Do you think pipe smoking is becoming popular again?

[cosmicfolklore]

Popular? I guess it depends on your definition. And, it could be just in certain areas, but I do see and meet more pipe smokers out and about. But, it could also be that I have just been more aware and looking for pipes these last few years. At least I know of quite a few pipe smokers in my area. I can't speak for the rest of the US. But, at least there are always a steady flow of young folks taking up the hobby at The Briary. It seems every time I am in there he is giving the "this is how you smoke a pipe" speech to someone. And, he had to hire a helper to keep weighing out aromatic orders for the newbies from the jars.

 

[deathmetal]

The problem with popularity is that as things become popular, they get adulterated.
I know -- it sounds like something a hipster might say. But hipsters are part of the adulteration, because they make artisanal versions of the mundane and use it to spam a good genre.
Look what they did to punk, indie and metal

 

[cigrmaster]

Here in the land of one foot in the grave(florida), I do see old guys smoking their pipes. I am 58 and I think I am one of the youngest around.
When I started in 1999, sites like this did not exist. We had alt.pipes I think it was called and they were pathetic news groups. Me and a few friends created a Yahoo pipe forum and could bullshit about pipes around 2000-2001. Pipestud was a member of that one( remember that place Steve?). What I see today with this site and others is a real large growth in pipe smoking. Now of course it pales in comprison to the glory years, but growth is happening.

 

[slownumbers39]

Seen a couple guys walking and smoking pipes downtown in the last year or so. Also, have noticed a few guys on this forum from the city I live in, which quite surprised me.

 

[hawke]

While no authority I just have an opinion to the subject. Pipe smokers who pass to the other side are being replaced by new smokers but from where I sit, there's no real growth just a solid base. Hookah smokers are going to smoke houses more and on the rise it seems. And marijuana looks to be on the rise or at least coming out-of-the closet more. I suspect that the Hookah smokers are putting more than shisha in the bowls which may be the cause of the more visual Hookah Smokers Lounges where the incense covers the room notes. You can smoke a pipe in these establishments the owners say.
Pure tobacco pipe smokers are more on a steady track than any real growth. But there is a solid base. I have no statistics to support any of this country or world wide, just a sense from what I see.

 

[deathmetal]

Marijuana's on the rise? Wow. I thought the goody-two-shoes Millennials were sticking to prescription drugs.

 

[hawke]

Could be, I'm out of the loop Deathmetal. :wink:

 

[lordofthepiperings]

I wouldn't say it's popular, but I would say it's going through a revival.
On Instagram I'm regularly getting follows from other pipe people every week. There's a ton of YouTube pipe channels up these days. More and more Facebook pipe groups are popping up.
I think the biggest sign of its revival would be new pipe shows like the Nashville show and the New Orleans show. To me that's a good measure to say the pipe world is in a revival.

 

[erichbaumer]

I remember almost all of my male friends in college smoked pipes and cigars, and about half of us or a little less smoked cigarettes (which I've pretty well ditched since graduating). But I was at an exceedingly smoke-friendly campus where a good number of professors would smoke pipes with their students. Back home internining and preparing for lawschool, I'm the only pipe-smoker here that I know of, and I dread the day I go to a smoke-free campus and, possibly and horrifically, a smoke-free apartment complex. Among a certain group I could see an argument for growth. However, I'm also not convinced how many 18-21 year olds who pick up pipes stick with it even into their mid 20s.
As to memories, I can say I have those. An old family friend who passed when I was young, but I can still remember what his constantly-burning pipe smelled like. And another who I've just recalled is still around, who mowed our lawn and still mows others into his late 60s. All with a pipe.

 

[hawke]

I gifted a pipe out to a guy a couple days ago. First thing he did was walk over to a car to look at himself in the glass reflection. He liked the way he looked by his actions. I found that interesting.

 

[erichbaumer]

I guess that touches on something that hasn't been entirely addressed, which is the fact that some people will smoke a pipe because of the image. Granted, a man smoking a pipe is a strong image with plenty of cultural significance. So it's understandable.

