[iix FRITZ]

What do you guys think the general public thinks of our sport? Violent? Cool? Stupid?

[PineappleNoS]

Depends to who you talk about.

A lot of publicity used to be on the news of people shooting up places with paintball guns, now I actually see a lot of things online and sometimes on television advertising paintball as a team building event and "fun for all ages" birthday party sort of thing.

So in the end it depends on what and how the person takes all that information in and registers it.

[Pump Scout]

I tend to find, for the most part, the non-playing general public doesn't think about us at all. Most people who aren't involved in paintball don't have any idea what we do, and don't bother to find out. The only time that changes is when/if they're directly impacted or affected by something paintball related.

[VESIUS]

The two main things I hear people say when talking about paintball are: It's too expensive or it's dangerous when infact it's probably one of the safest sports as long as you're smart about things.

[ELuSiVe1151]

There general public doesn't really have a problem with it my experience, as times have changed and a lot of people around here know enough about it top find it at least kinda cool.

Then there is the art school i went to. Its bad enough the Rutgers strident body at large barely knew we existed, because at least they were supportive when they learned a bit about it. But i went to school with a bunch of hipsters who didn't care about ANYTHING. Cookie cutter hippies with a superiority complex who could give two ****s about current events to begin with, let alone paintball. It was really nerve-wracking.

[ELuSiVe1151]

Please excuse my shoddy spelling. Autocorrect sucks.

[Fubarius]

It does seem like paintball has become a fairly universally known concept. You tell someone you're "going paintballing" they have a fairly good idea of what you're doing.

Though all the little variations we've come up with to try and be more "legitimate" may be in fact backfiring a bit. Take this article for example...
http://www.gundigest.com/gun-collect...paintball-guns

The key quote being...

"There is an interesting development happening in the gun world and it resembles what has occurred in other shooting sports: a move back to the retro. In the sport of paintball, there is a movement that is shying away from the newly developed rapid-fire, high-tech paintball guns. These weapons throw out an enormous amount of paint downrange and have changed the sport for better or worse. There is Speedball where combatants shoot at each other in a McDonald’s playland-like field of inflatable bunkers so the players don’t get a boo-boo. And there is Woodsball where the players, as the name suggests, blast away at each other in the woods."

[ElJefe13]

If any of you have seen, there is a TV show called Community where in both the 1st and 2nd seasons they had paintball episodes. I thought it was hilarious, but it did perpetuate a lot of bad stereotypes. For example, one of the guys says, "I play paintball three times a week bro. I'm even one of those douchebags that bring in their one equipment."

Basically called this whole website douchebags.

[venarius]

Originally Posted by Pump Scout

I tend to find, for the most part, the non-playing general public doesn't think about us at all.

+1

There is Speedball where combatants shoot at each other in a McDonald’s playland-like field of inflatable bunkers so the players don’t get a boo-boo.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Hey Speedballers, would you like fry's with that?

[SNAKESNIPER (Banned)]

I find most of the non-playing laymen tend to associate paintball with the milsim guys who play at being "real soldiers" and carry realistic looking markers that look like ARs.

Say what you want about speedball, no one's going to call the cops on us if we take a space dildo out of our bag in public. A guy rolling around with a realistic looking weapon? That's another story.