For me the hobby was never frowned upon in any way, be it within family or in public. but at the same time I only had maybe one or two friends who were into it, and even then not as much as me. My brother would also entertain me from time to time when I wanted to talk about it too but he wasn't necessarily a fan. So overall it was very much not something that I had any sort of community to engage with and share things with. It was just a me thing. Which was fine by me at the time. Frankly it still would be fine by me, but then came that little thing called the internet, so that's moot now, ha.