At risk of creating a considered reply in a thread that's likely to be more of a (justified) whingefest, I thought it might be worth giving a considered answer to:
what can we do as a caving community to change people's perceptions?
Two things.
- Don't fight bad content.
- Make better content.
Arguing with shockbait just rewards it with attention. Spend that energy elsewhere.
The "elsewhere" is this: break the schema.
Everyone has a mental model of caving.
Tight spaces, stuck people, mud, panic.
Every time we post content that confirms that model, we've lost before anyone's read a word.
So make something incongruent.
The public expects claustrophobia.
Show them scale.
They expect suffering.
Show them laughing.
They expect young, fit blokes.
Show them a 67-year-old woman on a rope looking like she owns the place.
The moment someone thinks "wait, that's caving?" you've got them.
We've been working on this at
The Caving Crew and there's no secret sauce:
- Centre the story around people having a good time. Real quotes, real reactions. The cave is the backdrop.
- Distil useful knowledge into short pieces. One idea, one post.
- Be deliberate about what you don't amplify. I very rarely feature tight spaces or low airspace. Heights? Those work. Someone on a rope in a big shaft looks dramatic. Someone wedged in a crack looks like a rescue.
- Hook first, always. "On Saturday we visited Bagshawe Cavern" loses to almost anything. Start with the moment that made someone laugh or the quote that made you think. You've got two seconds before they scroll past.
Photos of real people having fun do more work than any caption. Post them.
(No matter how good the stal is, unless you're amazing at taking photos, photos without humans are not that interesting - always try to include a caver.)
And honestly,
we're figuring this out too. Some posts land, some don't.
But the direction feels right:
tell stories about caving that aren't the story people expect.
