40 Things Currently At Their Peak That Deserve More Attention

Playing guitar and recording music. You can buy a quality guitar online for crazy cheap now and some pro recording software out there is free.

Seriously? Music. I'm not saying the average quality of mainstream music has gone up. But there is now so much choice of stuff to enjoy in every genre and subgenre that it's almost impossible no to find things you like. While the average quality hasn't gone up, the quantity largely has, therefore the absolute quantity of quality music has gone up, which is all that matters because you don't listen to everything anyway.

Podcasts - long form storytelling, interviews, investigative journalism on so many topics - new and old. Great form of education, entertainment and everything in between.

Genetics now that we have a variety of very powerful sequencing technologies, combined with equally powerful analysis tools, the amount of information we can glean from a tiny sample is incredible. meanwhile, techniques like CRISPR have opened a lot of doors for precision genome editing, and this is even being implemented in some treatments for genetic conditions. I hope we continue in this trajectory, but if they become more common it is likely inevitable that some will see an opportunity to abuse them.

Dinosaurs! On average, a new species is named every other week.

Keyboards, both synthesizers and mechanical. It's possible to get a synth that sounds identical to a $5000 Minimoog for $200 and a decent mechanical keyboard for less than that.

Country music. No I’m not talking about the “ride my tractor while wearing blue jeans” type of bro country. Old school outlaw country music and blue grass is going through a real revival right now.

Non-alcoholic beers! I'm just starting my sobriety journey, but I worked for years in restaurants where the only option was O'Douls. Now many major brands (Heineken, Guinness, etc.) have NA versions, and there are lots of craft options as well.

LEGOs!! There has never been so many different sets and they get more and more complex and awesome everytime they release new stuff!!.

Retro gaming. There are so many ways to play any pre PS2 game on original hardware or through emulation. And hobbyists pumping out fan translations of JRPGs for English speaking enthusiasts. I have played so many quality games the last few years that were literally inaccessible not long ago.

Miniatures. There's no shortage of places to get awesome miniatures for basically anything you want.

Food availability. Climate change and rapid loss of farmable land will make a lot of different types of food very expensive.

Horror movies. They suddenly got way better around 10 years ago when movies like It Follows, The Witch and The Babadook came out. Not something you'd notice if you're not into the genre. Edit: just to clarify, I mean they suddenly got way better than 90s/00s horror. I'd also consider the 80s a golden age for the genre as well. The 70s definitely had its heavy hitters too, but nothing in terms the sheer numbers you see in the 80s and the last 10 years.

Scuba diving has been around long enough that you can find high-end used gear ridiculously cheap. It only costs a couple bucks to fill up a scuba tank for an hour and the ocean isn't exactly getting any healthier.

The linux desktop experience has really matured to a point that it is a viable alternative to mac or windows for almost any user, and continues to grow. Gaming on linux is also the most accessible and effortless it has ever been. I wont say 2024 is the year of the linux desktop but with the continued monetization/bad development of windows it is getting close.

Craft beer.

Very niche, but DJ tech! ~ Newer and better controllers have come out every year for the last 15 years. ~ About 10 years ago they figured out how to get DJ software to enable a DJ to change the tempo of a song without changing the pitch. This was a MASSIVE breakthrough that makes a whole world of things possible. ~ Just in the past three months or so, they have figured out how to get software to enable DJs to do what many have long considered to be the holy grail of DJ abilities: isolate the drums, bass, vocals and other sounds from ANY track. This is called Stems. Until now you would need separate instrumental or a capella versions of a song to do this. These are not available for most songs, and even when they are, instrumental tracks always have all of the instruments not just one. There’s been no easy way to get an isolated drum track or bass track or other instrument track for most songs unless the song happens to have a moment where the instrument plays alone that you can loop, which does not happen in 99.9% of songs. With Stems, you can take any song and push a button to isolate the various parts of the song. This opens up incredible possibilities for creating mashups and remixes on the fly.

Tabletop RPGs Also, while it's perhaps more of a "silver age" compared to the 90s-early 2000s, JRPGs are having a h**l of a comeback.

Golden age of subscriptions.

Modular synthesis. So many companies making odd little devices. People are making bleeps and bloops with the ease previously reserved for b****** and thumping.