Sam Gibson is the new breed of New Zealand bushman - charismatic, photogenic, equally comfortable in front of a cellphone camera or behind a rifle - and he will change the way you think about the bush. His social media channels, under the name “Sam The Trap Man”, already have tens of thousands of followers, and now his first book, Sam the Trap Man: Cracking Yarns and Tall Tales from the Bush , has been published by one of the country’s biggest publishers, Allen & Unwin. In short, he’s the biggest thing in the New Zealand bush.
Unlike New Zealand’s most famous literary bushman, the famously abrasive and self-absorbed Barry Crump , Gibson is warm and likeable, a family man, and he’s devoting his life to helping protect our bush and its native species. He’s far from your typical social media influencer : He was still using an old push-button Nokia long after everyone else was using smartphones. He started his social channels in part because his wife told him to.
“She said, ‘You need to start telling your stories online and start letting the next generation know all the exciting, unique ecosystem stuff that you’re yarning with me about’.” He has built up his social media following mostly through quiet videos full of insights into the bush and the surprising ways in which everything in it, including us, depends on everything else..
