Paintball Influencers

[bellicose]

The influencer that influenced me the most is Mike Cassidy...

[ATBen]

If you're talking paintball influencer as in a marketing tool, then they're all doing a piss poor job imo. It's one thing to bring videos of awesome events to the eyes of non paintball players, but it's another to say that Influencer A's content brought X amount of new customers to X field or event.

Since the days of (2007ish?) that Tiger costume guy guy, Mike Phillips, Wolf, Greg Red Hastings, through to Cat Shack, Alabaster Slim, and Hidden Hedgehog, up to Nightmare PB Scotty from WillBallForSoup and this newest crop of e-celebs, paintball as a hobby/sport/activity has contracted: in numbers, revenue, and independent companies.

In terms of product or industry influences, I think we're seeing the tide receed away from the big box store model of the cheap Brass Eagle and GI days. I've noticed over the last 5 years there seems to be an uptick in smaller companies filling the niches of what regular paintballers are asking for: Exalt, Undr, Crbn, Inception Designs, Gatormaille, and the slew of 3D printers making some pretty cool and goofy stuff. They're not big enough to take on the 2 powerhouses, yet they've found a place to grow in making what the big guys aren't interested in.

Podcasts are another thing, some of them are killing it like Play the Game and BTB, while others start up and disappear so fast no one knows they were even a thing (the Splatt is done, right?)

[bellicose]

Forgot all about Greg Hastings. Nice guy, met him a couple times at Super Game. So much shorter than I thought in person.

[DocsMachine]

Since it was brought up, no, I am absolutely not an "influencer" in any way, shape, or form.

I don't do equipment reviews, I don't tour paintball fields, I know little about tournament news, and for that matter, don't honestly care much for the latest and greatest marker releases.

Don't get me wrong, I love some of the technology coming out, and would have killed and helped hide the body for something like a CS-1 back in the day, but I'm still very much the old-school airsmith. I'm not looking to get that last 0.5% more gas efficiency, or shave another two grams off the weight- I just want to make cool markers that are fun to own and shoot.

Besides, Alaska is not exactly the cutting edge of paintball, y'know?

As for an "influencer", I'd always taken that to mean a person who was basically a paid shill. The company pays that person to "review" a product, and at least for our sport, that's like the old APG magazine. Which, for those that never had the pleasure, never once met a product it didn't like. APG was, like all magazines, dependent on advertiser dollars- and Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill Of An Advertiser's Product.

I remember the review of a Brass Eagle Talon- an utter hunk-of-s**t 12-gram pump gun. The article should have said "you're a moron if you buy one of these", but actually described the gun in glowing terms, how it was light, capable, an excellent backup gun, etc.

And that's how I take anything an 'influencer' says these days- they were, one way or another, paid to tell you how awesome that thing is, so that opinion isn't worth the bandwidth it cost to watch it.

Doc.

[Olsson]

As for an "influencer", I'd always taken that to mean a person who was basically a paid shill.

Very much on point. As I stated earlier, in my mind, an influencer doesn't contribute with anything new, personal or original, to whatever field they are catering to. As far as I know, the very concept of influencers was invented/developed when regular commercials was perceived to not reach the audience as much any longer, due to - well, the fact that it was being perceived as advertizing by the general population.

So having influencers appearing like they were all personal about whatever items they were using in their everyday life, hobbies etc, was implemented to again reach the audience with advertizing basically. So yeah - "paid shills" is probably the best explanation there is as to what an influencer is.

Personally I think there is a vast difference between an influencer and a contributor. Those two shouldn't be conflated.

[DocsMachine]

If the person is being paid to try the thing out and report on it- or even just getting paid through something like YouTube traffic- whatever they report on the thing is pretty much automatically biased. No one making a couple thousand a month or more with their site/page/channel is going to risk that gravy train, and at the same time, anyone with a product they want to push is not going to send it to someone who gives anything less than a heavily positive, glowing review.

That was APG's problem. Smart Parts, for example, in some issues had eight, ten or even a dozen full-page ads for whatever was their newest product that week. No reviewer working for that book would dare give anything less than a "Stunning! Two thumbs up! Five Stars!" review to any of their products.

The only review I'd trust would be from somebody who bought the thing with his or her own money, had had a chance to put it through proper paces (IE, if it's a marker, not just shooting trees in the backyard) and had enough experience and technical knowhow to be able to speak with some authority on things like velocity consistency, trigger feel, ergonomics in general, serviceability, and so on.


AND... is willing to call a spade a spade. Poorly designed detents? Locking feedneck that loosens up? ASA that doesn't fit some tanks? Let the viewer know.

That's the kind of thing I'd be interested in. (Not really all that interested in tourney results and other sports gossip- but that's just me.

Doc.

[k_obeastly]

That was APG's problem. Smart Parts, for example, in some issues had eight, ten or even a dozen full-page ads for whatever was their newest product that week. No reviewer working for that book would dare give anything less than a "Stunning! Two thumbs up! Five Stars!" review to any of their products.

.

While they called them reviews, they really only had featured products.
My big gripe with them was advertising to content ratio. I work in printing, and I can get free printing industry magazines (you can too if you just look for them) that are completely paid for by the advertisers. The advertising to content ratio of APG was about the same as a magazine I could get for free and APG still charged money for theirs. APG was like paying for TV channel and still getting commercials.

[MrBarraclough]

APG was also the only paintball magazine that allowed prices to be quoted in the ads, for whatever reason. I've never quite understood why the others wouldn't allow that. But it was relevant to APG's value to the reader back in the 90s, as it was effectively a mail order catalog. Some full or even multi-page ads were mostly just price lists with a few pictures or illustrations. As a teenager getting started in the sport, I read APG for the ads almost as much as the articles. Before e-commerce was widespread (and trusted/accepted by customers), ads with prices and 1-800 numbers were how you bought paintball gear when you lived 100+ miles from the nearest proshop.

