Survival of the Fittest: The Allure of Alone

An Unfortunate American

In 1848, Phineas Gage accidentally had a pointed meter-long rod called a tamping iron penetrate his skull via his left frontal lobe of his brain. The injury offered valuable information about how the brain worked for that era’s brain scientists.

Reality TV Experimentation

Reality TV provides experimentation that no medical ethics committee would ever sanction. The show Alone is a hardcore survival show that’s been a massive hit worldwide.

A Simple Format

Alone is a beautifully simple format. Ten contestants who fancy their survival skills are deposited on some godforsaken stretch of geography, many kilometers away from the nearest bar of soap or flushing toilet. Their task is to live off the land using ten basic survival tools, filming their daily travails with an arsenal of battery-powered cameras.

Epitaphs and Extracting Teams

Tapping out is preferable to death in Alone. Each contestant has a satellite phone. When they find they can’t go on, they call the producers and formally tap out. The tap-out is preferable because you get to make a formal exit speech.

Adventuring in Life and Death

McCandless, who idolized Henry David Thoreau, ventured into the Alaskan wilderness and wound up starving to death in an abandoned bus. In Alone, contestants suffer just the right amount of solitude and deprivation: enough to make them change their minds without losing them.

Survival Wisdom

When a series of Alone enters the home straight, people start having revelations about life. The lessons they learn recur in series after series, which suggests they’re universal – they’re the same lessons we would learn, if we ignored the show’s stern viewer advice about not trying this stuff ourselves.

Predicting How Alone Australia Will Play Out

After Lucas tapped out of series one of Alone, a guy named Alan emerged as the show’s great survivor and philosopher. “Nature doesn’t care if you’re here or not,” he said. “It just is.”

Credit: https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/find-your-ferro-rods-alone-is-back-and-in-our-backyard-20230327-p5cvno.html

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