I’ll admit it: I’m a prepper tv show junkie of sorts. I enjoy watching shows like Survivorman, Dual Survival, Doomsday Preppers, and more recently Doomsday Castle. I used to watch them because I felt like I learned useful knowledge from people like Les Stroud and company (mostly because I’m not a wilderness survivalist) but also from shows like Doomsday Preppers but, recently, I’m beginning to feel like these shows are just way too staged to even be plausible anymore.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I know the entire purpose of these shows is to entertain the sheeple masses, so it’s not like they’re going to teach all of the truly interesting in’s and out’s I would love to see, but that’s not to say I haven’t learned anything from these shows, I have. At the very least I occasionally see some really cool ideas I can never afford. 🙂
Sadly, it seems these shows have jumped completely off the cliff. For example, I recently watched the season conclusion of Doomsday Castle (as well as every other show in the series) and it seems the show dovetailed completely away from anything interesting with regards to the castle build and went right into the cinematic hype and bascially anything that might get higher ratings. Granted, you’d have to expect that because it’s what the sheeple prefer and maybe I was hoping for something more (shame on me) but, regardless, I didn’t mind watching the ladies run around most of the time. 😉
On the other hand, I recently watched a few “updated” Survivorman shows where Les discussed his favorite ways to build shelter, clean water, and procure food that I thought were fairly informative for a television show. And, so, I began to wonder if any normal people… er, sheeple, might take away anything useful from such shows? I don’t honestly know.
You see, a large part of me prefers to think of all sheeple with near utter disdain. People who will NEVER choose to see life differently. People who will NEVER choose to rely on themselves. But, then I remember that once upon a time I had exactly the same mindset. Once upon a time it never occurred to me that the grocery stores could actually have empty shelves, that the gas station could truly run out of gasoline… that my neighbors would actually kill me and my family for a can of beans. Yes, I was there once. And you probably were too. But, something changed your mind and something changed my mind too. Granted, it wasn’t a television show but maybe it could be?
Perhaps the continued repetition and reminder that things aren’t always wonderful will sway some minds? After all, for each person that gets “converted” to prepping then that’s one less person to have to fight for what you’ve rightfully acquired in the first place.
I know I’ve strayed a bit from the topic of this post but I’m trying to suggest how even mostly cinematic shows *might* be able to convert the ignorant sheeple to “one of us.” Obviously, most people won’t convert. I get it. But some will. Some, after enough stimulation, will begin to see things differently. So, maybe these television shows don’t teach a lot and maybe they won’t convert many people but I do feel like they can plant a seed.
What do you think?
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