Is watch collecting a mental illness?
I'm pretty sure that it is more than just a harmless "hobby" for me and is something far more sinister. How about you? What do you think watch collecting really is?
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Dean
I'm pretty much done with collecting now, but I've certainly got a good variety of affordable watches. As an occasional YouTuber, I'm a comedian not an influencer. Skmei is the new Casio!
United Kingdom
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7.25” / 18.42 cm
Most of us do not suffer from a mental illness. I would say that most of us enjoy it.
Watch collecting is definitely an extension of shopping addiction for me. If it’s not watches, I’m chasing something else… in the past year it’s been other jewellery, clothing, fragrances, and camera equipment. The danger of watches is that they are moderately good at maintaining their value and it’s somehow easy to justify dropping $10k on a watch whereas I could never imagine spending that much on a jacket or camera - both of which I’d argue have way more utility than a watch
You can only speak for yourself not other people. That's just how life works.
The joke in my comment is that we don't suffer from mental illness, but enjoy (our mental illness).
...but if you have to explain it, right? 🙂
IMHO all collecting is a behavior disorder of some sort.
It's just a hobby, unless you have a problem. If you have a problem any behaviour can become an issue. I have a friend that used the gym as a way to deal with mental health issues, they ended up doing permanent damage to their body from pushing too hard too often.
If anyone genuinely thinks their watch collecting is a mental health problem, get off the site and get help.
14 of the 19 voices in my head told me that it's not a mental illness.
I am uncertain what watch collecting is for me. It is a behaviour that appeard out of leftfield for me just before Christmas last year, and it rubs against the grain of how I have lived my life so far. I have never been someone who had to have the latest whatever, I have never felt the need to surround myself with things or built attachments to inanimate objects, so why now and why watches? I honestly have no idea.
Watch collecting is definitely an extension of shopping addiction for me. If it’s not watches, I’m chasing something else… in the past year it’s been other jewellery, clothing, fragrances, and camera equipment. The danger of watches is that they are moderately good at maintaining their value and it’s somehow easy to justify dropping $10k on a watch whereas I could never imagine spending that much on a jacket or camera - both of which I’d argue have way more utility than a watch
I'd have to do inventory, but I suspect that a bulk of mine were not totally chosen and/or purchased by myself. There is surely some compulsive shopping for some, but (and I don't think this is a real medical term) in general I say acquisition disorder, which is a mild form of hoarding.
This is a mental illness in the way that caffeine is an addiction. It is real but generally can be lived with without any significant repercussions.
Depends on how you look at it and how you go about it ... and if you take it seriously or not. I don't. I enjoy reading/learning about various watches similarly to my other interests (music, motorcycles, aviation, history, etc.) and enjoy my modest collection but certainly don't obsess over it. I certainly have not spent a fortune on watches either (not even close)! LOL!
To each their own though. Your results may vary 😀
Retail Therapy is a thing. Unfortunately, my health insurance won't cover it.
Seriously though, @IceCreamMan said something the other day in a related thread that resonated with me:
"BUYING them can be very addictive. My only real advice is to learn to ENJOY WEARING your watches. You originally bought them to wear them."
That's what I've done and it's eased my need to buy yet another. I have so many now it's easy to "rediscover" a watch and enjoy it anew.
I've wanted to blame mine on some kind of depression, but I've always had watches, and I'm not actively collecting anymore. But I'm still consuming all the watch content online, and every so often, I just want to go completely mad and spend thousands on something which does exactly the same as a £1 plastic accessory and which I already have hundreds of.
You could be right about it being part of a depressive cycle. Now that the sun is finally shining a lot more often, I feel less of a compulsion to make a purchase. Either that, or i am finished with the spontaneous purchases and am ready to start thinking about what i want a whole lot more.
Crap, wanted to vote for ‘Obsession’ but my finger jumped! 🙃
I am uncertain what watch collecting is for me. It is a behaviour that appeard out of leftfield for me just before Christmas last year, and it rubs against the grain of how I have lived my life so far. I have never been someone who had to have the latest whatever, I have never felt the need to surround myself with things or built attachments to inanimate objects, so why now and why watches? I honestly have no idea.
