defining" themselves by what they consume and/or build. People like Taeha Types, Wildcat, Dbokey, Ricecloud, just to name a few. These creators also show their personality and other interests through their work. I for one don't own a Keycult, Jane, Unikorn, etc and don't really care that much either.. Rather, I define myself and brand through the experiences, through "learning" and the other things that I enjoy, make, and want to share with others as an "artform" but also simply just for enjoyment of the process. Example: I'm a maker, designer, visual artist, cinematographer, editor, music producer, desk setup and theme aesthetic enthusiast, gamer, problem solver, and the list goes on, so I try to share as much of that as possible while still enjoying "the hobby." Check out this! A lego keyboard from scratch! th-cam.com/video/gJSf339NmnQ/w-d-xo.html This is a prime example of "you don't need to buy more to enjoy the hobby and keep things fresh! There are infinite ways to be unique and it doesn't always have to make a dent in one's wallet!
this is such an interesting video, i've also been trying really hard to try tackle the idea of consumerism in my content - you couldn't have worded this better! absolutely running the risk of sounding ungrateful here, i've found it pretty challenging to not push consumerism as a content creator especially since we do get sent things to keep, and sometimes our metrics for success are determined by the sales we generate. anyways that small rant aside, excellent video man. absolutely got a few cogs turning in my brain bahahhah
I think the shopping addiction is a key point
wonderful message man! I've wanted to tackle the consumerist side of this hobby for so long but was unsure of how to do it. I also love your rotational strategy- it's exactly what i do to avoid dropping too much money LOL
Damn, this was a really good watch. Makes me think critically about how I want to engage in hobby moving forward. Thank you for sharing this!
It is really interesting I came I across this video today as I just entered the custom keyboard building space. I modded and customized a prebuilt last year and was itching to come back, only straining due to cost. Now that so many prebuilts and barebones kits are cheaper than ever I felt I had the ability to try things without breaking the budget. However, once I purchased all my parts for my new custom build, I had this feeling of melancholy. After days of researching and doubting my choices, I realized nothing gave me that dopamine hit that looking for the perfect value part for my new build did. Only a few days after purchasing (before my parts even came in), I started looking for a different keyboard to purchase. I had no intention of buying multiple but just wanted to see what else is out there (and possibly FOMO or a sunk cost feeling), and almost ended up buying another board.
Consumerism as a hobby is something I dealt with even when building/upgrading my PC so this video was a great reminder of this and some of the dangers around it. I don't think I will ever not buy things because it makes me happy or gets the hamster in my brain running but it will be important for me to set and respect boundaries I have set for my consumer behaviors.
Thank you for this. I needed to hear a lot of this right now.
Since I got interested in mechanical keyboards, I watched a lot of videos about what to think about, got one fullsize for my home computer, and one fullsize for my work computer, and now I'm done until I'm ready to experiment with a split or compact.
I totally agree with your view on the topic, but i feel it should also be noted, that many companies specialized on products for such nieche hobbies often try to lever the enthusiasm for selling stuff no one needs or wants. It is really easy to advertise to a group that is already interested in a specific topic and less critical of the products viability, sometimes too easy in my opinion. So i would like to propose a healty culture of "yeah this is the latest cool shit, but i don't like it, because i don't see enough benefits over my current setup to justify it".
I feel like there has been some stagnation with keyboards in the last little bit. There are new interesting things, but they are few and far between. Thinking of things like the Wooting 60HE, the NK Cream+ switches, and maybe Zeal Clickiez.
@@JordanDoesKeebs I would love to chime in on these, but im a total keeb noob :D i just bought a rk61, modded stabs and tape and slapped some nice tecsee saphires in there, covering them with a chinese pbt git keycap set :P
oh and i should add: came for the keebs info, stayed for the memes ;D
I got into this hobby around the same time, 2021. Bought a gk68 that I'm still using to this day. After buying it I got some lube tools, and some things like 2 syringes and some bandaids to tune the stabs. It turned out great, did the holee mod, lubing, put foam, coins as weight(I know lol) and pcb tape. It was extremely fun building it. Then I ordered some gmk clones and those were great too and some big gaskets to do a funny mounting style but it didn't work out well and in the end I decided I was going to plan an endgame build starting with buying a gmk set and waiting for it to arrive before building it. And well I still haven't gotten it because mykeyboard, an eu vendor, just went bankrupt a few months ago and right before doing so, and because they didn't have money to refund me, I got like 4 keycap sets, 2 of which are gmk, to replace my group buy order. So at least I still got something I guess, but times have changed and now budget sub 100 dollar keyboards are even better than those premium kits from when I started. So yeah, I got a lucky65 on the way to upgrade from my gk68, tho I'd love to mod it as much as I did to my gk68 it's just not necessary anymore, the stabs are great, the hmx switches I ordered are preluded and thight and great for only 30 bucks, the keeb was 60 on sale and I have plenty of keycaps to put on it. So literally just slap the switches and keycaps and boom, build done. Doesn't seem as fun but definitely more convenient and overall I love how much things have improved.
