Why is love for model toys so prevalent in boomers and why hasn't it extended to younger generations?

Why is love for model toys so prevalent in boomers and why hasn't it extended to younger generations?
If you look at any xoomer or millenial (even with massive disposable income) you don't see a love for modeling like with their boomer parents and grandparents. With boomers, one could outright expect them to have a model hobby on the side, but xoomers onward? You'd be called a nerd and shoved into a locker for daring to say you had any type of models

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    bullshit op, many boomers that only have a slight interest in this stuff because they have the full suze toys.
    Millenials are more interested in it now

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The only time I ever see another millennial at the local hobby shop is pinewood derby season, and that's obviously for their kids.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Warhammer/D&D and other model miniature games are very popular among millennials.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Its lego now

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The demiurge is an insecure moronic troony who gets triggered if I play city builder video games or pretty much any simulation game like cities: skylines. He would get just as triggered if I used real models and has gotten triggered over me playing with lego.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    2 words:

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      What?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Kids play video games rather than playing with toys

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Honestly pretty good summery. I feel like 90% of modern modelers didn't touch video games until their teens which gave them an appreciation for their toys, and then eventually model their own

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The big lego guys I see are Gen Xers born in the 70s or Millennials born in the 80s. I don't see many born after the 80s or before the 70s.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    there's a lot of other things to do on your free time today and building and painting models requires work to get good at. Also you need a fair amount of space to display your models

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It requires too much patience a zoomer can handle. They play on their phone for 15 hours a day. Model trains are fun and kino though.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I do miniature modeling for WWII games, although me and my friend are looking to try out some smaller scale WWI stuff as like a hobby project

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      nice, I take it you are making it turbo historically accurate

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Not in the slightest.

        For my British Commandoes I made up a Commando section composed of French expats who wanted some bloody vengeance after the roll-over. Their berets are all askew because I'm a moron.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Based imagination setting bro. Best battles are the ones we make up in our head.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I'm gonna sound like a total b***h here but I don't like playing battles with real dudes. I try to make them kind of historically accurate and everything but I make up names and companies so I can distance it from the real dudes who actually fought and died in the little battles we simulate.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Replaced by Warhammer.
    Games Workshop has pretty much monopolised hobbyist modelling among kids and young adults, with the exception of doll house girls.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Gundams

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    there are plenty of zoomers who got into modelling
    especially ones like thomas the tank engine autists

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >thomas the tank engine
      >train models
      wooden toys are not models

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >he hasn’t seen the autists who are into shit like prop replicas

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I've seen N scale Thomas stuff

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    As far as model trains go, boomers are the last big cohort to experience the big post WWII boom of the hobby. That era saw big changes in disposable income and actual leisure time for hobbies, and more importantly, railroads were a big deal in everyday life and popular culture. Men also used to have a lot more skills from shop classes or blue collar jobs, and even white collar dads would try to fix things rather than just buy more Chinese made stuff.

    Over time there were a million more leisure time distractions and fewer people were train foamers who wanted to duplicate them in miniature. As others have mentioned, some kids are interested in gaming miniatures. You don’t see as much enthusiasm for plastic military models like there was.

    I’m in a model railroad club and pretty much the youngest member. It’s sad to watch the old heads die off, including some WWII vets. I’ll be building trains in my basement as the nukes rain down but the hobby is vanishing.

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    >It's a white male thing
    More like a heritage American thing. I see a certain number of Based Black Guys in the model train world, who grew up with the same railroad popular culture as white boomers and maybe had family members who worked for the railroad. I never see anyone from an immigrant background as they have absolutely no interest in that kind of Americana.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Based black guys
      don't exist
      > who grew up with the same railroad popular culture as white boomers and maybe had family members who worked for the railroad
      Black person culture is rape and murder, they are simply LARPing as whites.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        no it isn't, there are many nice black people and many white Black folk, even if the statistics don't favor the Black

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >he never grilled with his black best friend and his sexy chocolate gf
        >he never fished with his black bestie and drank beer on a boat all day
        >he never played tabletop wargames with his black bestie
        >he never played RPGs with his black best friend and hung out at Dennys stoned like a cheating Muslim woman afterwards
        I genuinely pity your lack of life and joy anon

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Not having a black friend so you can live out a 1980s Buddy Cop movie esque dynamic is missing out on a key part of the American experience.
        Even Tom Sawyer had a black bro

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Casey Jones had his fireman Sim Webb, who gives his eyewitness testimony to the famous wreck.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Today's immigrants have zero interest in Americana in general. They're here to make money and send it back home, no interest in actually being American.

