Unfollowing Hunting Social Media Will Make Hunting Better: Matt Rinella Essay

[Drenalin]

Maybe the economy will tank and it will fix all this NR hunting.

I don’t think that’s a maybe; hunting aside, we’re headed for a correction shortly.

 

[Drenalin]

I know a guy from church, no desire to get involved in hunting, but he loves watching MeatEater on Netflix. From a lot of what I’m seeing in this thread, that’s the ideal scenario - make fans who support hunting but have no desire to participate. It’s weird to me that one guy (or media company) could have that type of effect, while simultaneously being part of burning the whole thing down.

On the other side of that coin, I don’t personally know anyone who started hunting based on what they saw an influencer doing. Not to say it doesn’t happen, but I haven’t seen it myself. It seems people who already hunt seek out hunting content. Are people really stumbling onto insta hunter content by accident and deciding they’ll give it a whirl, or are they getting nudged that way from someplace else initially?

It also sounds like most influencers’ pages, or whatever they’re called, are filled with such reprehensible content that I’m having trouble understanding how they’re effectively recruiting new hunters? Or inspiring others to partake in their devilish behavior?

Where does the anti-R3 movement stop? Is it still ok to instill a love of the outdoors and hunting in my kids, or is that bad for the resource? If what’s good for the resource is the important point, how many here are willing to personally stop hunting? You know, do your small part for the greater good.

Or is the real issue simply spot burning? As has been pointed out, forums can be a huge problem in that respect. You can get a lot of information out of Google in a short amount of time just from hunting forums, including - but not limited to - Rokslide.

I read Matt’s article, haven’t listened to any of the podcasts. These are just my rambling thoughts after ingesting 50+ pages of this. I also wonder, is this really such an important conversation, as folks keep pointing out? How many of hunting’s problems have been solved or even helped by forums versus people like Randy Newburg? Are we actually doing something, or just blowing off steam on a keyboard?

Might do more good to lobby your states against paying influencers to advertise the natural resources that are so important to you. It’s definitely given me something to think about.

 

[Rob5589]

There's some hardcore influencer fan boys in here that's for sure

And plenty that assume things without doing any actual research.

 

[Muledeerhunter406]

And plenty that assume things without doing any actual research.

Are you the fan boy or the researcher?

 

[Rob5589]

Are you the fan boy or the researcher?

Too old to be a "fan boy," but plenty old enough to do my own research.

 

[KurtR]

Its about social media in general. Be intellectually honest with yourself, do you think people are going to reach out and ask why he kills so many animals? No, they're going to pass judgement.

Honestly I could care less what those people think. I have been hunting for 35 plus years and social media has no affect on me if its here or not. On the plus side I found a big feed of mallards this evening.

 

[BigDog00]

I can tell you from my own personal experiences that people who don't hunt often times say something along the lines of "I have no problem with hunting as long as people eat what they kill".

What do you think an anti hunter would say if they actively searched out his page? I know anti's hate all hunters but an anti could easily use Aron as a case study on hunters being bloodthirsty who kill more than they can eat.

I'm sure the anit's head would explode but I believe that to be true with anything they disagree with, hunting or otherwise. Social media is not going away and the people who use for monetary gain will continue doing so. I for one enjoy seeing other people's successes but could also happily live my life without it.

 

[RMM]

Honestly I could care less what those people think. I have been hunting for 35 plus years and social media has no affect on me if its here or not. On the plus side I found a big feed of mallards this evening.

I could care less as well until our hunting rights are on a ballot and those people are swayed to the anti side. Get what I'm saying? Congrats on the mallards, hope you hammer 'em.

 

[Car_walk]

Good read. Thanks for posting. I agree with the shift from personal satisfaction to attention from others.

 

[Elkangle]

I could care less as well until our hunting rights are on a ballot and those people are swayed to the anti side. Get what I'm saying? Congrats on the mallards, hope you hammer 'em.

if these guys are pushing so many to the anti side of things why is over crowding due to social media influencers a conversation?

It seems this is such a floating target conversation...hard to nail things down..

Nothing personal

Just food for thought

 

[RMM]

if these guys are pushing so many to the anti side of things why is over crowding due to social media influencers a conversation?

