Obscurity

There are memes dedicated to the idea of things being obscure, like "Am I the only one around here who..." and "Unpopular Opinion:" - the latter of which I am guilty of having used.  The irony of these memes however is that what follows is often not what the meme was intended for - the answers being "no you're not" and "I think that too" respectively.  They highlight the fact that despite everything we like to think, we are not unique, or as the quote goes "You are truly unique, just like everyone else" - underneath it all while we may disagree on many things, ultimately we are never alone in what we think or how we see the world.

When you do express these sentiments however and get no response that leaves you in a position where you think "maybe I am the only one?" because you can't see any evidence to the contrary.  To that I say something I have tried to live by from a young age:

"A world exists beyond the horizon, just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there - seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing"

When you live like that however you do learn that what you like and what you are passionate about, needs to be personal and needs to be something you pursue for yourself - because you think you're the only one who will ever appreciate it.  That's the definition of obscurity to me, something which is little known and might never be known by anyone else.  On the flip side of this you have people that take it upon themselves to spread around the things they love which are obscure, often in a manner that's quite grating and irritating, the same people often become resentful when the things they love are embraced by the "mainstream" and they go on to utter such words as "I liked it before it was cool" - the mantra of the hipster.

For those that don't try to spread their interests, the assumption that other people will think they are weird for what they like tends to take over, which in turn doubles their desire to keep it to themselves in what I would call a 'negative feedback loop' for those that are technically minded.  The moment they meet someone else who actually likes or at the very least has actually heard of the things they like there is a rush of excitement.  I think the longer you go thinking you are the only one, before you find out you are not, the greater the impact the revelation causes.