We Believe the Children Are Our Future
That is what Whitney Houston sang in 1985 at least, and it is hard to deny that she had a point. It still rings true today.
But hand in hand with the children, and in the hands of children, you have to talk about smartphones. And what is on smartphones? Social Media apps. We have to consider social media when discussing children--the future of hunting.
I think you can see the dots being connected. If hunting isn’t in those social media apps. There won’t be a lot of children in hunting.
So, we need social media stars in hunting for hunting to continue in some fashion in the future, although maybe not the fashion we experience now.
Funny
Ducks Unlimited wrote a funny piece about the Cast of Characters you will come across in duck blinds around the world, from the Old Timer to the Newbie, Gear Hound, et al.
And, of course, the Social Media Star. Ducks Unlimited took swipes at us--social media hunters, as it should. We are just as hung up on our particular hunting niche as The Foodie and The Dog Whisperer.
But Not So Funny...When you Consider the Future of Hunting
Then Ducks Unlimted, like some of us when we get on a roll, went too far. It said
Please don’t click “follow.” That will just encourage him.
EXCUSE ME? You might as well have said STOP DONATING TO DUCKS UNLIMITED!!!
For an organization that is so concerned about the future of waterfowl habitat and waterfowl hunting, you’d think that they’d see the connection between
the future of hunting
the younger generation
the younger generation’s interest in social media, and
by extension, the absolute necessity for a presence of quality hunting personalities on social media platforms.
The Old Timer
I’ll paraphrase an article I read in the American Rifleman a long while ago here.
When the old timer went to school it was with a stack of books tucked under one arm and a Model 12, if not Model 97, in the other. He’d put the gun in his coat closet at school and on the way home, he’d shoot a rabbit, or squirrel, or two, and that’d be dinner.
Nowadays, if a kid brought a Browning Citori to school, mom would have to convince the SWAT team that, no, he isn’t actually a terrorist, he was born in the wrong century.
But, on the bus ride home, a kid can pull out his iPhone and watch Randy Newberg take down a Montana 6x6 bull elk and dream of next August when he can’t crawl the mountains of Colorado and tag a Colorado elk for himself.
Randy Newberg currently has over 217,000 subscribers on YouTube.
The Future
This is how the future of duck hunting and waterfowl habitat will be sustained. By social media rock stars that keep the dream of crawling into a duck blind alive in the children today as they scroll their social media feeds.
Now go watch videos on my YouTube channel and like them!
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