You’ve probably noticed (but most likely not) that we’ve rather slowed down on social media posting this year (as well as the Bearsoft and Bearsoft Tactical socials), and that has been mostly on purpose. While social media has historically been good for keeping up to date with friends and family, it’s not exactly the most airsoft-friendly platform.
And as we all know, it’s not even really good to keep up to date with friends and family these days. Currently doomscrolling and looking at post times. 13h. 4h. 5d. 2d. 5m. Zero rhyme or reason to the order of things.
This won’t be a political rant about First and Second amendment crap. This will, however, be more of an exploration, a stream of consciousness, ramble of word vomit until we can make some semblance of a point.
The airsoft community in Northern Maine is tiny. We get that; the population of Northern Maine is tiny – and really spread out. Northern Maine also has some of the most extreme weather patterns, as evidenced by the month of November. We’ve gone from snow and temperatures holding in the teens, to rain and temperatures in the mid 30s to 40s. Spring/summer/fall is no different… take your pick: grind all day in the rain, or in 90+ degrees, or 40- degrees. It’s a thing.
Because the airsoft community up here is still growing, most of the players are more casual about it. One AEG, one set of camo, one set of gear. But to be clear: there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Unlike your friendly neighborhood field owner, they don’t eat, breathe, live airsoft. They show up, sling some plastic, then go home and get on with their lives until they get the itch to play again. But to be clear: there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. At all.
Building and embracing a fledgling airsoft community has been stressful. But hey, we have only finished our second year of operation, and we’re honestly too bloody-minded to quit.
Years ago, Belgian airsofter Verage saw a hole in the global airsoft community that needed to be filled. That began his work on Airsoft United, which he worked more towards creating a global “database” of airsofters, venues, events, and the like. As the project gained traction and momentum, he was contacted by a group out of Ukraine who had been working on the same thing: Airsofter World, which had a touch of social media added to their platform. AU and AW talked at length about their respective platforms, which culminated in the AW Ukrainians taking a road trip to Belgium for a serious sit-down discussion with Verage and AU. The result of that meeting: Airsoft United and Airsofter World joined forces.
Almost immediately after the merger, Ukraine was invaded, but that has not deterred the AW guys from working on the new merged platform. They defend their country during the day, then go work on the site at night. Needless to say, updates and bug fixes haven’t been able to be tended quickly, but they are being tended. Now we need more airsofters to sign up and really put this thing through its paces. And that’s where you come in.
Just know that yes, there are ads on the site (but no annoying popups), and yes, most of those ads are still in Ukrainian. One of the items on the “punchlist” is to make the ads more geographically relevant (ie. US users would only see US-based ads, UK members would only see UK-based ads, etc.), so no worries – this is a work in progress.
Give it a shot! SAASMaine has a profile, Bearsoft has a profile, Morsel and One-eye have profiles. You can even post photos of your replicas without having to have “THIS IS A TOY” or “NOT A REAL GUN” disclaimer! Blogs, videos, groups, teams.. this site is custom made for all things airsoft.
After you get all signed up, you can add the “I’m on Airsofter World” image on this post to anything you’d like. Click on the thumbnail for the full-sized PNG, right click and “Save image as…”.
We hope everyone had a good Turkey Day and trust you’re all recovered from your food comas.
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