Rinella DDD - Depublicize, Deglorify, Demonetize

[Kentucky]

As much as I hate social media I love capitalism.. and they have done it well.... they are selling one version of the American dream, while living it and getting rich at the same time..touché sir

I’m jealous to a degree I suppose.

 

[MTSasquatch]

I agree with Matt. The woods are plump with the fat conjured from marketing and photo pimps. For those guys who only started hunting out west recently, you should’ve seen Montana and Wyoming 10-15 years ago. It was a hunter’s paradise where it wasn’t hard to get a place totally to yourself without hiking 5 miles one direction. Nonetheless, as others have pointed, unless we stop clicking and buying it’ll only get worse.

 

[Billy Goat]

I blame the economy.


Apparently lots of disposable income out there.

 

[Deadfall]

I like it. Hope it catches on...to little to late I think. Same as other stuff I recon.

 

[Headwatermike]

More like only the last 15-20 years. Oddly, since the advent and popularity of social media.

I'm afraid it isn't just hunting that has been impacted. I think that most things popularized on social media have been cheapened and have suffered. All of the secrets get exposed, exploited, and capitalized. A value system is established to whatever activity and whatever goal is established becomes the end, and to hell with the impact, customs, or means at times. In our case it seems to be a 350" bull. Sadly, if Meatbeater, Newberg, et al were removed their replacements would be moments in filling that space. I like Matt and sympathize entirely with his sentiments but his struggle is Sisyphean in nature; he may as well be trying to stop the wind. I'm still happy that he has put himself out and called this trend for what it is and tried to create a solution rather than just whining about it, which is all I've come up with.

 

[NomadHunter603]

You all talk about “the way things used to be” and I think a lot of you don’t know what that was. The way it used to be, atleast where I’m from in the north east. Was guys bringing their deer to check it in with it strapped to the hood or trunk of their car, trucks with gun racks in the back window, old black and white photos of men at deer camp with a few deer hanging up from a meat pole outside. Yet you
Think we shouldn’t take pictures and should hide who we are and what we do.


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[Alaskanopolis]

Reading comprehension is important, go ahead and try again....

In what way am I not correctly comprehending the text? Nice weak-ass retort.

 

[Kimber7man]

IMO there has always been lots of disposable income. Appears the difference is, it’s getting spent on hunting - rifles, ammo, bows, optics, clothes, etc.... and this Rinella guy wants to demonetize hunting. Pray tell me, where would we be without advances in manufacturing that the “Evil marketing“ has brought to us? He expects Hoyt to design and build a carbon bow and not market it? Or Winchester to come up with the WSM and not market it? How many more rifles and ammo have been sold just because of the 6.5 Creedmoor??

Wonder if he stopped to consider the amount of money being pumped into public hunting lands from the Pittman-Robertson Act. All from the purchase of guns, ammo, and bows.... which he says we must demonetize....

 

[Marbles]

I think there is general dissatisfaction with the Instagram culture amongst many people and the problem cuts across multiple areas beyond hunting. It would be nice to have more people enjoy an experience rather than worry about how they can display that experience in the most favorable light.

 

[Ross]

Long before the way it is now and much younger....loved it then, love it now and will not hide my passion and have adapted and don’t worry about others life too short to not embrace what is in your soul

 

[2-Stix]

One good thing about a growing sport is the massive amount of R&D that occurs. We all benefit from that. The bad part is the crowd. So you just go deeper and farther. Outwork the new guy.

 

[Carpenterant]

What do you think the logo for an organization named DDD would look like?

I imagine 3 um... you know... d’s. Like three obelisk guarding a secret honey hole. Firm in their mission.

 

[Mr. October]

Seems like this all started when companies realized there was a pile of money to be made if they made western hunting specific products and directed their marketing efforts appropriately. This is all a product of the free market.

Instafamous hunters, TV shows, youtube content, all of it is just advertising. Marketing 101 in 2020 says you need to have a large social media presence. How do you do that? One way is you pay someone who has a large audience. That's how you get a good looking girl, who has probably been hunting for 5 total mins, pimping and recommending products like their an expert. That company has a bad marketing department.

If you really want this movement to succeed as far as I can tell, you'd have to start giving up all the high speed gear and not expect any kind of technology advancements.

Dump your sitka or kuiu and go back to cotton or wear climbing gear.
Dump your OnX and Basemap and go back to paper maps.
Dump your Stone Glacier and Kifaru and get a Jansport.
Shoot you bow for 10 years before you trade it in if at all. Or better yet, shoot trad.
Forget about watching any kind of tutorial or how to vids on youtube from an actual expert to shorten the learning curve.
In fact, drop all forms of social media that are hunting related.
And quite possibly even deactivate your rokslide forum account...

Maybe I'm wrong here, but all our great gear, clothes, and technology in general, comes with a price that isn't being measured in dollars... And the only way the hunting "influencer" goes away is if we start voting with our wallets, eyeballs and mouse clicks.

And maybe there is a middle ground here. Where you don't need the latest and greatest of everything because some "expert" said it was better. Maybe take that cash you would have spent and send it to RMEF or MDF or some other good cause.
I feel like I became a better consumer when I realized I was ALWAYS be marketed to. Every youtube video, every TV show, every web page. All of it is designed to get you to hit the "buy now" button.
And as long as there are hunting companies with tons of marketing dollars to spend, there will always be someone willing to put their hunting exploits (no matter how bad mind you) front and center in order to cash that check.

