Thoughts From Millennials or Younger

[ParkitoATL]

Even then, I wouldn't go for "converting" someone from one form of tobacco to another. Be careful about it, like if you tell a cigarette smoker that they should "smoke pipes instead, it's less of a health risk", that could come off as preachy, condescending, etc.

Good point, and I'll give you an example. There is a big cigar shop in North Atlanta that I pass on the way up to my son's college. I've stopped in and bought cigars there, but last time I dropped in I had converted to pipes. While reviewing his meager pipe offerings, the owner chuckles at me and says "maybe one day you can smoke cigars like the big boys!"

Now, I have smoked cigars for 25+ years, and this douche -- who I could probably smoke under the table -- is giving me crap for smoking a pipe! Kind of reminds me of the guy from Cigar Obsession. His success went a bit to his head and he really started acting like a jerk, posting rude comments and doing the "everyone is stupid except me" routine. I tuned him out.

So, yes, be careful, lest people think you are an ass. No one wants to join a society of snobs. Smoking is fun and enjoyable and relaxing. That's the image we want to project.

 

[LeafErikson]

As someone has already previously said, "Visibility is the best advertisement." All of the youngsters smoking cigarettes and vapes would be better served switching to the pipe, assuming they don't inhale. As of right now it's more of a novelty to see a pipe smoker out in public than a common occurrence. For what it's worth I was born in 1993 so I am a millennial pipe smoker. When my daughter was born I wanted to switch from cigarettes and it was between cigars or the pipe. The price of cigars vs pipe tobacco made the decision pretty easy. I actually have never tried a cigar to this day.

 

[obc83]

As a 33 year old, I've been asked by my peers why I enjoy a pipe more than vapes or cigarettes. My answer is that it's more zen than just puffing on a vape or cigarette. There is a ritual to smoking a pipe. Maintenance needed to properly keep your pipe optimally in proper shape. It's an experience that vapes and cigarettes cannot replicate.

This is how I always felt about rolling my own cigs, even if it was just a pouch of Top. It's just a little more Zen, or even just inward-facing than the pill-popping type interaction one has between you, the world, and a pack of Marlbs.

 

[Jef]

I smoke for my own enjoyment.....period. However, if someone has a question, I will gladly answer to the best of my knowledge. If I am out in public I will smoke. I am a gentleman about it. I keep my distance as to not bother others.

I really don't concern myself with other peoples habits. Like my father use to tell me... "Worry about your own self."

jef

 

[telescopes]

I wish more younger people smoked a pipe. I think it slows oneself down and forces one to be more deliberative. And that’s a good thing.

 

[vosBghos]

Obviously none of you geezers understand that young people these days cannot be influenced by any type of real world contact.

If you want to get them into pipe smoking you have to become something known in their world as a "Social Media Influencer". Not only will you draw hordes of these creatures into pipe smoking, but you can become filthy rich in the process!

If I ever learn to use a computer I might try it myself. In the meantime, here is an excellent essay by Donald Jeffries that will bring all of you old farts up to speed on the bleak reality of society today:

Are You Smarter Than a "Social Media Influencer?"

Are You Smarter Than a 'Social Media Influencer?' - LewRockwell

Back in the antiquated days of 2007, a television show burst upon the scene with the provocative title, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? By and large, the adults who competed proved that they weren’t. Which really says something, considering that today’s 5th graders aren’t exactly well...

www.lewrockwell.com

Article Summary PEOPLE IS DUMB

 

[warren]

Young adults should be working hard, setting goals for their life and striving to attain them. Youth is a time for action, making moneys, not self-serving "hobbies" or expensive vices. It's time to get on with life. Weighing the pluses and minuses of various careers they qualify for and investing for retirement and any contemplated family, If there's is time for a bit of fun, so much the better. But, intense focus is also required.

Time and a place for everything if, the time is properly parceled out, proper priorities established and paid attention to. Otherwise they may go through later life worrying about the price of a blend and exclusively smoking cobs.

