Social Media for Airsoft: The peaceful majority is irrelevant
This rant/thought is inspired by the panel discussion that was held during 2018’s Airsoft Meetup with the events that have happened until today.
So this shooting took place close to what is one of the biggest social media platforms in the world (Youtube for you who don’t follow the news). My best guess is that someone was angry because of a redo of rules and algorithms Youtube had and destroyed things this person probably been working on for years (and I believe that she wasn’t the only one effected). But we’re certain that things got violent.
That’s one person way to fame at least, even if it was her last. And now there will most probably be even more crackdown on everything gun related. And for good reason now, if someone went out of their way to harm others there is no reason to keep anything of that on the platform. Because the peaceful majority are irrelevant and if that’s an outcome for some changes, then you probably don’t want to risk it any more in the future.
So let’s take this as a kick in the balls because even if we are very calm and collected and don’t lash out with comments about shooting anyone. Yea you know that someone has already.
That’s what we get for trying to be so close to the firearms industry even if they do not want that much to do with us. Airsofters get represented by the gun community and when it reflects bad there it comes to us. We are also represented by idiots in the local community who get a hold of airsoft replicas and do dumb shit, yea that means the <insert low age here> year old who brings it to school also represents the hobby/sport on behalf of us, even if we don’t want it. In Sweden we have a law that no one under the age of 18 are allowed to have airsoft in their position (without an adult that is an arms length etc etc.). Still today there are still coming in “reports” of kids bringing them to school.
Latest one i heard from a forum is that 2 kids that are very young put on hoods they made for a movie they wanted to do and held their airsoftguns in their hands, in front of a class of six year olds. Teachers were rushing away with the kids and the 2 youngsters ran after trying to explain that it was all fake. This was a closed incident, but when this gets to the parents guess what. They are representatives of the airsoft community because of what they had in their hands.
So we would think that then we need to shine a light that we are good people! The majority of us are good! Aaaaaand then we have youtubers, instagramers and other fuck faces that put up click bait titles about cheaters, the patch kid or to “destroy the opposition” just for a big boost in views on platforms that aren’t exclusively for us airsofters. Who is watching? The majority of people that have nothing to do with the hobby and only want to see the conflict. It seems like we have this need to be seen of randoms everywhere even though they are not in this hobby.
I knew we were to much in the spotlight when i saw Novritsch on Lad Bible on Facebook with a compilation of people getting shot by him. How i knew except the view count? I got tagged by 5 of my friends that are not in the hobby at different places with the same video. Fucking great now everyone want’s to be a sniper the first thing they do in the sport, shooting people in the face because that’s what gives you points in games!! There must’ve been an incident outside of the fields after that and if there wasn’t i think it was just luck. Now I don’t blame Christoph, he did things to become famous and a poster boy which he succeeded with very well. But that is the only thing he’ll ever be. No, he did not “design” the SSG24, it’s a Modify Tech MOD24X with a CNC hop arm and minus a ball bearing spring guide. The gun was already done and ready to go into production but stopped and now not allowed to be sold outside of Taiwan unless posterboys name is on it.
When i started playing it was a very small community where respect was the foundation on getting to play. Don’t shoot someone on an area where you yourself wouldn’t want to get shot. That’s the rule I’ve followed since that day taking into careful consideration on who I hit and where they get hit. Today it’s a material sport where ROF and who can hit who hardest is the winner in this hobby of losers. Because back then the minimum engagement was more a rule to be followed for unknown circumstances, I.E. if you can hit someone in their vest from 5 meters with you rifle it didn’t matter if it was a 130 mps gun because people trusted each other. The only time these rules were strict was if it was a CQB only arena or the risk of new people were joining
It was until about 2010 i started playing on only invite games with teams i knew still held the corner stones of the old foundation on which I was brought up on, because i knew even if I “lost” it was going to be a really great day. And I still see today among players that there are the willingness to still play via those old conditions, but respect is no longer a factor you can count on anymore.
If there was something I could do is to make an other platform that combines everything and shifts focus from what is “cool from games” to the respectfulness of the systems and each other. Because we are getting kicked out from all the platforms, it’s a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’.
We are the peaceful majority and we are irrelevant.
About the Author
Senchoo Started airsoft back in 2005. Now mostly working a day job and getting into the details of gear, optics and NVG.
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