I don't feel like it's necessary to dump good equipment. It is certainly useful and helpful to have good, solid warm clothing, etc. What probably isn't necessary in all walks of outdoor life is the outdoor "lifestyle brand". Biggest bunch of BS I've ever seen although I can't fault the companies marketing this stuff for doing so. The old saying applies: "A fool and his money are soon parted". What is disturbing is the effect this has on hunting. We see young hunters all the time that feel they need to buy all this crap to be a hunter or fisherman. Just watch some of the YouTube channels from younger hunters. They are basing their decisions on whether to hunt or not on a freakin' app on their phone! 'Cause that is how that garbage is marketed. My favorite recently was a hunt in Wisconsin that featured a young couple spending the day scouting because OnX Hunt said midday would not be a good time to hunt. Every where they went they encountered roaming bucks but still insisted on continuing to scout instead of setting up in a tree or stand.

I think my favorite social media post I saw this year was right before one of the hurricanes hit the east coast, someone in a small Virginia fishing town said "If you are evacuating you must peel the Salt Life sticker off your window"!

 

[VenaticOppidan]

Just like any group of people, we will always have people that make us look like uneducated hillbilly assholes by things mentioned like hanging ducks by bills and out of gun barrels, and shotgunning beer through a dead deer or fish. Dumb. Disrespectful. We should not hide the prose we have in accomplishing a task and harvesting a trophy regardless of size. Nothing wrong with grip and grin when not done to ostracize the dead animal.

To the people saying hunting is now a rich mans game, it always has been. Read old books, look at the cultures established and different hunt clubs. It just so happens it is also very accessible to poor folks who, besides using it for adventure and socialization, use it as a primary method to feed their family, atleast in their home states.

I agree with a couple things said but not most. It seems a lot of people are upset that now the avg “poor” hunter figured out they can save 200 bucks a month and go chase a muley, elk, or pronghorn out west for a period of months, instead of only being able to hunt big game in most eastern states for a period of weeks.

These “new guys” mostly arent new guys at all. Been hunting their localities their whole lives. They are new to the western scene, and that really chaps some asses. Through shows like this they realized the adventure they fantasized about since they were 9 years old reading outdoor life is not only accessible, but can be done damn near yearly!

Someone is always gonna get rich. I have commented to many friends now how MeatEater is a capitalists wet dream, but i dont see where he is doing it wrong (besides putting his name on a few to many things). They have worked on a ton of projects to free up public land and make accessible millions of acres of landlocked public land.

By everything I’ve seen and heard, they are generally good people with sound morals who may who place an emphasis more on the process than the antlers/horns, with that being a bonus not the core objective. I’ve listened to people like Ben O’Brien who i don’t agree with on many subjects. We will never all have the same thoughts.

I understand point creep, and people being upset cause the amount of new non residents have diminished their odds of drawing certain districts, but that’s a good thing for these backwoods towns and expanding hunting as a whole. We can’t keep it to ourselves or we’ll lose it.

And i agree that social media as a whole is the downfall of man. Mainly the big 3. Insta, Facebook, and Twitter. But i can rant on that specifically another time.


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[Mtnboy]

In what way am I not correctly comprehending the text? Nice weak-ass retort.

This is about Matt Rinella, not Steve. Your reply seems to me to be about Steve, meaning you can either barely read and truly didn’t understand or (more likely) you were too lazy to read and didn’t understand.

OR I’m wrong (not likely) in which case please explain to me how Matt Rinella “got his and now wants to close the door” cause I’d love to be educated about that.

Just be honest, you didn’t even take the time to see that it wasn’t about the Rinella you thought it was before you got triggered did you?

 

[FlyFishStout_CO]

Man... the Rinella family Christmas is going to be pretty awkward this year!

 

[Islandeer]

Man... the Rinella family Christmas is going to be pretty awkward this year!

They seem like solid brothers, who share a common thread. I’m sure a conversation has already been had.
Too much web time will suck out your soul, IMO.

But if there is money on the table....

 

[Anello]

RE: The Original Post

I think that we are all a bit sick of lectures these days. If a person from the East Coast is stoked on coming out west to hunt, great. If they post a pic, good for them. If someone wearing a flat brim hat and cammo, who monetizes their name image and likeness online was the reasoning for that person to come out west and hunt, Who cares? Leading from the front is a far better solution than acting like a scolding teacher. I find the manner in which he framed those arguments off-putting, so please don't read my comments as anything other than a review of the original post, and not anything thereafter.

As I have gotten older, and changed professions, I have come to realize that far more flies are caught with honey. If you intend to lead a movement implementing substantive changes the hunting world, maybe start by being positive and or complimentary? Demonstrate what is right, and why, and provide suggestions or advice on how to get there. I see far too much narcissistic lecturing from hunters these days and I am quite sick of it, as I am sure most of you are.

Point being, we, as a community, need to stop vilifying each other (I.e. non-resident hate, method of take hate, size of game judgement, etc.) and start supporting each other. There are tons of really talented and experienced hunters/shooters, both men and women, on this site. I would so much rather read posts from them giving advice or instructions to other hunters than reading or hearing more lectures about what everyone else is doing wrong. Leading from the front and setting the example works. Narcissistic lecturing does not.

 

[zacattack]

This is like duck dynasty and waterfowl hunting. A few down years will weed out the fair weather hunters.

 

[Fatcamp]

His latest mule deer video was interesting. Cameramen who didn't seem to want to be there and shooting a tiny buck while talking about dreams for shooting a large mule deer someday.

Holy cats. With his resources and support staff it shouldn't be any problem at all to shoot a large buck. It all just felt a little whiny.