 

[mateusbrown]

I'm a high school teacher, so whether I want to be or not, I'm sort of a role model for the kids, especially the guys. For whatever reason they feel free to admit their vices in passing or directly, and lots of the guys are already vaping or dipping or chewing or smoking. Two football guys were debating one day over dipping versus smoking cigarettes. The big linebacker dips, the skinny running back kid smokes. The linebacker was telling the running back he wouldn't be able to breathe in about 30 years and the running back said the other would have mouth cancer. Another kids was saying he didn't vape, that he was "au naturale" and smoked cigars. Another kid said he could smoke four cigarettes between his house and the school, in the span of 10 miles. Many other examples, but point made. They've already picked all this up from their dads, peers, granddads, and so on. And then the football coaches are dipping and chewing and spitting juice everywhere at practice, so that is probably a factor.

That said, I don't openly advertise that I myself smoke a pipe or cigars or cigarettes although if asked I would not lie. I would tell them the pipe, which is my favorite nicotine delivery system. My white beard is yellowed around the mouth and I probably smell more strongly than I think of dark Kentucky or Burley/Perique when I come in in the morning, so it should/would/could not be hard to figure out what I am doing. They have said that my classroom smells like "old wood" when they walk in first thing, which must be what scent someone carries who has been smoking the above mentioned tobaccos.

I can't really lecture them about something I do and that I have currently chosen not to give up myself although I have mentioned if asked that they should go ahead and quit habit X while they are young since it is easier than later. Their first assumption would be that if anyone smokes, it would be cigarettes or cigars, and I don't know that the pipe would ever occur to them as an option. These local tobacco/vape shops around here generally have almost no pipes, or if they do, it might be a few corn cobs or those plastic ones. Still haven't figured out how those are even smoked. Anyway, I have never tried to steer someone onto pipes although I did tell a kid who said he was heavily vaping that dipping might be a better option, but he said he didn't like dip. I asked him if he had swallowed the juice. He said yes.

I would have a problem with putting someone onto tobacco in any form who wasn't already into it. If I'm being honest, I know it will probably catch up with me at some point if it hasn't already. And if you never try it, you don't know what you are missing. but if you do try it, there is a very good chance you will really like it, in whatever form. We all know the 80 year old guy who smokes and is still healthy, and we all know someone who got lung cancer at 50. You just don't know how it will turn out.

 

[sardonicus87]

That's kind of why my thing is if someone's an adult, if they ask, I will give them the facts I know, risks and rewards, and tell them it's a personal choice they have to make for themselves.

But that's my approach with everything, not just pipes. I'm a "non-professional philosopher", and people sometimes come to me for advice. I never give prescriptions or tell them how to think, just help them as best I can to sort out their own thinking and feelings.

But I'm not going to try to convince them to do or not do anything. But if they decide to take it up on their own, I'm more than happy to help them have an easier start to it with basic tips.

 

[TN Jed]

It was a millennial that encouraged me to pick up the pipe as a healthier nicotine ingestion method.

 

[brian64]

It was a millennial that encouraged me to pick up the pipe as a healthier nicotine ingestion method.

I assume you mean healthier than cigarettes...and I think most here would agree with that. Or a better way of phrasing it might be, less potentially harmful.

The rest of my comments here aren't directed specifically at you...your comment just prompted them.

I don't deny for a second that I enjoy the nicotine. But it's a common mantra from some on here that the pipe is nothing more than a "nicotine delivery method". I get more nicotine from cigars than from pipe smoking...and cigars, imo, are no more potentially harmful, and are so much less of a hassle.

I know that's not true for everyone, but for me, if it was only for the nicotine, I would just smoke cigars. As it is now, I only very occasionally smoke cigars...one a month at most. Pipes are tedious...the ONLY thing that makes pipe smoking worth the hassle for me is the greatly enhanced flavors I am able to experience from pipe tobacco vs cigars. I enjoy it so much more that I gladly deal with the additional complexities.

