Am I the only one who thinks super-hot culture has gotten stupid?

Not trying to start a war here but I genuinely miss when growing peppers was about flavor, heritage varieties, culture, food. Now every forum thread is about who can grow a 3 million SHU pod. There are thousands of incredible landraces that nobody talks about because they're not "hot enough." Pimientos de Padrón, Ají Amarillo, Cascabel — these are world-class peppers and the community barely acknowledges them. Rant over.

Respectfully disagree. The super-hot scene brought in a TON of new growers, new interest, new money into the hobby. I never would have started growing without seeing hot pepper challenges on YouTube. Now I grow 40+ varieties including plenty of heritage stuff. The gate doesn't need to be "you must appreciate Ají Amarillo before you're allowed in."

I came in through cooking and honestly I think Dale has a point. The first year I got into growing I went straight for super-hots because that's all anyone talked about. It took me two seasons before I discovered how interesting mild and medium varieties can be — longer seasons, better flavor complexity, actually usable in food. Both communities can coexist but the super-hot thing dominates the conversation.

There's a real research angle here too. Landrace varieties carry genetic diversity that matters for disease resistance, adaptation to climate, and flavor compound research. The super-hot breeding push is essentially a monoculture of C. chinense genetics selected for capsaicin production at the expense of everything else. Not saying it's bad — just that preserving landrace genetics should be a higher priority in the community than it currently is.

Grown both my whole life. I keep a bed of Texas landraces I got from an old rancher neighbor who's been saving seed for 40 years. Those seeds are worth more to me than any Reaper. Dale's not wrong. But RJ's not wrong either. Big tent.