And funny enough I'm into watches too, but I'm on the controversial side, I like reps and they just look and feel drastically better than legit watches in the same price range, aesthetically they are extremely close to the real things and some you wouldn't tell if you didn't have a microscope or something, and they also show the worst thing about watch collecting, most of the premium stuff is simply overpriced. I also took a little dive into watchmaking/taking a watch apart and putting it back together and yeah I loved it. I love putting things together if it wasn't apparent. I have 2 and don't plan on buying anything else anymore because one is a sports watch 15720 for daily use, and the other is a pepsi for occasionally going out.
Another hobby that ties into this is gunpla. Plastic model kits of giant mecha. Cool, childish even, but when you realize how complex they can be you realize why they're not advertised for kids. But this one can easily fall into this consumerism as a hobby ideal. But they're model kits and you need tools to make them, same tools you could use to modify them, and with spray cans or a dedicated set up with a small compressor that could set you back one or two hundred bucks you can also paint them. You can also make dioramas of them this way. I have 3 of them and I've been in this hobby for twice that of keebs.
Hobbies are fun, but this consumerism debacle I feel ties in more into the fact that we're in a highly capitalistic world that wants to squeeze every bit out of the average joe rather than with these hobbies themselves. That's the truth we have to accept, not that these hobbies are cringe as some other guys were saying, no, these are valid things to enjoy but what we should look for is to stay away from falling the deep trap that is spending. That's it. Be reasonable and you'll be good. Else you'll just be another one of those people with a wall full of funkos or .
love the ending because my cat also does that on my chair!
But to further the conversation, I think an important point about trying new things is something that we haven't had much access to because of covid: meetups. We are able to try new things without owning them or having to purchase them through something like a meetup. Learning more about your preferences is really important and something like a meetup is a really good way to learn more without spending some time and money to attend that meetup.
Another way to support others in finding their preferences is something that really is a foreign concept to some: try not to make money off of the stuff you buy. It shouldn't be about getting a great deal or making a bunch of money off a rare board, it should be about enjoying what you enjoy. I don't mean giving away super expensive or rare stuff, but maybe taking a loss on a board for someone in your local community or giving someone a good deal they wouldn't otherwise be able to find. Fostering knowledge and helping spread that will enable more people to know what they like and help the hobby out more in general, at least imo.
I totally agree with you about meetups! What a great opportunity to try all sorts of things. I had a blast last year at my first one and I've just got my ticket for the 2023 Toronto Meetup. I also agree with your sentiment about flipping. I've never had the moral dilemma, because I lose every Keycult raffle I enter, but it just feels terrible to see sealed units go for sale online for 1.5K...
It's nice seeing a video to reassure what I've been thinking ever since finishing my second build two days ago. While I've just started getting into the hobby, I don't see myself building more keyboards anytime soon. Partly because I want to save my money, but also that I'm very happy with the keyboards that I've made. I don't like replacing something that I enjoy using.
Exactly the same for fountain pens
Personally, a part of the keyboard hobby that I don't think I'd ever get sick of are the wonderful people, including you ;)
I think I needed to see this video. I have 3 mechanical keyboards (and don't get me started on keycaps!) and I keep eyeing new ones in different layouts, wondering if it would be better. I think I know that, deep down inside, I don't need anything new, and it's just consumerism.
I think you have to change how you think about keyboards.
For me, keyboards are just input devices that works for a computer.
It's not something that can work independantly away from a PC and depends on your usage, there are a lot of functions that you don't need to spend that extra buck for.
I've been typing on a trusty G80-3000 (MX Blue) for almost 20 years, it's a hand down from my brother who likes Topre better and I just gladly took that G80-3000 for free.
