Ugly Paintball

Awhile back, I was cruising the net for my daily dose of looking up paintball stuff and came across a couple of sites announcing that paintball had hit Prime Time Television.  What they were referencing was an episode of NBC’s hit comedy show “Community” (Season 1, Episode 23, “Modern Warfare”).  The show—which stars Chevy Chase and Joel McHale among others—is about the staff of a community college.  In this particular episode, the gang decided to use a campus-wide game of paintball to decide a prize of early registration.

There was of course no product placement of big-name paintball company gear and equipment—everything was generic-looking.  Paint was shot in a rainbow of colors.  No one was wearing actual paintball gear, and only a few participants were wearing makeshift eye covering—no full masks.  Having been shot in the eye, one victim wearing glasses had the classic paint splat covering one of his lenses.  And, most of the “combat” was done inside hallways and classrooms, so it was very short distance shooting.  I’m sure anyone who’s reading this might chuckle a bit while watching the episode, but know that it was a very inaccurate depiction.

After sharing the news of this episode with some paintball friends on a forum, one of them went off on a tangent blasting NBC and the writers for doing such a thing.  He went on and on about how this was the reason why the sport isn’t as popular as it should be, because of the way they portrayed the sport.  At first I thought he was overreacting just a bit—after all, this was a sitcom TV. show—a parody.  After thinking more about it, though, I realized he was probably right.

Imagine yourself as someone who has never played paintball before and doesn’t know much about it.  By observing actual game footage and comical renditions, paintball appears to be a manhunt with guns loaded with balls of paint that explode on contact on their target.  That seems like it might be fun, right?  If you do a little more looking into it, though, you will find thousands of pictures and videos online of people showing off their bruises, welts, and occasional bleeding.  Heck, the last time I played, the field owner whipped out his cell phone to show us a recent injury he witnessed of a nasty blood-dripping calf shot someone got after getting hit at way-too-close range.

Blood and gore is a shock and awe tactic used in many things to get attention.  It happens in big budget movies, it happens on the evening news.  It’s even used in promoting political agendas.  There is such a thing as good attention and bad attention though, and injury—mostly caused by abuse–is the villain of paintball.

I was reading another series of articles the other day, too, about a different kind of abuse in airsoft.  I found several blogs commenting on a couple of stories floating around about injury and possible death due to two separate incidents—one involving manipulating a toy gun into functionality by using airsoft parts, and the other about all-too realistic prop tourniquets floating around and being mistaken for real ones in dire situations.

Stupid people do stupid things—we all know that.  And, sometimes stupidity happens without intent.  Were the writers and producers of that “Community” episode promoting paintball, disgracing paintball, or just happened to be using paintball?  The alleged toy gun-gone live—was that malicious intent or just tinkering around?  The tourniquets—were they for hardcore “art imitates life” reenactment, or a dirty trick?  Unless the actual truth is known, everything is open for interpretation.

I wonder if one day each paintball marker will be equipped with a sticker actually on it with a safety disclaimer.  I could imagine an over-the-top print on individual paintballs stating short and sweet “May Cause Injury”.  (Hey, they have it on coffee cups—is it really that far-fetched?)

We can’t hide the ugly side of paintball.  Accidents happen occasionally even when following directions to a tea.  And we can’t wipe abusers of anything off the face of the earth.  That’s just how it goes.  So what can we do?  Keep on truckin’ I guess.  Continue with promoting the positive side of the industry.  Maybe not brag so much about the awesome, sick welts we get sometimes.  I’ve had some doozies and shown them to a few people first-hand, but I’d rather not leave the impression that a mark on my body was the best thing that happened on a game day.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is one of life’s lessons people have to learn.  If one is smart, they become informed before making a rash judgment.  Think of it like the latest and greatest laundry detergent.  Weigh things like convenience and cost, then try it out before you decide to praise it or nix it.  Nothing is perfect and if you look hard enough at it with the wrong attitude, everything is ugly in a way.

By Richelle Shattell