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    Right, I was just talking about an American context. Germany led the way in early model train manufacturing and it’s always been a big deal in the UK. And Japan… can any weebs or actual Japanese people enlighten us on the big model train scene there? Judging from what I see advertised it’s still a big deal with kids there. Japan is full of real trains and there’s a lot of tie-ins to anime, Pokémon, etc. It’s mostly N scale and I’ve mail ordered some cool stuff from there.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Any good train anime? Or any that has a lot of trains in it?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Galaxy Express 999. 1979 animu but it's a legendary classic. (there are more recent train anime as well and trains show up in everything, but nothing nearly as beloved.)

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Lionel trains are more expensive than scenario editors.

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    honestly there probably has never been a better time for scale modeling than today. There's a ton of information easily available on the net about everything from details about a specific kit to almost any sort of tutorial or technique showcase you can imagine. Getting interesting kits is for the most part easy and not that expensive from online store, asking questions, sharing builds or tips and getting into contact with other enthusiasts is also trivial.
    The only thing that's dying out are physical stores since they can't compete with online stores

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    People are too lead deficient and don't have the intellect and manual dexterity to do that anymore.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Please expand on the health benefits of lead.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Lead stabilizes the synapses, without it, they decay or get stuck at semi random values, or lost completely (which makes all thoughts mixed up so that for example when somebody with a red hat lie to you, you begin to suspect all people with a red hat are liars, and I suspect not know why; greatly reduces sensory perception so you can't hear some kinds of music, not notice things in plain sight or not hear people talking to you, for no obvious reason. Excess iron may also be involved in some of this, the effects are hard to separate, since the metals compete with each other)
        Lead is also seems to be necessary for relaxing muscles, which then get stuck at a semi contracted state, greatly reducing dexterity, and also likely causing poor vision by making the ciliary muscles stuck at near focus.
        But the most damning part is that lead is needed for metabolizing glucose, so its deficiency results in diabetes.
        It also causes precocious puberty, but other heavy metals are involved in regulating hormones as well.

        Basically, they are wrong. They documented the differences that lead makes in the body, but failed to establish which of them is the correct one: Are those without lead deficient, or are those with it poisoned? Sadly, they picked the latter, but I'm convinced the truth is actually the former.

  18. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Greatest Generation:
    >Extremely lucky to have toys like model trains before the war
    Baby Boomers:
    >His parents bought model trains after the war and engage in actual real parental activity with him, teaching him the joy of model trains, which continues into his adult life
    Gen X/Y/Z:
    >His baby boomer parents spent all their time playing with their model trains that their parents generation made possible and avoids spending any time whatsoever with their children, certainly not letting them get their grubby little hands on their expensive toy trains; he knows only TV, video games, and maybe action figures

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Microsoft Autism Simulators are cheaper than models

    t. railfan

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Hell yeah they are

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Why is it always the Germans that are the most autistic

  20. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    All these answers are cope.
    Ultimately it all boils down to you getting played by consumer society.
    It was a passing fad, like pinball and arcades and beanie babies, y’all got taken for a ride, trend-chasing until the next market shift left you in the dust.
    Instead of spending your hard earned money on tacky shit that will go out of style in 2 years y’all should have been reading, cuz that shit is evergreen and timeless.

  21. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Trains are cool

  22. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    They are extraordinarily expensive.

  23. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    When my Uncle died, my Dad decided to take a bunch of his stuff instead of just donating it or selling it. One of the things were two classic Lionel train sets along with their tracks. (He worked for the railroad and back then they gave them free models I guess?) Me being a train kid cause of books like "The Little Engine That Could" and Thomas the Train he let me play with them as long as I was careful cause they were old. I loved the intricacies and details of the engine and boxcars. I wish I actually could of made an actual place to keep it set up but it is just too much of a hassle. You really need to dedicate a whole room just for it instead of how I was with my wooden Thomas toys having to clean up at the end of the day.

