Darts Advice on the Internet: What Should You Look For?

Getting darts advice and any information in general used to be more straightforward than it is today. Since the internet that paradigm has changed. When it comes to the internet, I have a motto I live by: It is a tool, not a toy. If used properly, it is a wonderful resource. Used improperly it opens you up to a world of issues.

You wouldn’t use a plunger to hammer a nail, and good luck unclogging a toilet with a hammer. Tool usage used to be more definable out of the box. The challenge with the internet is that the tool is multipurpose, and we really don’t know how to use it properly — especially when sourcing darts advice.

It is a technological Swiss army knife, but with the greater challenge of having infinite variables to presumably solve infinite problems. It is never-ending. It is not a book with a front and back cover; it stretches to infinity. As a result we don’t know when to stop looking for something. The real kicker is, some of it was built to affect your brain to keep you “using” it — that is also know as addiction.

We think we know what we want, but the truth is, we often don’t. We look for answers to questions prematurely before the questions are fully formed. So we “search”, sometimes aimlessly, hoping for a moment of clarity. In the event that we have a specific question (darts advice or not) that can be articulated well, we ask it of the masses (social media).

Currently, there are many users putting out content simply because it is easier for most people to do now. There is legitimately helpful content, but a lot of it is click-baity, meme-centric, gif-generating drivel. You can type "Darts Advice" into Youtube and the scroll goes downward into infinity with short videos. There is good content, but how are you to sort for it? The amount of time you take sifting through it, defeats what you were willing to do in the first place: avoiding spending time.

The funny thing is these darts advice videos all have thousands of views, and yet the world is not yet brimming with thousands of rockstar darts players. It is primal to follow the masses. There is "safety" in numbers. But the masses aren't great at darts nor giving darts advice. If content is fast and cheap, how quality could it be to consume? And are we even digesting it? Many social psychology studies have pointed towards processing the printed word more deeply than digital content.

And when you pay attention you are paying with time. You might not be spending money, but you may be wasting our most precious commodity.

Now I ask you: Are you that starved for fast and cheap darts advice that you will spend too much time what ANYONE throws out into the ether?

1. It was one of a multitude of darts advice questions that is asked and answered all too often.
2. My comment will likely get lost in a post that receives hundreds of comments from the world (that have nothing to do with the actual question).
3. I don’t want my comment grouped with a bunch of comments I cannot get behind. And, most importantly:
4. I don’t want how I distill darts advice information to be devalued. It is already free to you, but my time and effort have value. When I do choose to weigh in on a question, I am usually sharing an article that is here on A-Z Darts.

There are a handful of other thoughtful, articulate, caring people in the global community who do what I do, and though we may differ in approach or philosophy, the one thing we have in common is that we are passionate about taking the time to communicate the lessons in an intelligible way.

Short of knowing household names doing guided work like this, you do need to be careful where you choose to spend your time and/or money on the internet searching for darts advice answers.

Let the buyer beware. You need to be informed on who you are "purchasing" from. We often think about the "spend" only as money, but we need to think about it also as a function of time. Just because you are getting something for "free" doesn't mean you haven't spent time. As a culture and as the most intelligent creature on the planet, we need to rethink this. Getting something for nothing, is not for "nothing". Free is never really free.

The internet has gone back in time and used the old-school TV model of ad-supported content. You get to watch network shows for "free", the advertisers pay handsomely to put commercials in front of you (for all types of products unrelated to what you are watching). Just as there is trash on TV, there is trash on the internet, but there are more guardrails on TV when it comes to content and advertising. The internet is a free-for-all. (Again, a tool that we don't know how to use properly).

My relationship with A-Z is similar relationship, but more symbiotic and targeted. You are either searching for answers to questions, and my articles are shown to you for free while bringing you to a site where you can buy products similar to your search query. OR, you are coming to A-Z to buy products first, and notice that they have value-added content in their marketplace by having a darts instructor/writer. (They would not host me on their webpage, the #1 online retailer of darts supplies in the US, if they did not trust in what I do.)

I want you to think about the adage differently. Let the consumer beware. Consuming implies more than just spending money, as the word "buyer" does. Consuming is about devoting money, time and health. Think about fast food. The masses consume it, it is cheap, it is fast (obviously), and we know it is not quality. In a pinch it quells a hunger, but it often makes us feel lousy afterwards.

Another comparison; think of your mind as a computer. Computers are measured by how much they can hold, and how fast they can recall and process. Like your mind, a computer is only as good as the software you install. If your inputs are garbage, your outputs will be garbage as well. And if you download malware that posed as something familiar, you can end up doing untold harm that takes a lot of work to undo. I have seen this in players' darts games; and when I ask, "where did you learn that?" I am not surprised by the generic response of, "the internet".

I do believe that everyone CAN be learned from, but MANY lessons out there are an exercise in what NOT to do. Ask around in your circles who is worth getting information from. Just because a player is better than you, doesn't mean you want to be learning from them, and just because a player is lesser than you, doesn't mean they don't have something to offer.

PLEASE, take your time vetting the sources of where you are getting darts advice and information.

If you are looking for a quick fix, it does NOT exist. Nothing on the oche gets sorted from a random social media comment or a 3-minute video with unverifiable darts advice. The greatest issue we conflate as darts players is this: Getting the dart to the board is easy and it takes no work at all. Getting the dart to board accurately is hard, and it takes a lot of work. This is further twisted by that fact that when done well, it looks easy. The irony is, the skilled darts player is likely putting in less physical energy in the moment because of how well they have economized their form and action. They have put in a lot of mental and physical work on the practice oche so that the competitive oche is not as taxing.

The Italian word for this is sprezzatura, which is “a practiced nonchalance”. When people say, “you make it look so easy”, I often respond with, “it takes a lot of hard work to make it look so easy.” I never want people to think it is because of some "gift". I don't believe that in regard to this game. If there is a true gift amongst great darts players, it is their ability and willingness to take good darts advice on the fly while dismissing the bad ones, recalling and processing them on the fly.

Respectfully,

Dax

Dr. Manhattan