Are knife guys nicer than gun guys or is it just this forum?

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rlewpolar

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I belong to this forum and a number of gun forums. I keep being struck by how nice and genuine people are here and what total jerks there are on the gun forums. Snarky, sarcastic, juvenile humor, lots of cursing on those forums. The vibe here is almost grandfatherly and well-mannered. I’ve seen a few blow ups here but in general, this forum is a nice oasis of good information and a helpful nice vibe.

For those that frequent both types of forums, do you see the same thing? Is it a cultural difference between the knife and gun world? I assumed the same type of people would frequent both but my experience has not borne this out .
 
rlewpolar said:
I belong to this forum and a number of gun forums. I keep being struck by how nice and genuine people are here and what total jerks there are on the gun forums. Snarky, sarcastic, juvenile humor, lots of cursing on those forums. The vibe here is almost grandfatherly and well-mannered. I’ve seen a few blow ups here but in general, this forum is a nice oasis of good information and a helpful nice vibe.

For those that frequent both types of forums, do you see the same thing? Is it a cultural difference between the knife and gun world? I assumed the same type of people would frequent both but my experience has not borne this out .
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I frequented gun forums in the past. And I stopped because everyone was fighting and bickering all the time. I don't miss it.
 
I’ve men a member here a few years and also a member of a handful of gun forums too. I’ve given up on all of the gun forums but 2. One is a local forum that is really struggling and essentially little more than an online classifieds ad. The other is Rimfire Central which is still great, much like the vibe and personality here. Members from all walks of life, members in the industry and new comers.
 
I think a lot of it is that mall ninja tacticlol stuff is widely ridiculed among knife collectors, whereas guns attract so many of those types of people that they become a significant part of the forum's culture and clog up the threads trying to one-up each other playing operator.

Specifically themed gun forums don't have that problem so much. Ones that are geared towards competition guns, rimfires, muzzle loaders, airguns, and support groups for gun owners in 2A repressive areas are noticeably friendlier.
 
I don't frequent hunting/gun forums anymore but that has been my observation.

I think social media has had a big hand in it, everyone in the hunting world wants to be famous now and with that comes ego and general arrogance. I have found the knife community to be the most friendly and accepting of any I've been in.
 
My $0.02 of opinion:
It's the inverse proportionality between testosterone and age.

As we (or at least I) get older, the impulse to be a chest beating "I'll show you how much better I am than you!!" alpha male pretender/wannabe declines at pretty much the same rate as the face in the mirror ages. When you're young and think of yourself as a hotshot, the visceral rush of things that go bang is strong & seductive. To us old farts, the sigh of an insanely sharp edge separating matter is the siren call. A quote from way back in my memory (Ghandi? Bruce Lee?):
"True power makes no sound."
It doesn't need to announce itself. Its presence is palpable.

As for the tenor of BF, I concur that it's a partnership between the mods & members with courtesy and civility being the code of the road. I've been hanging out here about 23½ years now (had to look it up 😲) and it's always been a pretty cordial corner of the web.
 
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