Influenced

[Sled]

How many of you have been influenced with your hunting gear or style lately by your social media, for better or worse?
How many of you have sworn off some of the influencer D-bags that get torn up on this site, only to welcome them back into your feed now that they've "atoned"?

I keep seeing some of the usual suspects show back up like herpes. I don't know how but they keep coming back. I don't watch their stuff and only know of the legal proceeding but it baffles me.

So, how does a Muley Freak or Bomar type of a person keep making money off hunters?

 

[HairyScandinavian]

I'm heavily influenced by this dang website for better or worse. Lol
As for other social media I just follow personal pages not influencer or celebrity stuff.

 

[7mm-08]

I'm not social media follower. I have no idea who these "influencers" might be and I'm fairly content in my current (albeit ignorant) mode. And (not surprisingly), I don't buy anything from any influencer's website - so I don't support any individual in their marketing efforts.

 

[ReddingArcher]

I got off Facebook and instagram back in September. I couldn’t take the bs anymore and I am much better off not seeing all that crap. This site and one other hunting forum are my only social media now. So now I don’t feel like I’m influenced to buy stuff…certainly was a time though.

 

[realunlucky]

Why are you fascinated with them? Take your drama to Facebook.

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[JPeters218]

At least in the case of Bowmar, he gets some money from me because he makes a good product (beast).
Other than that i generally only follow, or at least take advice from people that are neutral and just trying to provide good info for people. -Podium archer puts out some good archery info.
-The GOHUNT guys have their place for me too.
-Rokslide is where the bulk of my research happens tho.

There’s people out there that are able to test way more things than I am, and I think it’d be dumb to ignore it. So I take in what info I can and use that to make my buying decisions. Once I took my feelings out of that, and just trusted the data I was looking it, I haven’t been let down.

 

[full choke]

How many of you have been influenced with your hunting gear or style lately by your social media, for better or worse?

Honestly, for me at least, not influenced at all lately. But I mostly coyote hunt these days...

 

[BigredRusch]

I was heavily influenced by meateater, fresh tracks, and others when I first started hunting as an adult. I chased all the gear they had and took all the advice in the name of “shortening the learning curve”. I ended up in a place where I really didn’t enjoy my hunting and I never felt fully prepared. I was always chasing what I saw not what I thought or wanted.

When I learned about the BS money making schemes behind all the branding and how hunting media ruins hunting, I changed my tune pretty quickly.

No social media or YouTube. Everything comes from my brain and Rokslide now. I’m much happier.


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[mustelid_master]

If anything, I'm de-influenced now. I see someone shucking Tricer, Seekins, or MKC, and immediately start looking for other tripod, rifle, or knife options.

 

[Yaremkiv]

Influenced by you guys on Rokslide, usualy for the better. Luckily never did make a social media account anywhere.

 

[Aussie Dan]

99% of the influencing that informs my purchases comes from this damn place lol.
The other 1% is just common sense, uncluttered by marketing crap.

I still watch a few guys on youtube for hunting, loading and culling content but I fast forward the ads and if there's too many I turn off. As I've aged, I've become hyper aware of the marketing machine that is behind content creation and I avoid it like the freakin plague.

 

[Rich M]

Realized early on (pre-internet) that they were just salesmen selling stuff.

A lot of new folks go looking for shortcuts and find the videos, think they are being helped by it all. They have no idea IF the guy is an unscrupulous repeat offender, getting footage and killing stuff illegal-like when necessary.

I got influenced on a fishing forum. Bought a new brand of trolling motor for boat, called Rhodan, and got screwed w a 2 yr electronic nightmare. Tried to get them to replace it and got brushed off. Went to an equally expensive Minn Kota and no problems at all over the past 3 or 4 years.

Was several thousand $ worth of lesson on why to buy old and proven models & brands and not to believe online chatter cause the ultimate end goal is removing your money from you.

 

[ozyclint]

"Never been on FB or anything else since before it was cool to never be on FB or anything else"

 

[mitchellmountain]

I’m a little surprised by how quickly people form a lynch mob to condemn them. In light of recent events and how fast the pitchforks came out I would say people are being influenced just not in the way they might think.

 

[survivalistd]

Only on hunting and fishing and shooting forums.

 

[Boarmaster]

I’m lucky as I hunted for 25 years before anyone coined the term influencer or social media or even info on the internet. While I read three hunting mags a month I didnt get much out of them that was relevant to my hunting areas.

I did watch the Sunday hunting shows but most of that was guys sitting in tree stands peddling gear or food plot seeds and not much real hunting advise or how too things. We learned by spending time in the woods we actually hunted in.

Not that I haven’t learned a few things over the last 15-20 years watching shows and participating in forums but I had the fundamentals down for success in the places I hunt or hunted. So I guess I am less influenced. I also had a chance during those formative years to create my own hunting culture together the guys I hunted with.

 

[Rich M]

I’m a little surprised by how quickly people form a lynch mob to condemn them. In light of recent events and how fast the pitchforks came out I would say people are being influenced just not in the way they might think.

it is just that this joker (insert whatever name you want) is claiming to represent me and the rest of the hunting industry.

That's the whole deal of it all. Some dude poaching is one thing. Poaching/trespassing while saying that he represents the rest of us is really bad.

 

[mitchellmountain]

it is just that this joker (insert whatever name you want) is claiming to represent me and the rest of the hunting industry.

That's the whole deal of it all. Some dude poaching is one thing. Poaching/trespassing while saying that he represents the rest of us is really bad.

I see your point

 

[Chris in TN]

I pretty much despise salesmen in general. Not because they're categorically bad or not important by default, but by choice. Most (not all) make the choice to use dishonest advertising to attempt to elevate the importance/value of their product/service. That means not only the people hawking stuff on FB and YT but.....also the people who do the same on discussion boards. I bend over backwards to avoid buying from advertisers here.

The guy who makes an honest product and pays the site to allow him to make a post in the proper forum telling me he has XYZ gadget for sale? I love that guy and I'll buy from him whenever possible. But he's like 10% of the field.

The guy who pays ad revenue to put his flashy ad on the side of the page showing an incredibly chiseled young guy on a mountaintop with a dead elk or gorgeous woman, rocking that sweet, sweet new full retail product that I don't really need and might not even have otherwise known existed? Yeah, I'll go to great lengths to avoid him.

(There's certainly a spectrum there and people and companies and products exist between those two extremes, to be sure....but all too many are in the latter group)

In the early days of the internet everyone built a website so that consumers could choose to find and learn about your product and choose to buy it based on what was at least generally honest information.

Now, everything I do, everywhere I go, has devolved into one massive nonstop ad for crap I don't need. I hate it. I utterly hate it.

 

[dylanvb]

As someone who got into bow hunting via social media (Cam Hanes hunting videos) I appreciate those who are willing to put themselves out there and show what they like to do and why. I get about 95% of my hunting knowledge online since no one taught me and I have had to learn on my own. When you put yourself out in the world like that people will do whatever they can to tear you down.
Why seek approval from a world that killed a perfect man?