It can be easy to forget that at one point we were all new to our hobby, or to something or somewhere, and to give grace. That said, once you’re deep inside a fold, it can definitely be tempting to judge others who are just wandering in.
These 15 hobbyists share the ways they can tell someone is brand new – and kind of give you the tips on how to avoid making the newb mistakes if you can.
15. Don’t be like that.
I feel like the person with 10 minutes of experience is always a dick to the person with 5 minutes of experience, while the experts are helpful or exhausted from being helpful.
14. You can only fix one of those.
Climbing: no calluses on the hands.
Pool: shooting too hard for every shot.
13. Way too much for one post.
Frequent post on r/musicproduction:
Hi everyone! I’m new to all this and I have zero experience making music. Never had any kind of lessons and I’ve never touched a keyboard and really all I’ve ever done with music is bob my head along with it in my car.
I’ve never heard of music theory and I’m not really interested in it. So I bought a MacBook Pro and Ableton 11 and the best interfaces and microphones and midi keyboards I could afford.
I’m going to make sick beats and change the music industry. How do I get started?
12. It’s nice to see.
Pure, unadulterated excitement at the smallest thing. Not that I’m saying it’s a bad thing, more that it’s lovely to see.
Edit: – wow guys, I truly never expected this comment to explode. It’s been great reading all of your responses of how my comment applied to your lives and some of the stories are truly inspiring. Thanks for the upvotes and awards, my karma has gone through the roof! ❤️
11. Not the first step.
They buy super expensive equipment before they know how to use it.
It’s always either this, or they go against everyone else’s advice and buy the cheapest option and end up upgrading anyways almost immediately.
10. Not asking the right questions.
If they ask how to swap an engine into their car or how to turbo their car, it’s a sure sign that they’re new to working on cars. The questions aren’t necessarily bad, but there’s so much work involved in the answer that those questions are way too vague. They’re trying to get in way over their head if they don’t have the basics figured out before hand.
Ditto on people asking how they can add a lot of power to a base model Mustang or Camaro. There’s nothing wrong with the base model, but there’s a good reason that the answer is usually “sell it and buy the V8”.
You’d spend just as much money modding the V6 or turbo 4, and wind up with a vehicle that has maybe the same power output as the V8 at best, but significantly worse reliability. If you’re trying to make power, your money very often is best spent starting off with the model that has the better engine.
9. You have to follow directions.
When they ask for help in baking something and I tell them they can’t put those combinations together because that’s the chemistry of baking, you need to follow the recipe and or the basic rules of baking.
Don’t expect something nice to come out if you don’t know your ratios for baking properly.
An example would be: a friend that asked if they could make lemon curd cookies, by using their leftover curd and putting flour in it and baking it. I said please don’t do that because x y a.
Guess what, they did it and made cement lemon flavored “cookies.”
8. No middle ground.
Hiking.
New hikers do one of two things. They either load themselves down with 100 pounds of gear they will never use or they think they can survive a week long hike with nothing but a granola bar and a Walmart pocket knife.
7. It just has to function.
Bullet journaling.. I see a lot of newbies get stressed tf out because their pages aren’t artistic and amazing like all of the ones you see on Instagram or r/bulletjournal.
People forget it can be minimalist and still function well… it’s whatever you make it. No need to live up to anyone else’s standard.
6. It takes practice.
I’ll add camping – people bring next to nothing gear wise and think they hate camping. Of course you do! You’re uncomfortable and didn’t bring things to do. You don’t win anything by doing everything bare-bones.
People will go camping for a week and bring a bunch of shit to survive an apocalypse but don’t do anything for comfort. Meanwhile, my ass vacuum seals a goddamn body pillow and comforter, a solar charger for my kindle, and (one time) a coloring book and markers.
I always try to get people new to camping to realize it’s just “advanced sleeping”, you aren’t starting a new civilization from scratch.
5. That’s not a thing.
They always ask, “So who are the good guys?”
And then are shocked when I tell them that there are no good guys in the 41st Millennium.
4. Talk less, smile more.
talking too much to prove what they know.
I have been very guilty of this. someone who is experienced and skilled at a given activity will tend to just shut up and do it, whatever the activity may be
3. The wrong yarn.
Wrong needles for the size yarn they’re using.
Buying yarn because it was pretty/soft/on sale and trying to match it to a project instead of choosing a project and buying the yarn with intent in mind. Since you guys seem fixated on this one in particular, I’m talking about people who buy shitty worsted weight acrylic on sale because “omg the color!” and then don’t understand why it won’t work for that beautiful lace shawl they saw on Rav. Or making a baby blanket out of a yarn that can’t be machine washed/dried. Or buying cotton yarn for a project that needs some stretchiness to it. Beginners rarely understand how the different fabric types and yarn sizes make a huge difference in end result, so there’s a massive difference between an experienced knitter who understands how to use their stash and a beginner who buys whatever and tries to shoehorn it into an unrelated pattern.
“How many skeins/yards of yarn do I need to knit a blanket?”
2. A classic.
“My character is a drow rogue. They are chaotic neutral and stick to the shadows”
I remember when I played my first dnd campaign. Everyone was unexperienced so most of us went with a really standard character. One friend had a dragonborn, outcast chief of his tribe. His mission was to get back to his tribe, form an army by befriending other tribes then win the upcoming war.
I swear to god he was more evil than the big bad evil guy. My character was like twice his size and could snap his neck just by looking at him(and he feared me lol) so sometimes I drifted him to the right direction but I never forget when he abandoned a lost little girl or when he found a bunch of dragonborns who needed help.
F irst he just wanted to kill them and when we convinced him that they would be helpful in the future he put them in a cave somewhere and forgot about them. He is “true neutral”
1. It’s called practice for a reason.
“I tried it but my mind kept wandering off.”
Our minds do that. That’s why we practice meditation – to discipline our minds to stay with the here and now.
This is all great advice on things to avoid, don’t you think?
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