I know this is also not true for everyone, but it is for me. So I can say absolutely that for me pipe smoking is not just about the nicotine. Flavor and nicotine are not mutually exclusive...you can have both and appreciate both. You don't have to insist that it's only about one or the other.

 

[mso489]

I'm a boomer, so help me, and I rarely meet with other pipe smokers of any age in person except at the local pipe shop where my visits have become rare with the pandemic and household commitments. However, I just bought a new computer, and the twenty-something guy who sold it to me and set it up in the store noticed my pipe photos on the desktop.

He mentioned that he has enjoyed the occasional cigar but prefers pipes. I didn't take up that conversation because we were focused on the PC set-up and I needed to stay on task, not being the brightest bulb in the tech department.

Since then, I've thought of dropping off a tin of pipe tobacco for him at the shop, since it is so rare to encounter a pipe smoker in the wild, and since he does smoke the occasional pipe. I may do it if I find time between other pressing chores with vehicles and household matters.

I recently sent a box of blends to my one ongoing in-person pipe smoking friend who lives all the way in Queens NYC, some good blends I think/hope. I think he's about six or eight years younger than me and my wife, who are about the same age.

I am one of those who doesn't put much store in generational stereotypes. It is true that historical experience is shared within one generation. I grew up with the after effects of World War ii, and with the Cold War, and the Vietnam War, and my adulthood was marked by 9/11 and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I stilll think that individual experience tends to overshadow the march of history.

My work life was marked by the timing of my arrival in the job market. Print journalism and teaching careers were far more limited and limiting by the time I got out of the Navy and grad school, so I had to adapt my experience and education to available jobs and find a way to apply the one to the other.

 

[TN Jed]

I assume you mean healthier than cigarettes...and I think most here would agree with that. Or a better way of phrasing it might be, less potentially harmful.

The rest of my comments here aren't directed specifically at you...your comment just prompted them.

I don't deny for a second that I enjoy the nicotine. But it's a common mantra from some on here that the pipe is nothing more than a "nicotine delivery method". I get more nicotine from cigars than from pipe smoking...and cigars, imo, are no more potentially harmful, and are so much less of a hassle.

I know that's not true for everyone, but for me, if it was only for the nicotine, I would just smoke cigars. As it is now, I only very occasionally smoke cigars...one a month at most. Pipes are tedious...the ONLY thing that makes pipe smoking worth the hassle for me is the greatly enhanced flavors I am able to experience from pipe tobacco vs cigars. I enjoy it so much more that I gladly deal with the additional complexities.

I know this is also not true for everyone, but it is for me. So I can say absolutely that for me pipe smoking is not just about the nicotine. Flavor and nicotine are not mutually exclusive...you can have both and appreciate both. You don't have to insist that it's only about one or the other.

I agree 100% thats why I'm here. I should have been more descriptive. He also helped me with my cadence and slowing down enough to start enjoying the flavor profiles. He learned everything from the great YouTube.

 

[Call Me Late]

Millennial here, I think a lot of millennials and GenZ value authenticity. Of the “smoker groups” it seems that pipe smokers tend to be the most authentic and approachable people. There’s a nostalgia and casualness that comes with pipe smoking as well. Pipe smoking can be a wholistic experience as well. The pipe is something beautiful to look at and something everyone could potentially create. And tobacco as a plant can be grown and then smoked in a pipe. The whole process is simple but you can get so much complexity out of it as well. I love that about pipe smoking. It’s a great way to socialize in person as well.

 

[sardonicus87]

Speaking of nostalgia, apparently there's a trend amongst "zoomer" TikTok "influencers" for something called "tradwife" where they dress 1950's style and want basically that "Leave It to Beaver" aesthetic and traditional female gender roles. Not sure if there's a male equivalent trend, and I don't know how popular the aforementioned is, and I am sure there's a lot of variance of degree in beliefs about it. It also could just be a short lived fad.

I'll be curious to see if adult male Gen Zs start picking up pipes because of that. Doubtful about it though.