Clearly I'm speaking in hypotheticals, besides, you guys out west dont know how good you have it. Come to PA sometime and hunt public land.

 

[Rob5589]

Clearly I'm speaking in hypotheticals, besides, you guys out west don't know how good you have it. Come to PA sometime and hunt public land.

What's the deal with the eastern states? Lack of public land? Private leases? Over crowding?

 

[Elkangle]

I haven't hunted PA but used to go to the Great American show every year and was amazed of the situation over there...Definitely had my eyes opened

 

[kwackkillncrew]

Edit: this is in response to the Dall sheep video comments earlier.

I didn’t read the rest of the page, but this resonated with me.

Alaska is super tight lipped. Transporters, spots, etc I’ve been doing a bunch of research related to a potential job. All the videos on whatever platform with NR’s that go up there as a once in a lifetime experience spoil shit for all the residents with big fat mouths. Pointing directly at maps, showing exact ridges/peaks, exact GMU’s, Lakes, etc.

Exactly. Wtf do they care they dont live here. They want to be "the guy" that people look at for help so since they came up once and chances are they womt be back they vomit up everything they can to who ever they can to try to get some street cred.

I am for giving pointers for gear and what not but pointing out places on maps and giving people coordinates to chase doesnt do any good for any one.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[SDHNTR]

Maybe all these new insta hunters in it just for that pic on the Gram and likes will soon be able to take their show to the Metaverse and out of the real field! They can “hunt” till their hearts content and win all sorts of fake friends!

 

[npm352]

I'm going to go plant some trees while drinking Mountain Dew .... because I saw a famous hunting guy on IG doing that today.

Some of these endorsement deals are getting weird

 

[OMB]

Maybe we should just get rid of Non Resident tags altogether?

Hunt the state you live in, that'd curb a lot of the overcrowding problems I see out West. That'd also stop "influencers" from shooting so much stuff that their wives have to give it away to Real Estate clients.....

90/10 everywhere is starting to get pretty egregious, if that gets further restricted, or to follow this logic out, eliminated, expect serious federal interference. Looking at you, Wyoming. Sure, the animals belong to the state, but do you want to risk losing access to federal lands?

Everyone wants to cite the Colorado elk OTC number when talking about non-residents, but look at Arizona OTC deer participation: it's primarily driven by resident hunters. Half the instagram influencers out there are eastern guys that have moved west, or guys from Washington/Oregon/California that moved to better opportunity states (or don't hunt their own state *cough Cam Hanes*) Non-residents are a pretty much constant number, but nobody wants to talk about the exploding numbers of resident hunters in western states.

Edit: Outside of Arizona OTC late archery deer and Colorado elk OTC, everything is more or less capped non-resident wise, and has been at least the last 5 years I've been paying close attention.

Also- probably mentioned this 30 pages ago, but for guys just catching up: I've lived in Iowa and own land in Iowa, and when I first became a non-resident, I could draw a bow tag to hunt the home farm every other year. Between the Iowa DNR giving away 100+ "governor's tags" to promote deer hunting every year to everyone associated with Realtree and Drury and every D list country singer now it's every 4 years. Guess what happened in the mean time? A lot of non-residents bought a ton of land and leased a ton of ground, and now after influencers have convinced every neckbeard from Maryland and Florida that Iowa has a 150" whitetail behind every tree, point creep is kicking in. The guys that own land have money and influence, and the rules will get changed, come hell or high water. First rule of politics: Establishment Always Wins.

The industry influencer type are more interested in "comment below and tag 3 friends to win a bugle tube" on the 847th picture of the Fire Bull (*cough Hush crew) than they are about preserving access while tens of thousands of acres get swallowed up and made off limits.

 

[Page Master]

It is not at all the same. It’s bragging over the sacred act of killing a sentient being for food. It’s not to be made a spectacle of for the likes of strangers. We need to wake up to the fact that bragging over dead animals is more consequential and perverse than bragging over basketball trophies.

This has been my gripe with the proliferation of Hunting shows, the Outdoor channel, Youtube celebrities' and now the instahunters. We saw a sway away from the ''100 kill shots in 5 minutes'' that were gross and glorified the act of killing without anything else when ME and Newberg first started doing their gigs. Which was a great breathe of fresh air.

