Niche interests!

[Ducky]

I happen to love bagworms!! They're a type of moth that creates its own protective shell that acts as a mobile home. They're such fascinating insects, but I don't see a lot of other people who like them much, if at all. Most of the time, if you search them up, many of the results are for pest removal. It makes sense as too many of them planted onto a tree can damage or even kill it due to them feeding on its nutrients. Despite this, I think they're really cool and wish they got more appreciation.

I do enjoy some of the representation they get in media (specifically in anime!) Such as the Pokemon, Burmy, and its evolution line.

There's also a Digimon named Minomon that's based on a bagworm. I have a bagworm sticker and also a little plushie of one (I can post photos if anyone's interested!)

(Let it be known that I had a MUCH longer reply to this thread but I shortened it >w< It was at least like 5 paragraphs long hehe...)

[Nettlebrand]

Television production, especially from the era I grew up watching cable in (2002 - 2008). I think I was 10 years old when I'd spend ages going to the "Sesame Street" Wikipedia page, jumping from article to article, and occasionally learning some sketchy shit that'd make my mom raise her eyebrows and ask me whether what I was reading was "for kids".

[Solinus]

Mine are clocks. More specifically, those that mark the hour with a melody and sometimes animation, often sold under the Rhythm, Citizen or Seiko brands.

The first one is from the 80s/90s and was only sold in Japan, the second one is made today but only in select countries, and the third one is from the 2000s.

[Dan Q]

🗺️ Geohashing! XKCD comic #426 invented a sport, possibly as a joke, but some of us took it seriously and a few of us still participate to this day.

The idea is you take the Dow Jones Industrial Index (functionally a random number, but everybody agrees on what it is), plus today's date, run it through some maths, and you get GPS coordinates around the surface of the Earth: one for every square-degree of latitude and longitude. (You don't have to actually do the maths, mind, there are apps and a website that'll calculate it for you and just draw the resulting map.)

Your challenge is, within the 24 period, get to that day's coordinates and then write about what you found there on a wiki. It's "spontaneous adventure creation!"

Oh, and nowadays I host the wiki for the couple of hundred of us still actively playing the game, after the old site got taken down after a security incident. (I actually get very little free time to go out and actively geohash, sadly, but I manage sometimes and I enjoy reading about the adventures of others!)

Here, I did a 3½ minute vlog (from an expedition) a while back that sort-of explains it.

[MrsMoe]

Animation history! It's a little awkward being knowledgeable and knowing a lot about animation techniques and philosophies when I have no experience in animation whatsoever, but animation is one of my oldest special interests and I always found learning about it even more fascinating than just regular film history itself. I know a lot of usual trivia about Disney and all the western big dogs and whatnot, but now learning about foreign/indie animation is much more engaging for me. Outside of anime, I'd say soviet/eastern european animation is what really scratches my brain