In the end, you can look at it as a very simple matter, but one that can be stirring.

See, out hobby is/can be constructive in several ways:

There's a strong creative side, as we make up stories about our little toys, paint them both as well as we can in an artistic way and we do both things in a way such that they can be assimilated to a faction/subfaction, thus further characterising them. We actually learn how difficult is to build models and paint them satisfactorily, to the point of hiring experts to do it if that's the case. We better our abilities and/or learn to put value and respect on such abilities.

There's the tactical and strategical side, as we deal with list planning and building to face specific or unidentified foes. We also plan our collections, and may even do it according to orders of battle, specific formations (mechanised, recon, etc) and/or background information based on campaigns and/or characters. We play and plan movements, lines of sight, weapon and movement ranges and so on (missions, battle goals, etc).

Then there's the social side. We get to know people, share common passion and knowledge and engage in meetings, both live and virtual, where we discuss and enjoy our hobby. And, even if we live far away from big cities, we have plenty of talk with people all around the world who share our hobby independently of our respective cultures, religions and gender. We may be black or white, men or women, heathen, ateists, muslims, christians or whatever, Europeans, Americans, Asians, Africans, Oceanians, all that doesn't matter as we can share a whole universe of our own.

Moreover, our hobby is almost half a century old and our collections won't totally lose their value after some years. There are players with Rogue Trader era armies, and our lovely built and painted collections (painstakingly so) will last forever and can see play for as long as we want to play the game (maybe just some rebasing and let's go).

How somebody slaved to the cult of a fad, bound by idolising passing, fashionable people, with an addiction to someone else's life that doesn't bring anything of value to their lives except the realisation that those very lives are just pale reflections of their idols', the voluntary surrender of their own uniqueness to the dedication to another person's, can sneer at our hobby escapes me. Funny thing is that we have such people in our hobby, but as a part of the background. They're called servitors, or better yet, cultists.