I've hunted whitetail my whole life, and grew up listening to my dad and grandpa and relatives talk about elk and pronghorn hunting out west. But when I was old enough they stopped going and now that tradition and information is lost. So I was given this desire to do what the paternal side of my family has always done without any of the tradition being passed to me. Having someone/something that can help explain the details and logistics makes it a bit less overwhelming when spending several grand and driving across the country. I don't think gatekeeping the tradition of hunting is the answer, but the rape of the landscape for profit and fame is worse. So how important is R3? How do we ensure we continue the tradition for folks who don't have the tradition passed to them through family if we remove any influence of SM or any media?

Without SM I wouldn't be a member of the WSF, RMEF, MDF or P&Y and any of the other clubs I support, because I wouldn't be able to see how much good impact they create. In response to killing more than we need, I too, find it hard to justify the piles of dead critters every year. Snyder is very open about giving a lot of the aoudad he kills to his dogs, which I don't find unethical. Aoudad is pretty goddamn gross, they're hunted on private land, and they're exotic/invasive to the landscape. So its a bit of a red herring to use that example. But killing 4+ elk, 6+ deer/antelope, which removes those tags drawn from a pool for someone else to have 1 chance at chasing, which, yeah, that is a legitimate gripe. @Randy Newberg said he will leave tags unpunched when he's filled his freezer, which is honorable.

@Mattrinella makes a valid point of rich instahunters spending $20k to go hunt a private ranch, which isn't obvious unless you're at least semi educated on the subject, and talk about how great elk is, here go on GoHunt and find out how to hunt every state every year! They get to hunt private land without pressure where animals act like animals and go to escape hunting pressure on public lands, but encourage everyone else to go hunt public land. The Marie Antoinette comparison is apt. I believe Randy has been pretty open about doing his filming and hunting on all public, which gives me more respect for him.

I'm sure Randy has his faults. We know Steve and Aron do as well. But they all have done legitimate good for the community as well. How many PETA members have decided to stop being as radical because of Steve? How many novice archers/hunters has Aron helped with having his phone number out there? How many acres of public land has been opened or protected because of Randy? Everything isn't black and white and we are stuck with the same cross section of humanity in our community as everyone else. For every 10 Randy/Steve/Aron we get a Muley Freak poacher. I still think we've seen a net gain from the newfound mass popularity, but Matt's point makes a good forewarning of what road we can see ourselves on down the path if we don't have some introspection.

 

[Billy Goat]

What's the deal with the eastern states? Lack of public land? Private leases? Over crowding?

Lot of people, some large public land areas but a lot of it is mismanaged and neglected. Pushes people to where the animals actually are. I'm not certain what the actual population percentage of the US is in the east, but I'm betting its a lot. I can't remember hearing about crowding 25 years ago, but as most of the eastern NF's have matured they aren't the great habitat that they were, state game lands or state managed areas are frequently better places to hunt, except for all the other hunters.


It's like a burn area.



I only bring it up as it seems like it's repeating itself.



Edit:
Had to look it up. Over 47% of the US population lives in the eastern time zone.

 

[cuttiebrownbow]

Late to the game... only knew about the article because it got sent me on my work email.

I agree with Matt.

Social media makes me sick when you go to any hunting related fb page and its a bunch of self promoting dbags, filming hunts and grip and grinning dead heads. Hunting could be called whoring for the way 'influencers' use it. Does anyone hunt just because they love to hunt anymore? I love hunting and I can't help but to think about the amount of people that hunt because they want to post photos and videos. F that. That doesn't make you a hunter. That makes you a leech and the world would be better if they never created a social media account.

I am in my early 30s, social media got huge when I was in high school and I think I stopped posting kill photos by the time I got out of high school. Want to know why? F em thats why. I hunt for myself and not to brag. (I do brag about my hunting dogs though. Love my pups and will brag about them non-stop if you let me).

I probably have some remnants of influencers left on my social media following list but, I am not sure because I look at them so rarely. The community would be better off if hunting media stopped 'romanticizing' the same few hunts, on repeat, every year. No more dead heads.