Monday Poll in Review

That's right. The title means there is no new The Monday Poll this week 'cus it's a short week what with the PSP Chicago event this coming weekend. I could have done the routine who's gonna win poll but it would be cut off early and frankly I couldn't be bothered.
Last week's poll was about the current glut of fast, action-filled paintball clip videos with copycat sound tracks. As I mentioned the first time around I'm not a big fan because the clips lose meaning disconnected from the game and there's only so many times a person with a 3-digit IQ can watch somebody run & shoot a marker or dive into a bunker before the eyes glaze over and the urge to end it all becomes nearly overwhelming--or perhaps I'm exaggerating, slightly. Anyone the poll was aimed at discovering what y'all think of paintball videos in general and, truth be told, how irate some of you might get in defending them. As it turns out most of the makers of paintball videos either don't read VFTD, can't read VFTD or agree with me. Who'da thunk it?
Of the eight options given 5 were positively oriented towards the videos and 3 were less so. None of the 5 positive choices reached double digits in percentage chosen. 'Fun to watch' managed 6%. 'I buy the latest retail videos' fell flat at 4% as did considering the videos 'living history' of competitive paintball. As 'a great way to draw in new players' 8% thought the current videos did that and 7% consider them 'valuable promotions' for the industry. On the flip side all 3 negative options garnered double digit percentages as 14% considered  the efforts generally a collective 'circle jerk.' Less unkindly 38% said they were all 'too much of the same thing' and perhaps more importantly 17% said they 'used to buy paintball videos but don't anymore.'
One of the interesting questions that came up in the comments was whether this short attention span style of video was really popular at all--and if it was did that popularity foster the style or did the style simply find its own (albeit limited) audience? I don't think that a question The Monday Poll can answer but I do think, even if we assume the VFTD audience skews somewhat older than the typical competitive baller that the very strong negative numbers could suggest the current video trend has alienated some of the competitive paintball base audience and the difference between those who buy videos now and those who used to is a very stark contrast. Maybe something to think about for those filmmakers seriously interested in both connecting with a particular audience and those who really have something to say.