''I'm here''
''I'm just....''
''Hiding"
''From what?'' you ask?
''Hey, check out this cool Lars Andersen video!''
''Have you seen this last Andersen Video?''
''Check out this cool archery video!''
''Did you Lars' video?''
''Lars, Lars LARS ANDERSEN, Lars, Lars!
Yes, I've seen it.
Now, quite a few people have been waiting for my response to the recent viral Lars Andersen video.
And, I'll do that a different time.
This annoyance has more to do with viral videos in general.
Lars Andersen is the big one at the moment.
In the span of a week, his video on a new level of archery, has reached over 23 million views,
Which is more than every archery video combined.
There's an obvious appeal to archers and non-archers alike, and it's attracted a lot of attention on social media.
Lars' isn't the only viral archery video, there are others.
Remember a number of months ago, DudePerfect made a video, a montage of rediculous trick shots,
which was pretty cool.
And there are older videos, which make a round sometimes on social media.
So, you might see Byron Ferguson pop up now and then.
that Korean archer shooting an arrow in an arrow,
there are various speedshooters and so on
Without saying anything about these videos,
the effect of an archery video going viral is, is familiar to anyone who is on the internet.
I'm willing to bet, when you're an archer and you're watching this, at least on person,
or ten,
have asked you about Lars Andersen.
It doesn't matter what kind of archery you do,
you're suddenly on the spot for being a spokesperson or a critic of Lars Andersen.
It's everywhere!
It was posted several times on Reddit over the past few weeks,
along with numerous other blog posts and respones
It's popped up in my comments on my channel,
there are numerous posts on my official Facebook page...
from people who think I've never seen it before,
and even my personal Facebook profile has been flooded with my friends going ''hey, hey, archer dude, have you seen this?
Look, it will keep on happening, you know, for a long time.
People rediscover it,
They'll post it back to you and ask if you've seen it before
It's not the first time it's happened, also not the last time it's happened,
and it'll keep popping up sporadically the next few years.
There's something about archery which makes you a magnet for all archery-related media.
I'm not just talking about viral videos but also talking about things like movies, and TV shows.
But movies can be dismissed as Hollywood tricks and camera angles.
But when you see real people doing real shots,
people start asking ''can you do it as well?''
Trickshooting with guns doesn't get anywhere near the same amount of shock and awe,
and i'm fairly sure that most firearm owners don't get flooded with all these trick gunshots.
It's a fairly normal thing now.
But there's another horrifying thing that I'm not really looking forward to, and...
as an instructor, I'm probably going to get asked...
thousands of times about Lars Andersen.
Now, I get a lot of questions about archery myths and Lord Of The Rings,
and Arrow and so on.
But the sheer popularity of this particular video,
is probably going to influence a lot of people, and give them
a preconceived notion of what archery is and isn't,
before they even do archery.
Unfortunately, these people may be disappointed when they go to an archery course,
they find out that it's not the same kind of archery that Lars Andersen does.
And unfortunately, by extension, some people may come out with a negative view of archery.
They might think target archery is slow, and boring,
and they want that very fast-paced thrill of doing parkour and trick shots like Lars Andersen.
Disregarding, of course, that sort of thing takes years of training and no small amout of skill, talent and dedication.
And hopefully, this isn't the case.
There are so many different styles of archery,
that there's no one style that's better than the rest.
If you're watching this after having come from Lars,
that sort of thing is great!
It's exceptional, and unlikely that anyone will match that level of skill that Lars Andersen has.
But it's also not representative archery as a whole.
It's not reasonable to compare that kind of archery,
with competitive target archery for example, or any other kind of archery.
On a side note, it's also kind of unfortunate that Lars' video coincided with the indoor world championship,
on which the Dutch shooter Mike Schloesser scored a perfect 600 round, which is...
the pinnacle of focus and perfection in compound archery.
But that's the way it goes. Most people will know about Lars, not many people know about Mike Schloesser.
Now okay, I'm not bagging Lars, I think his video was great, I'll post a response a different time,
but I think it was great entertainment, and that sort of thing is fine!
People should be doing archery and archery videos
The point is that a lot of the viral videos which are shared around,
are probably more interesting for people who don't do archery.
I get the impression that most archers find this kind of thing obnoxious.
Do you agree?
Post your thoughts below.
This is NUSensei, bringing you another archery annoyance.