So when that keyboard finally broke and I really don't want to repair it anymore, I just looked at my using habits and decided that I'm still going with MX blues and I don't need RGBs or any of those nonsense. Also I game with joysticks and I know I never liked gaming with keyboards except for the usual typing that's required while chatting. What I need is a keyboard that I feel comfortable with, both to the touch and the feel of the switch when I'm typing on must let me feel as good as the G80-3000 that I'm used to.
In the end I ended up with two Leopold keyboards after typing throught the whole shops available inventory. A FC-900R BT (MX2A Blue) for home use and a FC-980M BT (MX Blue) for work.
Both are prebuilds since I'm impressed how good it feels on the fingers and it'll just be spending more usless money on custom keyboards and usless functions while trying to replicate that distinct Leopold feel. I even given up on replacing the keycaps as that's how good these prebuilds are out of the box. (I tried some custom keycaps on the Leopolds in the shop, but the feel to it completely changed once I swapped it.)
For me it's my personal feel above everything else when it comes to keyboards and it's funny how I still gravitate towards good old Cherry switches on a solid build and the two Leopolds are the end game for me after poking my head into the hobby for a few short weeks.
Leopolds are like the Lexus of keyboards, they're pricy but still available, nice to use but you don't get to brag on them since they're so basic.
But under the hood, these keyboard Toyotas are those who just refuses to break after sustained use.
And I have to admit, the original Leopold Graphite Blue and Ash Yellow double shot thick PBT keycaps tends to grow on you after a while and you really don't want to have it changed because they just stand out from the rest of the crowd.
which keyboard is in the intro?
Great video! This kind of discourse is really good for the hobby :)
Thanks for the kind words, it means a lot! Easy to get caught up in hype with a hobby like keyboards, so I feel like its always good to remind each other to be responsible from time to time :)
Big agree on the point you made about being content with you already got. Can't tell you how many hours I spent scrolling through ICs and mechmarket looking for something nicer than what I had at the time. Rotating your collection is also a great idea. I've been a bit reluctant about downsizing but honestly thinking about it, I got one or two boards I could live without.
ayyy new fire Jordan video
Thanks Isaac, means a lot you always check out the new stuff. Hope you have a great day 😊
@@JordanDoesKeebs :) always a joy to watch your Content
Are you still planning on making a video on the c-13x? I wanna make one and a video going over it would be awesome
Small typo in the thumbnail “confronting”
Honestly I think it's pretty disingenuous for most people to call mechanical keyboards or watches a "hobby". Don't get me wrong, I have probably owned 50+ different watches and a few boards myself. But to me, a hobby is something that truly requires practice and skill. For me, that's mountain biking, video games, and disc golf. Everything else is just a collection.
Agree. I don't want to sound gatekeepy about hobbies but exactly what part about "watches" or "keyboards" is a "hobby?" Imagine if someone told you their hobby is photography, but all they do is buy expensive cameras and never actually take interesting pictures. I don't think anyone would say that their hobby is photography.
Maybe if you were designing and building keyboards from scratch I'd classify it as a "hobby," but buying the latest group buys or pre made kits and basically putting together what is effectively adult legos doesn't really seem like a hobby to me.
@@ashwin3073not necessarily disagreeing, but I think lots of people consider buying and building Lego sets a hobby, too. I know multiple people who do this and own dozens or hundreds of sets.
@@fireflyslight8155 Im being a bit opinionated (and pedantic), but to me thats just consumerism/a collection.
The line between consumerism and hobby for me with the lego example is if you are building MOCs, maybe bringing them to conventions, etc. Theres some creativity involved in that at least.
Buying and building an off the shelf set then keeping it permenantly as display piece afterwards isn't really a hobby to me, but to each their own.
It depends on your definition of hobby I guess. If your definition of a hobby is "an activity that is not done out of obligation and makes you happy," then yea fair enough. Theres nothing wrong with that definition either, I just think my definition is different from what the video creator thinks.
There's an element of curation to hobbies that involve collecting stuff. But for example with photography, if you never also learn to take photos with expensive cameras, I'd say you're missing out on much of the potential
Dude, lol. What about typists? Typing at 200wpm is a skill that takes a lot of practice
definitely solid advice! I felt personally attacked by the 3 65% keyboards comment (just received a jris 65, already owned a bakeneko65), and have been eyeing the envoy, haha! I definitely think the social aspect of the hobby (especially going to meetups if possible) would be great for beginners especially. Being able to try out multiple mounting styles without dropping down money on many boards is definitely a huge win. Highly recommend beginners try out a bakeneko60 as a first board, that gummy o ring and the variety of plates/pcbs available is huge imo! Curious to hear your thoughts on the new Tofu!
