Remember this: There are now a lot of hunters roaming the countryside blurry and out of focus where before it was crystal clear.
I was doing the rounds looking for something interesting to read. I will say now that I am not anyone's social police. I just read things and write for my enjoyment. You can read or pass, rich or poor, nutty bird or sane-whatever. I can show you some love as long as you don't overstep my boundaries. Boundaries are important. I had to get some.
I found a post on the Outdoor Life blog. Just as soon as I saw it I put my head down and shook it in consternation. It was one of those "I knew this was going to eventually happen" moments but hard headed people who think they are invincible just don't see the hatchet fall for looking at the basket. If one went back and read parts of my blog its like a prophecy almost.
Rewind to 2010. The posting of trophy animal photography was in full swing.
There were several male hunters, female hunters, and people pretending to be the opposite sex to lure people in for blackmail purposes to squash competition, be creepy, or any other unknown nefarious reason. I told these nameless people it wasn't prudent to interact with violent strangers on the internet or even suspiciouos people. Turn them into the FBI I said. I was ignored because an hour later these same individuals were seeking an aggressive audience with mutually aggressive strangers. Just watching the comments made me think, "God what a waste of energy."
I remarked it was not a good idea to leave family pictures on display publically after the hunter intentionally visited sites and antagonized anti-hunting people and vice versa. This was a mutual two way street of battling absolutely nothing tangible with no productive outcome.
I even noticed that a lot of the faceless attackers were rip offs of convict names from public law enforcement sites. How easy to make an online page of a convict then blame your shenanigans on them. Think about it. You're in jail for murder or car-jacking but Betty Sue is using your info to harass Alejandro online for posting a trophy photo. Not saying this is the case all the time but it could happen.
My second thought was if they are hunters why aren't they hunting instead of playing tag-you-are-it on social media. For me it made me not want to hunt because it disgusted me. I stopped looking at such things. My life returned to a normal happy place.
There was one site that all this negative corruption made birth on social media. I told my brother and he was extremely irate. I eventually cut ties from that controversy because it was not worth being dragged into someone else's self created mess only to be pulled down by it. I also had a moment where as an indivdual I said, "This is not me. I am not a follower of bullshit and melodrama. I am a hunter". I sat back and watched these hunters and huntresses get sucked down into a problem they helped create. Now they are crying about it. The Blame Game phantasm begins where anti-hunting spooks haunt them but no one is really there.
At one point it really got rich.
Someone started blaming me for all their problems. I wasn't the one at the computer tapping away at the keyboard. No sir. There is always people who do wrong then try to put the blame on another person so they don't have to face the consequences of their actions. To me this is what it looked like. The person walked into the woods, started a fight with a bear then really thought he or she would walk out without that bear ripping his or her head clean off. When they took this little trip into the mouth of Bear Hell they didn't even go prepared or even think out what would happen next; left all their hunting skills at the edge of the forest and forged ahead into the stupid bliss of controversy and murder threats.
Somewhere in me I feel somewhat sorry for these hunter people. Somewhere......
Then there were the now sensitive huntresses and hunters who saw a anti-hunter hiding in the dark shadows, under rocks, and peeping out from their keyboard. After that came the direct attacks from hunters onto other hunters who had a differing opinion because they were now "secret anti-hunters", "tree hugger", or whatever nice label could be applied. I observed this was also a form of black balling, character attacking, low common dirty pool on the part of hunting competitiors. It always seemed to me the loser was the winner and the followers of the hunter who used character attacks was the losers. At least that hunter or huntress that stood their ground, didn't play dirty pool, and stood for something was the real deal. That's the one that can look themselves in the face in a pool of water and know who they are.
It was kind of comical because you can still see it on feeding streams. The post will go like this:
Poster points virtual finger and declares, "This looks like anti-hunting sentiment". If you say anything to the contrary the virtual finger points right back at you, "You're an anti-hunter" whether it is true or not. They tell all their friends in private messages then you are the black sheep of the family or the hunting world. Baaa. Unfortunately no one asks you if this is true for not wanting to get pulled into the vortex of drama. Better to go with the devil you know.
I had hunters lurking around my private page, passive-aggressively posting things to engage me in battle as another hunter-huntress or pretender. At least if they can get you to argue with them its negative press but press all the same. I was scratching my head, said fuck it, I don't need this; goodbye.
One bad experience I had was friending a 'huntress' but she allowed other male hunters to attack a female hunter on her page then didn't say anything. She advertises she promotes females hunting and encourages it but allows male hunters to beat up on females as long as she's immune. This is how you question a motive by people's true behavior. Instead of breeding friendship or making a new colleague it was better to kick dirt in someone's face along with the men. Every now and again when her pages are not active she throws in the old anti-hunter ploy. Now she dreams of being the Queen of the Hunting Heap. Good luck to you; its lonely at the top because someone is always trying to push you off. As for me, I am riding the dirt roads on my white trash golf cart, carefree as a wild bandicoot.
I have also had this happen to me as well. When you have more than two men jump on one woman in one conversation that is suppose to be taking part in the same sport that female must either be a major threat or one awesome woman.
Yes these are bad experiences but when you know who you are it doesn't matter. All these bad behaviors and mistreatments are not doing anything for interpersonal relationships between hunters or huntresses. It just makes people look mean and self-centered on me, me, me; (all the way home).
I know I am not the only person this has happened to? I have spent the last four years looking for a female hunter to friend but there is none to be had.
Nowhere.......
Now going back to the previous mention of blurry faces. I looked at the image. Outdoor Life blurred out the face as requested. This being a type of defacing of the self by one's own hand no matter the reason. Self-effacing is defined as making your acts inconspicuous. A little late for that. Now you have pressure on hunters to 'remove their face' from trophy photos. The groups against hunting now can pressure the hunters into marring their faces robbing them of media accolades over trophy photos and do it by the hunter's own hand and decision. This would be the first step in wiping it off of social media. The face today, the body, then the whole picture. Gone.
Yet there is still some things Angelia has yet to tell you............
Written by: W Harley Bloodworth
~Courtesy of the AOFH~