  24. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    Lmao. If anything it's an east asian + eastern european hobby now.

  25. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Trains aren't cool anymore they are covered in graffiti and are soulless 🙁

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Trains aren't cool anymore they are covered in graffiti and are soulless 🙁
      In the U.S., at one time there were dozens of major railroads and lots of short lines, and they went to a lot of effort to project a corporate image with their freight cars, with colorful paint schemes, logos, and catchy slogans. The same went for their passenger trains. Now there’s just a handful of major railroads with NPC-like freight cars in gray and brown, and while I hate most graffiti, sometimes a well executed piece is the only thing of interest on a passing train.

      Then there’s locomotives. Of course nothing is more kino than steam, but first generation diesels had some style and again, the companies put a lot of thought into livery and branding. Now it’s just identical toasters on wheels, with only the occasional throwback “heritage unit” to add some interest.

      At least other countries have the futuristic appeal of high speed rail but in the U.S. it’s just a brokeass gray 1970s aesthetic and I can’t imagine any zoomer thinking trains are cool.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        They took this from us.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          We used to be a country, a real country

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          We used to be a country, a real country

          Why are pre-70s trains so cool bros

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Trains aren't cool anymore they are covered in graffiti and are soulless 🙁
            In the U.S., at one time there were dozens of major railroads and lots of short lines, and they went to a lot of effort to project a corporate image with their freight cars, with colorful paint schemes, logos, and catchy slogans. The same went for their passenger trains. Now there’s just a handful of major railroads with NPC-like freight cars in gray and brown, and while I hate most graffiti, sometimes a well executed piece is the only thing of interest on a passing train.

            Then there’s locomotives. Of course nothing is more kino than steam, but first generation diesels had some style and again, the companies put a lot of thought into livery and branding. Now it’s just identical toasters on wheels, with only the occasional throwback “heritage unit” to add some interest.

            At least other countries have the futuristic appeal of high speed rail but in the U.S. it’s just a brokeass gray 1970s aesthetic and I can’t imagine any zoomer thinking trains are cool.

            I’ll expand on my post. Steam engines are like living beings, belching smoke and steam, with lots of visible moving parts, and either come in basic goth black or in later colorful Art Deco trappings, streamlined by famous industrial designers like Raymond Loewy. Early diesels also had a futuristic streamlined look and a rainbow of liveries. I’m talking about U.S. railroads but there were similar aesthetics around the world.

            At one point, most freight cars were painted red, black or yellow, but with the use of modern pigments and the rise of corporate advertising, railroads realized they had rolling billboards that could advertise their brand and made the most of it.

            The death of steam and most passenger trains, boxy boring diesels, mergers and bankruptcies, left only a handful of railroads with utilitarian liveries and logos. There’s still a few younger train autistes in the U.S. but the visual magic just isn’t there to reel in more of them.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Kino as frick

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        There's a small coal mining town in Bosnia that still uses handful of WW2 era german "kriegloc" steam locomotives.

  26. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Because none of that exists anymore. Society is collapsing.

  27. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Gen Xers and 80s born Millennials are more into Lego building than trains.

  28. 2 years ago
    Anonymous
  29. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Choo choo

  30. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    This set is from 1912 and is recognised as the world's oldest. It was used for training signalmen on the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway

  31. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >massive disposable income

  32. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Models were just what autists would cling to before video games came along.

  33. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Because steam locomotives are kino, and now it's mostly boring metal boxes pulling more boring metal boxes. Also video games.

  34. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Because even if we were inclined to collect model trains we can't because they need a lot of time, space and disposable income, all things in short supply for young people.

  35. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    auto industry shills

  36. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Remember when so much of anime was giant robots made to sell plastic model kits to Japanese kids
    It really fell off by the 2000's

  37. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >ITT: An autistic boy fails to understand why normal people don’t like niche obsolete toys

  38. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Trains are for morons.
    Read and wheep

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      So Chinese dont use any trains for freight cargo?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Every post on IQfy reads like an angry zoomer trying hard to sound like an angrier out of touch boomer. I never know when they're just shouting moronation for a reaction("heheh trolled") or actually believe it. When they get pushed back they'll just fall back on memes, so it's likely both

  39. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I have a 1/200 model plane collection

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