65% is such a nice balance between size and functionality, so its hard to blame you! And that Envoy... that's a perdy looking rectangle. Gotta agree with you about the meetups too. I didn't get to go to my first meet up until summer of last year and it was a great learning experience even being deep into the hobby.
@@JordanDoesKeebs Yes, the envoy looks super clean, especially in polycarbonate! It's great to have something that's not a limited time / limited run GB! That video you had on the meetup was great!
One thing to note is how predatory some companies are in the hobby... GMK for example, could always have BoW keycaps available, they would always sell, injection molding one of the cheapest manufacturing methods after tooling is paid for, there's zero reason to charge 100$+ for keycaps thru Group Buys other than to keep the premium / exclusive mysticism alive.
you don't know shit
bro really attacked my left ear on the intro there
loved this style, and i much agree :)
I am wanting to start getting into eurorack modular, and that is a hobby that costs some real money, so I must be content with VCV Rack for now.
I've only dabbled in MKB but I have some other pricey hobbies and have to prioritize the fun funds. It's really fun to jump down a rabbit hole and join a passionate community. Your income, and self control are the most important aspects. I like nice shit but I'm not rich so I'm very strategic on purchases it avoids a lot of pain, after all what good is shiney stuff if you have to eat Ramen all nonth.
I already planning to stop buying new keeb if I already have all the "usable" format. From 28 to 108. From that point, I guess buying new keycaps is already enough since almost all the 60 to TKL looks all the "same" except the case.
Great video
some people sound like hobby elitists in these comments. Every hobby requires some degree of consumption. If someone enjoys doing it on their free time, even if it is collecting something, I don't think it makes it less of a hobby or just consumerism. If collecting things bring you joy, cheers to you.
Lol agreed. I think there is totally something to be said about consumerism and overconsumption and so on with hobbies based on collection, mainly with relevance to social media and trends (as well as "retail therapy"), but I think inherently associating shame with the idea of wishing to collect things helps nobody 😅 Humans aren't even the only animals on Earth who like to collect fun little things. And also what you said of every hobby requiring some degree of consumption, including art and creation. I think that the careful consideration of each purchase (can i afford it/will i get enjoyment out of it in the long term/etc), as well as making use of secondhand markets if possible, is the kind of thing we should be encouraging instead. I got into keebs because I became interested in sound design due to my own creative pursuits, and now I pay so much attention to all the little sounds around me. And since I spend so much time typing, as many do, learning that there was a whole other world of potential sounds my keyboard could make was instantly fascinating... I would say that the hobby enriches my life in this way. And that enrichment is the entire point of a "hobby" in the first place. No I do not NEED a bunch of different kinds of keyboard switches, but it brings excitement to a part of my life that was previously much more mundane. And it is these little things that really add up over time.
get some split keywell non staggered board so you can truly try something different that will improve your hands health as well
I never viewed this as a hobby more as a refinement of my craftsmanship.
A cook needs a good knife in order to be efficient and a desk worker a good keyboard.
As soon as you reach a point where nothing bothers you anymore, you should stop.
That is when you get caught up in perfection and/or consumerism.
WAS THAT A CORPO FROM CYBERPUNK 2077?
But.... Having like 20 plus different keyboards on the display case or big pegboard wall would looks so nice doh >
I treat keyboard hobby as a collecting hobby. I also collect anime figures, I know that I don't really need them and from the perspective of others I am just wasting money on toys. But I like them and think that they are beautiful so I buy those that I like, put them on the shelf and just look at them and It makes my day a bit better. Keyboard hobby Is a bit more practical In my opinion though, I am a programmer so I spend a lot of time with my keyboard so I want It to be the best for me, I have a bunch of keyboards now and I use all of them from time to time and when I don't I mount them to my pegboard and they serve as a decor
It's only a hobby if you actually build your own. But I think a lot of "hobbyists" just buy keyboard after keyboard. That's a habit. Like heroin.