[THE SHOOTIST]

AND... is willing to call a spade a spade.

Doc.

I did this once. An honest review of a gun that disassembled itself during normal use. I called a spade a spade. The manufacturer never forgave me and talked $h1t about me for years.

[Siress]

Which gun was that?

[THE SHOOTIST]

Siress-It was the "Top Gun".

[zinger565]

AND... is willing to call a spade a spade. Poorly designed detents? Locking feedneck that loosens up? ASA that doesn't fit some tanks? Let the viewer know.

I'm trying to get better at this. It's hard when I'm excited about something new, but necessary, especially with smalller companies of an unknown quantity (looking at you RMac).

[Siress]

The Rmac should have better indication of where the regulator adjustment. Imagine the poor teenage field tech trying to Chrono that thing at fiels where the ref has to do it for whatever reason.

Boy, have we digressed.

Influenza. No, influencers. A professional influencer is a paid shill. A happenstance influencer is just a natural leader of some sort of another. Advertisers are the bean counters for that topic, so ask them if you really want the best available answer.

[zinger565]

I have several gripes with the RMac that are going in my full write-up in the review section. In short, awesome marker poorly executed and over-priced.

[OpusX]

If you want to be an "influencer", go to the local field and be a genuinely nice and honest person for the sport. Tech up some stuff for people, chat about things you honestly know about, don't tolerate d-bags, say "good game" to people after, etc etc....you know like MCB people do.

[zinger565]

Bingo.

Short story, but last week we were playing indoors. It us regulars (mostly tourney players) and 3 rentals shooting emeks (actually the RMac barrel cam night), and by the end of the night the 3 kids were asking the field manager about working there when they turned 16, how to get into regular playing, etc etc. Made me happy that they had a good enough night to really want to get into it. Saw a couple of them last night again. They're learning bunker callouts, how to communicate. I know playing with those of us who play tourney ball can be intimidating, but I know some of the guys make a concerted effort to make it a good time for all.

[glaman5266]

If by influencers we are talking about social media personalities on Youtube/whatever, then there is one I've been watching lately- Punishers Paintball. https://www.youtube.com/c/PunishersPaintball/featured
They don't have a lot of subscribers & their production value isn't super high (not like PBRML or Lone Wolf, anyway) but they seem more natural in their presentation & humor. I stumbled across them when I was looking for a particular loader speed test. I like them well enough to watch on occasion.

PBRML is good, but not great. He's good for gear reviews & general information, especially for newer players. But lately some of his thoughts make me raise an eyebrow, like he doesn't know what he's talking about on a specific thing. I dunno. Might just be because I've played for so many years now & know stuff. 🤷♂️

[cfos00]

If that's the youtube for the store, I am all for Punishers. They have awesome customer service.

[glaman5266]

cfos00 They have a store & do product reviews & comparisons. Judging by how varied their opinions are, I think they tend to be more honest when reviewing & comparing products.

[Cunha]

I usually find paintball ruined my life to have videos that at the very least show several different camera angles of new paintball objects. mostly masks.

I don't really like videos much, they take too much time for not enough information. They're an inferior format for the most part. Bla bla bla bla...

[Cdn_Cuda]

I have the same view on videos. Too long, can't easily jump to what you want.. The articles from PRML are just crap sadly, but I do like the guy and his videos.

[12GramTalon]

You take that back!

Since it was brought up, no, I am absolutely not an "influencer" in any way, shape, or form.

I don't do equipment reviews, I don't tour paintball fields, I know little about tournament news, and for that matter, don't honestly care much for the latest and greatest marker releases.

Don't get me wrong, I love some of the technology coming out, and would have killed and helped hide the body for something like a CS-1 back in the day, but I'm still very much the old-school airsmith. I'm not looking to get that last 0.5% more gas efficiency, or shave another two grams off the weight- I just want to make cool markers that are fun to own and shoot.

Besides, Alaska is not exactly the cutting edge of paintball, y'know?

As for an "influencer", I'd always taken that to mean a person who was basically a paid shill. The company pays that person to "review" a product, and at least for our sport, that's like the old APG magazine. Which, for those that never had the pleasure, never once met a product it didn't like. APG was, like all magazines, dependent on advertiser dollars- and Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill Of An Advertiser's Product.

I remember the review of a Brass Eagle Talon- an utter hunk-of-s**t 12-gram pump gun. The article should have said "you're a moron if you buy one of these", but actually described the gun in glowing terms, how it was light, capable, an excellent backup gun, etc.

And that's how I take anything an 'influencer' says these days- they were, one way or another, paid to tell you how awesome that thing is, so that opinion isn't worth the bandwidth it cost to watch it.

Doc.

[jokers]

So that is what it takes to get you to post make fun of the Talon.

[12GramTalon]

Some wrongs must be righted.

Seriously though I mostly joined here to lurk and learn, I want to get into stock or at most modified and this seemed like the place to be.

My first marker was a dark grey Brass Eagle Talon, it worked alright until the pump arm snapped off. I went through a couple before stepping up to a Stingray.

[Siress]

Welcome aboard, 12GramTalon

[Jonnydread]

I watch ChuckLove 's videos, does that count? Also Diomedes had some great stuff too.

[maninblack2k]

I would agree on the PBRML channel. It's good for the most part. I do subscribe to Willballforsoup for entertainment value. ANSGear and Lone Wolf just sell stuff. It's nice to see product XYZ but most everything is here's a new color of XYZ. There is a review guy I like that I don't think was mentioned. He's older and honest and just seems to really love paintball. I think his names Greg. The channel escapes my mind ATM.