Let me tell you my perspective !
In the 1970s and 1980s , our parents worked probably 9 to 4, they chatted with their colleagues, visited relatives, took care of parents. Weekends were spent visiting people or going to beaches or movies.
There was not much competition and life was leisurely. When they worked, they worked. No stress, just living life. My dad did exactly that, he was a mechanical engineer and he used to work and never used to get stressed. No work at home. The only way i knew he worked was when he was away 9 to 5.
Now we work from home, so we have comforts. But we work from 5 to 9. We are stressed, so we need outbound programmes to de-stress. We have goals because though we work hard we cant meet them .So we start disliking work because its no longer living a life. We have hundreds of meetings every day , what we called strategy, scrum meetings. We love to meet our customer needs 24 by 7 even if our kids or parents needs arent met
So someone who finally got bored doing the above decided he wants to get back to the 1970–80s life which our parents lived. Simple , relaxed life. So he or she started pursuing photography, painting, music etc. That became to be known as “offbeat”
This is a a new term coined in the 2000s that relates to a concept 30 years old.BTW i even call Engineering offbeat, if we had pursued mechanical or electrical or civil we would be still doing offbeat stuff because its not IT!