Death Threats, Vitriol Aimed at Michigan Boy Who Bagged Rare Deer

Jordan Browne, one of the hosts of Michigan Out-of-Doors Television, knew the story of 11-year-old Gavin Dingman’s feat in the woods – he bagged a rare 12-point albino buck with a crossbow – would blow up the moment he posted it.

A seasoned outdoorsman and journalist who is acting at the Dingman family’s spokesman, Browne also knew comments would turn more vicious the farther outside of Michigan readers lived. But in an age of social media, the post reached more people than even he imagined, circulating around the globe.

“I was surprised mainly by the personal attacks on an 11-year-old kid they have no association with. When you look at his picture, he looks like the sweetest kid,” Browne told Patch.

Mick Dingman, whose son bagged the rare deer on a father-and-son hunting trip earlier this week, told Outdoor Hub the family’s celebration has turned into an unimaginable nightmare, punctuated by “death threats and everything else that you can imagine.”

Those threats and the ferocity of the debate about the actions of the boy and his family underscore the power of social and digital media to expose discrete cultural practices to a wider world with a potentially very different set of norms. What had been a semi-private, joyous event — a coming-of-age moment in many parts of the country — has devolved in some corners of the web to unsettling invective in some cases, pure abuse in others. The child in question, after all, is only 11.

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Photo: Out-of-Doors Television Facebook page