I feel the same way.
Watches are just objects. Anything can be collected in a harmless way, a destructively obsessive way, or anything in between.
I finally “woke up” and looked at my watch drawers full of shiny bits that I will never have time enough to adequately wear…which could justify all the dough I spent. I have lately realized what a waste it all is. For hell’s sake…I should only need one watch.
Wait isn’t A and C are about the same?!
Not entirely, one you have no control over, the other is a very rational form of control. So the difference is therefore involuntary versus voluntary watch collecting.
Alternatively, if you want to go deeper into it medically and philosophically, obsession can sometimes imply demonic possession, i.e. you are possessed by something spiritual and external, whereas mental illness is purely chemical and physical and comes from within. Although symptoms may appear similar, the root cause is completely different.
But isn’t that a form of mental illness hence almost the same? But I guess some mental illness has obsession as symptoms hence why I associate as such but obsession can reach far from mental state … that’s what google told me anyways 😜
When it comes to the terms, it's a fascinating rabbit hole to go down for sure. Have you ever seen or heard people say that they've "fallen in love" with a watch? The ancients had about half a dozen forms of love and one of them was mental illness. So once again, it's full of crossovers.
For the sake of my poll, however, I thought of "obsession" as being a description of the conscious collector who is fixated on the objects of their desires quite rationally and able to justify their reasoning if push comes to shove.
The millennials have further corrupted the word "obsessed" by using it to replace "like a lot", and you'll often seen them say or write, "I'm obsessed with this song!" or "I'm obsessed with this dress!" when they actually just mean that they like it somewhat. They have further damaged the English language with a lazy overuse of "super" instead of more descriptive words or even the more common "very" or "really", but that's another story. 😀
I find it very interesting as to why we do, “obsess” or “really really like 😜” a watch or a car or a whisky…it is a very interesting topic , we can go on forever, also how about “passion” or “passionate” quite synonymous to “obsession” as well… oh man! We should go for beer and discuss further 🍻😂🤔🤯
Each person is only allotted a finite and undisclosed amount of what we perceive as "time"; no more, no less, and not guaranteed. Scientist now believe that time, whatever it is, seems to create constants and cosmic forces like gravity and reality as a whole is described as "space-time".
As Humankind evolved, we saw and learned that this constant of time, moving only forward was beyond our control but strove, like we do with most things, to explain, measure and understand it, on a cosmic and personal level.
Sand dials, sunstones, water clocks, clock towers, calendars, and indeed, watches.
Time and human experience are intrinsically linked. Once we saw we could carry around our device to quantify, measure, and leverage this unrelenting force beyond ourselves, then personalizing said device to reflect our self perception as well as our external self we want others to view us as was an inevitability.
You are what you believe your watch says about you. You want others to see you as what the you believe the watch claims you to be; Scientist, Workman, Aesthetic, Adventurer, Romantic, or any combination of a myriad of concepts. It is a statement, on some level or another, of self and how and how well, we spend our allotment of time.
Doesn't matter what kind of watch, or how many you have; everyone of them is a facet of you, your life, your Time.
Why do you think there are so many variations of a simple device?
Indeed. This is the kind of conversation I've been yearning to have on the internet for years, especially after my Skype group came to nothing. We should do a podcast on this or something. The changing and often damaging effects of adapting language for the wrong purpose has been one of the biggest causes of internet disputes and real life court cases for centuries.
Here's another one, "obsessed fans" or "obsessed stalkers". Terms the media love to throw around, but are these people rational or irrational? And that's always where the law courts are forced to come in to decide for sure.
I agree, you brought up an interesting term, “Obsessed Stalker”, the term is redundant since a stalker in definition is an obsessed follower. I remember writing a college paper and having my professors critique every word and the term, “redundant” was used all the time and I learned to use the proper definition to avoid redundancies… I guess these days, perhaps being wordy may come across “smart” but I always learned, “less is more”
This conversation is now far too good to leave. Let's look at the term "stalker" again. You get hunters who stalk deer, and their hats like Sherlock Holmes wore are "deerstalkers". So are stalkers merely "hunters" fixated on the object of their hunting mission? Are they also "obsessed" to some extent since they are driven by an external object and also by their inner emotional and physical needs? If they don't succeed in the hunt, they will ultimately die of starvation, certainly if the kill is all they live on. Are cats obsessed stalkers? Are other predators "obsessed" or is it a biological function? Is being obsessed a natural state? What a thing to think about without a cheese sandwich onboard!