 

[warren]

I love that so many of us think that pipe makes us look extinguished . . . or distinguished. Stalin looked very significant with his pipe. A man can make a pipe but, a pipe cannot make a man any more than he is. So, if image is everything, give a thought to old Joe, an inveterate pipe smoker. Or, even me. I think I project an image of studied indifference, unless cameras are being discussed. I wear Carharts, boots and hat nearly all the time. Never a tie, a pipe is usually hanging out of my mouth below a somewhat wild mustache. And, I reek of old, stale smoke.
Surely I project an image any youngster would strive to emulate.

 

[gloucesterman]

Warren, I think you'd be surprised to know just how attractive that image of "Rugged Individualism" is to young folks, a select group anyway. But for many who took up the pipe in college, it was more of a prop than a desire and it all too soon wore thin. Many burned out their mouths puffing away like steam engines and quickly quit the habit. Some didn't even smoke them at all, they just clenched as they walked around, fancying themselves as looking quite dapper. Perception and reality aren't always the same.

 

[4etecjonathan]

Right now we are going into the second generation being spoon fed the anti smoking diet of the do-gooders!!I have noticed more young people in their teens lighting up but not the pipe. This is the group that I feel will be the saviors of pipe smoking.They see it as making a statement towards the anti everything tree hugging whale humping fishing and hunting assholes who are pulling the strings behind our backs. They already see pipe smoking as a way to rebel at last according to my tobacconist. He tells me that they want the top of the line tobaccos,The imports like Esoterica and other European made blends. Pease,C&D,IwanReis and several others that I can't remember right now . Pipe Education especially over the Net with more sited is what's needed.Many of us are approaching retirement and have a little more time on there hands to help get the message of the Pipe Smoking Life Style out.People are still dropping dead of mouth and lung cancer every day who never smoked in there life, we need to hear about that!!!Truthfully what gives one person the right to decide what another person can and can not do?? Pipe Smoking will evolve through the Artistic works of the Pipe Makers who are REAL ARTISTS in their own right and the TOBACCO BLENDERS who also have brought there profession into the realm of Artists in their own right!!!
Thanks,
Jon :puffpipe: :puffpipe:

 

[lasttango]

I just received some coupons in the mail from the company that does Half/Half and Sir Walter etc... the tobaccos my grandfather smoked.
The picture of the man lighting a pipe in the AD was in his early thirties, "pretty" beard, neck tattoo, piercings...
When I look around I see two types of pipe smokers in the area that I live... Men over 60 and cool dudes 25-30 something.
I am neither. I turn 45 next week... and I am a high school teacher... so I look fairly conservative.

 

[lasttango]

Hawke said: "I gifted a pipe out to a guy a couple days ago. First thing he did was walk over to a car to look at himself in the glass reflection. He liked the way he looked by his actions. I found that interesting."
Hawke, you just made me hit the floor... that's awesome.

 

[tinsel]

I gifted a pipe out to a guy a couple days ago. First thing he did was walk over to a car to look at himself in the glass reflection. He liked the way he looked by his actions. I found that interesting.

That's hilarious, Hawke.
Lucky for me, when I gifted a pipe to a co-worker, the first thing HE did was fill it up with some of my Prince Albert and SMOKE it. He's a pipe smoker now, and I didn't have to make fun of him for checking how he looked in his reflection :laughat:

 

[deathmetal]

I think people are dropping out of the public narrative and looking outside "normal" pleasures for some meaning in life. Even fetishes and transgression have grown old. Thus, get a pipe and have some real fun.
And I don't worry about hipsters. They go missing all the time. It's not murder until there's a body, and I supervise concrete pouring at my day job, soooo... if the basement smells funny it might just be being ironic.

 

[kola]

I would say no.
But I do think there has been a upsurge on pipes and pipe tobacco sales. I'm not sure if that's due to new pipeheads emerging or just us old pipeheads doing more hoarding.
Anybody keep track of such data? Dunno.

 

[cigrmaster]

When I smoke my pipe in public, the chicks are throwing themselves at me, it is becoming a real roblem