There comes a point in adulthood when you start looking at hobbies you once thought were deeply uncool and thinking they sound kind of fun. Think eyeing pottery classes, researching gardening equipment, getting passionate about sourdough, or wondering whether you really do need a camera that costs more than your first car.
And perhaps that's especially true for millennials. After years of work, bills, responsibilities, and trying to remember when exactly everyone decided they were adults, plenty of people seem to start picking up hobbies. How did we know? Someone on Threads recently asked about the quintessential millennial "midlife crisis hobbies", inviting people in their 30s to reveal how many of these activities they've tried.
Millennials are reaching their 30s with changing expectations around work, money, relationships, and what a fulfilling adult life should look like
The so-called "midlife crisis hobby" has become a funny way to describe the new interests people pick up while reinventing themselves
Millennials have been through a rather strange coming-of-age experience. They entered adulthood during the Great Recession, watched housing prices and other costs climb, navigated changing ideas about marriage and family, and somehow ended up in their 30s being told they should have everything figured out. So perhaps it is not surprising that some are developing extremely specific hobbies.
Think of it as the adult equivalent of trying on a new identity. It's pretty much like one day you're just mildly interested in gardening, and the next you're comparing soil compositions, and even researching raised beds. The same thing can happen with pottery, running, photography, baking, woodworking, knitting, cycling or any other activity that suddenly becomes your thing.
From gardening and pottery to running, photography, baking, and knitting, these hobbies can become surprisingly serious obsessions
The joke behind the "millennial midlife crisis hobby" is that these activities are supposedly what happens when a 30-something realizes they need something in life that isn't work, paying bills or staring into the middle distance. Instead of dramatically quitting your job, you decide you're going to make sourdough from scratch. The crisis is still there, now it just has a crafting component.
The idea of a midlife crisis is much more complicated than the stereotype suggests. Psychology Today highlights that a dramatic crisis isn't always an inevitable stage of adulthood, and people can experience periods of reassessment at very different ages. According to them, your 30s can nevertheless be a natural point to reconsider what you want, particularly if it doesn't quite resemble the life you're actually living.
Research suggests hobbies can support quality of life, mental well-being, creativity, social connection, and a sense of accomplishment
And millennials have had plenty of reasons to rethink those expectations. Research from Pew Research Center has found that millennials experience major differences from previous generations in different areas. Essentially, the traditional timeline of "finish school, establish a career, buy a home, get married and settle down" hasn't exactly played out the same way for everyone.
That makes hobbies surprisingly interesting. They can provide something that work and other responsibilities don't always offer which is the opportunity to do something simply because you enjoy it. There is no promotion waiting at the end of a pottery class, your sourdough starter isn't going to improve your résumé, and absolutely nobody cares whether your watercolors are commercially viable. And that may be precisely the point.
Picking up a new hobby also gives adults a chance to be beginners again, explore new identities, and enjoy something without needing it to be productive
Research by CNN on hobbies has linked leisure activities to several aspects of well-being, including mental health, quality of life, and social connection. Creative and hands-on activities can also provide a sense of accomplishment and mastery. In other words, there may actually be something quite healthy about finding an activity that gives you a reason to look forward to your free time.
There is also something about being a beginner again. Adults spend much of their lives being expected to know what they're doing, particularly professionally. A hobby offers the rare chance to be spectacularly mediocre without anyone caring. Your first attempt at pottery can be lopsided, and your first knitted scarf can look like a dishcloth. Yet, you still learned something, and nobody had to put it in a performance review.
What looks like a millennial midlife crisis may actually be a healthy search for meaning, connection, and something enjoyable outside the demands of everyday life
And perhaps that's why the "millennial crisis hobby" just might be more than a funny internet label. So, whether your personal version involves houseplants, pottery wheels, expensive running shoes, sourdough starters, cameras, books, bicycles or an alarming number of crafting supplies, the joke may be less about having a crisis and more about having a life outside of one.
So, which of these quintessential millennial "midlife crisis hobbies" have you tried, and what completely unexpected hobby has taken over your life? Let us know in the comments!