Socrates (or Plato) would love this.
Oh man!! This is going to tickle my brain even more. So would you then say, Most or even all Animals and Humans obsessed stalkers, since we are defining stalkers and hunters synonymous and so therefore biologically we are Obsessed from the very beginning to survive and live 🤯… damn it where’s the cheese sandwich!! Can we get ham with that sandwich and some chips on side!!
While you were typing that, I went off on a complete tangent in my own thinking about how what we're discussing relies on perfect examples (Plato's Forms) and we didn't allow for other factors or nuances within the motivation of the hunter. There's kudos to be gained, maybe shame, perhaps the hunt is a punishment enforced by coercion, such as gladiators in the ring, choosing the lesser of two evils... and then I wished I had crisps to eat.
On top of this there are those of us here who often say, "I pulled the trigger!" on a watch purchase. They are actively using the language of the hunt (cue Wittgenstein's language game theories). They aren't actively shooting watches to take home their watch-corpses to consume, but are trophy hunters. And so it goes on.
Ultimately, civilisation/society may have caused us to adapt our needs to consume (and hunt and gather) into buying things, hence why we are called "consumers".
At this Socrates would throw his hands up and say, "I don't know either!" And then Aristotle would say that all language is metaphor anyway and we are wasting our time. Jung and Freud would start talking about "sublimation", and others would jump in to scream the word "substitution", and we all live in a yellow submarine(r) on the back of a Seiko turtle.
Oh man! I shall check back in tomorrow ! As it’s late, on my side of the pond ! I shall ponder, “sublimation” as perhaps “dream” about it 🤔😂…
I like what I am washing my brain with :) I enjoy the Brainwashing that is watch marketing & YouTube channels on this subject:)
Oh, I know. If I wasn't buying watches it would be computer games, dvds, maybe even CDs, and definitely more t-shirts and pairs of trainers (since I only have enough so far for one millipede). 😀
Imelda Marcos eat your heart out huh 🤔 😂, I must admit to having more pairs of shoes than I need also …..
Watch collecting is definitely an extension of shopping addiction for me. If it’s not watches, I’m chasing something else… in the past year it’s been other jewellery, clothing, fragrances, and camera equipment. The danger of watches is that they are moderately good at maintaining their value and it’s somehow easy to justify dropping $10k on a watch whereas I could never imagine spending that much on a jacket or camera - both of which I’d argue have way more utility than a watch
I don't know man, I'd argue that watch collecting is the most versatile object because it allows you to compound your interests. It's the only hobby that you can do to enhance your other hobbies. You like other jewelery? You got the other wrist. You like jackets? Sure, bring the watch. You like photography? Bring the watch along.
Follow me for more watch addiction enablement tips!
I always assumed its part of my obsessive compulsive disorder.
The joke in my comment is that we don't suffer from mental illness, but enjoy (our mental illness).
...but if you have to explain it, right? 🙂
You got me there. The first thing I saw was mental illness, then I saw obsession, so I changed my vote. I love my mental illness, but I just need to kick myself once in a while and go cold turkey.
You really need to repost that separately as a discussion topic since your last question there has a multitude of reasons behind it from marketing through to invention, even copyrights and patents, and inevitably price points. It's not a simple one to answer at all.
I respectfully submit you missed the point and disagree, if you are referring to whether it is a valid answer to you posted query. Q. "What do you think watch collecting really is?" and I answered "something else". This is my D: Something else. Further, it also, in fact, does answers all the other lines of causality you mentioned at a deeper level: marketing, invention, price points, etc.
Uhmm I believe A was mislabeled...it should be: "True watch enthusiast"
You can change your vote, fyi. 👍
Unfortunately, not on the iOS app — I tried.