How dare you. People do need 3 65% keyboards lol. I 100 agree with the Rotation thing. I used to do this until I got too lazy to post my keyboards for sale lmao
When I open my closet and cause a keycap avalanche, I know its time to sell...
Good stuff
I do think consumerism can be a problem in the hobby, but especially when it comes to flex culture, i.e. when people put others down for "lesser" boards and put "grail" (read: expensive/exclusive) boards on a pedestal while refusing to consider anything other than those grail boards as "worthy." Just look at the continued dominance of the unikorn as the end-all-be-all when the bakeneko exists and is available at extremely low prices. The bakeneko is literally the unikorn with a little less weight, and it is fairly easy to get your own backplate bakeneko made custom for fairly cheap. Despite it all, you will find people insisting that the unikorn is superior to any bakeneko variant, even cnc'd customs. I've heard every excuse under the sun about how the bakenekos are garbage - whether it be anodization quality, sound, and even the o-rings!
For a less insular analogy from a different, more mainstream hobby space, all you have to do is look at the common projects white sneakers. They have a cult-like following and are the de-facto grail minimal white leather sneaker in the space. This lead to a youtuber cutting in half the common projects and other significantly lower priced sneakers from alternative brands, and examining the quality and construction of each brand. To what should have been nobody's surprise, it turns out that pretty much all the brands priced 200 dollars cheaper than the common projects had identical build and quality with only slight variation of visual aesthetic. Despite this evidence, common project fans took to reddit and wrote a highly upvoted scathing rebuttal to the video series, writing that the youtuber had extreme biases (despite the series premise being literally cutting the shoe in half and comparing), did not know anything about leather (the youtuber is a professional leatherworker), and that the youtuber was using incorrect leather vocabulary (he wasn't, but even if he was pedantry shouldn't refute anything). To this day, anytime you see conversation of white leather sneakers, the common projects will invariably be touted as the best quality shoe one can buy, despite all evidence to the contrary.
In the end, I feel that as long as you are buying keyboards to use them as keyboards, and that using those boards bring you joy without financial strain, then it really is just a hobby and not consumerism. If you like a board because you like it and not because it "elevates" your position in the hobby, then you're good! After all, every single hobby requires monetary investment, and the level of monetary investment does not define whether it is a hobby or not. Just look at the price of good golf clubs or fishing gear- I think you will find that keyboards are actually not that expensive of a hobby after all!
thumbnail pic or im calling police!
this video is the reason why I'd love to pcb swap my pok3r, but I don't have the money to do it, well, I wanted to comision all that, but... nvm...
What new hobbyist have done to mechanical keyboards is just sad.
You don’t need three 65% kbs
But you’ll need at least 3 40% kbs 😂😂😂
-Minivan
-Ortho/split
-Qaz
Just to start
hello mr jordan!
Hey-o! Happy Friday 😁
Biggest takeaway: spend within your means. Awesome video.
FOMO is a hell of a drug but you can't pay your hydro bill with a Gok 7V.
What I don't understand is why all keyboard hobbyists listen to lofi beats. Where's the thumping Techno? Where are the loud keyboard lovers? Thicc instead of Thocc. It feels like most videos only focus on "Thocc" sound and nothing else. I rarely see anyone doing an actual deep analysis of gaming performance besides Optimum Tech.
I felt so weird finding the “mech keyboard” community. I’ve been furiously typing since the 80s and the last of my old keyboards finally died and I was looking for a quality replacement that felt like a couple of well known examples from the era.
I hoped to find videos showing how different typing styles compared on different keyboards, I would have settled even for people actually *talking* in actionable, science-tangent fashion…but 99% of videos seem to be ASMR-lite sounds of keycard tapping and half a dozen “truths” that have been repeated endlessly over the internet.
I’m not trying to judge, god knows I have some weird hobbies/focused. This one seems mightily disconnected from where it all started from.
@@janetsbrick
Exactly.
It's just like everyone is slamming how inferior clicky switches are while I'm sitting there happily typing on MX Blues for the past 20 years and still prefer blues over anything else. lol
TH-cam keyboard reviews are so useless these days that I still ended up sitting in a PC store and furiously type through their whole inventory for a whole afternoon to decide what brand and which switch I like for my replacement.
To me it's more of a flex then practical advice and review at this point.
@@mahoslash in the end I just went for a Unicomp Model M and am happy with it. It’s full sized, which I like, feels solid and has good action.