As to nicotine... nicotine and the associated MAOIs like nornicotine and others are relatively harmless (as long as you're not pregnant). It's all the other stuff that's harmful. Any combusted plant material is going to produce carbon monoxide, tar and other harmful products. Nicotine by itself isn't even considered carcinogenic, and there's other compounds in tobacco that are more harmful.

Nicotine - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine :
"According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, "nicotine is not generally considered to be a carcinogen."[37][38] The Surgeon General of the United States indicates that evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between exposure to nicotine and risk for cancer."

So, when talking about harm, I would steer clear of associating nicotine itself with harm when it comes to smoking or tobacco use—the harm comes more from the smoke and other things than the nicotine.

 

[vosBghos]

Millennial here, I think a lot of millennials and GenZ value authenticity. Of the “smoker groups” it seems that pipe smokers tend to be the most authentic and approachable people. There’s a nostalgia and casualness that comes with pipe smoking as well. Pipe smoking can be a wholistic experience as well. The pipe is something beautiful to look at and something everyone could potentially create. And tobacco as a plant can be grown and then smoked in a pipe. The whole process is simple but you can get so much complexity out of it as well. I love that about pipe smoking. It’s a great way to socialize in person as well.

I think "authenticity" might be hitting the nail on the head. From the millennial pipesmokers I've met and worked with it seems that with all the techno gizmo digital age that has been showered upon us with the turn of the century, people are reaching backward searching for something a bit slower and more genuine. There is a whole slew of younger millennials and the older Gen Z that are embracing analog-only stereo and video media and actual print media and buying up brick phones to lessen the constant scrolling addiction. And even those who are going further back embracing traditionalism and joining the Catholic church or even the Orthodox. The search for identity continues the whole thing is fascinating.

 

[warren]

Nicotine replaces oxygen in the blood. Is there anything efficacious about smoking? Not that I'm aware. Well, there is all the exercise some smokers get, jumping through hoops, stretching their own credibility, and etc. trying to find something healthful with regards to smoking.

Just accept your poor. selfish choice and enjoy the pipe! That's what many of us here do. Spending time looking for a positive is time you could be enjoying your wee vice. Even those who say it helps them relax should accept that's the nicotine doing it's thing, making your brain happy.

If you are always trying to find scientific or medical positives, you obviously aren't comfortable with your choice. Enjoy and quit second guessing your choice, accepting the possible consequences. I don't understand some smokers always seeking validation for their smoking.

 

[TN Jed]

Making lifestyle choices based on health isn't a bad thing IMO. It's a hard argument to make that smoking a pipe at any interval isn't healthier than smoking 20+ cigs a day.

 

[mateusbrown]

Speaking of nostalgia, apparently there's a trend amongst "zoomer" TikTok "influencers" for something called "tradwife" where they dress 1950's style and want basically that "Leave It to Beaver" aesthetic and traditional female gender roles. Not sure if there's a male equivalent trend, and I don't know how popular the aforementioned is, and I am sure there's a lot of variance of degree in beliefs about it. It also could just be a short lived fad.

In the tradwife memes that I see on Instagram, some also feature the chad guy smoking a pipe, or they show a 1950's picture of a dad and the family, and the dad may have a pipe. I'm not sure either about the degree of influence any of this has on anyone, but it is interesting that there is at least a movement to reject some of what has become mainstream thinking over the past five or six decades and return to what we currently see as something simpler and more wholesome than our current Western societal milieu. It is as if some of the younger generation see things as having gone too far outside the window of acceptability, too radical, and wish to return to something more centered on so-called traditional values with family and Christianity at the forefront. They promote fatherhood as a greater and nobler "flex" than men whose goal is to bag as many women as possible. and motherhood over the "empowered" women working outside of the house. They further promote a natural, farm, outdoors lifestyle together with healthy foods over the urban, disconnected from nature, processed food mode of living and I suppose pipe smoking for the guys fits into this aesthetic through its association with older times and the nostalgia thereof.

 

[mateusbrown]

I noticed the other day in the Walmart that they are now selling records and record players.

analog-only stereo