Hobbyist ‘discovery’ of technical gadgets is orchestrated by the industry itself

Evidence

As radio ham he becomes the discoverer of just those industrial products which are interested in being discovered by him. He brings nothing home which would not be delivered to his house. The adventurers of pseudo-activity have already organized themselves on a large scale; the radio amateurs have printed verification cards sent them by the shortwave stations they have discovered, and hold contests in which the winner is the one who can produce the most such cards. All this is carefully fostered from above. Of all fetishistic listeners, the radio ham is perhaps the most complete. It is irrelevant to him what he hears or even how he hears; he is only interested in the fact that he hears and succeeds in inserting himself, with his private equipment, into the public mechanism, without exerting even the slightest influence on it. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 101

Categorization

• SEED: The radio ham maps uncannily onto the audiophile gear-head, the streamer’s collection-trophy, the mechanical-keyboard enthusiast — a ready essay applying pseudo-activity to contemporary hobbyism.
• XREF: Directly usable as the reader’s test case: pseudo-activity in modern gadget culture.