I tried a couple different Cherry MX based keyboards and I actually liked the MX Black switches the best, but they still lost out to buckling springs.
@@janetsbrick
I actually picked out two keyboards in the end.
The Leopold FC-900R BT (MX2A Blue) and the Leopold FC-980M BT (MX Blue).
The prior one was a full size one for home use while the latter one was a 98 key layout for work. (I need a more compact full size keyboard.)
Both are prebuilds but Leopold makes very solid keyboards, it even feels better to type with compared to my all time favorite G80-3000.
I've been typing on MX blues for most of my time with a PC after we retired the buckling spring keyboards from our home and I started to have my own computer.
20 years of MX blues makes it's mark on me and everything just felt odd to the touch when I tried other switches.
The closest I can tolerate as a replacement were MX silvers but the MX blues just felt right for me.
Good thing that recent keyboard enthusiasts around the world just can't give clickies a break and all seems to hate it like MX blues had murdered their family. Managed to get the two Leopolds with the color scheme that I really liked and I think they'll be my end games for sure.
most hobbies are just an excuse for shopping addiction
Haha
i dont understand the point you make. every hobby based on consumption rather then creation is cringe. you see a lot of times how people who really create do not obsess about their tools but choose what gets the job done because they are focused on other things. the only way this thing even became a trend was because it is easy to make contet, just buy and promote a relatively affordable product and shill it to other people. everything about this "hobby" is so disgusting just like collecting funko pops. i really feel bad about the empty lives people who obsess about keyboards live.
I agree with this completely. How some people call what is effectively buying an expensive tool a "hobby" and not actually doing anything with it is not what I would call a hobby. Like what is a "watch collection" hobby? You're literally just buying products to fit into some group or push content about how you bought some product.
I cringe when these keyboard youtubers call "building" a kit keyboard or buying $100 keycaps and switches a "hobby."
@@ashwin3073building keyboards meant hours of soldering and lubing. But now you just buy a kit, switches and keycaps, slap them all together and boom you've got a great keyboard, hurray. Like seriously the only good thing is that now we've got cheap kits with features that just 4 years ago you'd only see on 400+ dollar keyboards. That's the best thing that happened overall with this whole hobby/community. Like I got into the hobby in 2020 and bought a gk68, it's been holding up really great but I wanted to upgrade to a premium and expensive keyboard cause yeah, that's how it was and at one point I bought into a gmk group buy and decided to wait until it arrives to build that one endgame keyboard that I would never upgrade from. And yeah that didn't pan out how I wanted, I bought from mykeyboard that just went bankrupt a few months ago and to not loose 200 euros I got 4 keycap sets on discount from them as a replacement that are technically worth a bit more than that but whatever. And now I start watching videos on the hobby again and there's tens of dozens of keyboard and kits under 100 bucks that are what I've ever wanted, so I ended up getting a lucky65 and some cheap silly hmx switches that are 10 times better than the switches there were out there when I started a few years ago. And yeah I'm going to build this when it arrives, finally experience a gasket mount keyboard and well hopefully not have to build and worry about this for the next ten years. Tho I'm salty about that kit I never got and would need to pay for it again at oblotzkys if I wanted it but I'm not aure at this point, I think I'll just stick to this one gmk clone I bought from aliexpress with my gk68.
Agreed 100% and so glad you address this and believe that more people should too, if not for anyone, then for themselves.. but I do feel like you missed a huge thing.. why some people haven't left the hobby and its the fact that the better (or rather smarter) creators in this space aren't "defining" themselves by what they consume and/or build. People like Taeha Types, Wildcat, Dbokey, Ricecloud, just to name a few. These creators also show their personality and other interests through their work. I for one don't own a Keycult, Jane, Unikorn, etc and don't really care that much either.. Rather, I define myself and brand through the experiences, through "learning" and the other things that I enjoy, make, and want to share with others as an "artform" but also simply just for enjoyment of the process. Example: I'm a maker, designer, visual artist, cinematographer, editor, music producer, desk setup and theme aesthetic enthusiast, gamer, problem solver, and the list goes on, so I try to share as much of that as possible while still enjoying "the hobby." Check out this! A lego keyboard from scratch! th-cam.com/video/gJSf339NmnQ/w-d-xo.html This is a prime example of "you don't need to buy more to enjoy the hobby and keep things fresh! There are infinite ways to be unique and it doesn't always have to make a dent in one's wallet!