Zed A. Shaw, Painter

Frequently male contestants will start the show by doing all the heavy lifting and building, which uses up all their energy for the day, then they crash *HARD* about day 2-3. Since most of these guys are also crazy fit their body probably burns double, and most can't handle it.

This makes total sense, but the show frequently portrays the men in this situation as just weak, rather than just victims of the consequence of doing all the lifting and cutting on Day 1. The show does seem to revel in filming them crying and being weak rather then explaining.

None of the people who go on the show can handle walking without shoes, which I find insane because they know they're going on the damn show. Why aren't they just walking barefoot for months and months before going on? They also get sun burned a lot, so why aren't they tanning?

I used to make fun of how they can't start a fire for shit, then a last week I had to start a fire in a fire place with paper, matches, dry wood, and a fire starter. It took me almost an hour and I'm experienced at starting fires, so now I have mad respect if anyone can do it.

I'm serious, I couldn't start a fire for shit. Used up all the matches, had to use a pound of paper towels, then the only time I got it to work was when I used one of the tricks from Naked and Afraid to help start the fire. FIRE IS FUCKING HARD.

But, the dumbest thing is they can bring any fire starter they want, so some people bring a nice magnesium alloy starter they can scratch and spark. Other morons bring a fucking bow and stick starter along with a giant bag of ultra fail that comes with it.

The only time I saw someone nail that thing was a woman in an Australian episode. I saw her bust out the bow and I'm laughing, "Ahahaha the bow! She's toast." Then she puts a bone on the top of the stick which helps keep it stable and turn faster and BAM she had one going in 10

The people who go on this show do not watch this show. It is totally fucking obvious they do not do their research. You can watch for 10 seasons and take notes on all the common things that fail miserably, but these are all kind of meat head fit douches and military idiots.

For example, every fucking show some idiot makes a figure 4 dead fall trap in the middle of nowhere with zero bait. TRAPS NEED BAIT FUCK FACE. They also don't eat all of animals they get, so they could use leftovers as bait. Nope, just a rock in a field and it never works.

They also love weaving stupid ass basket fishing traps and again don't put any fucking bait in them. Snares don't work either. Never on the show has a single trap caught more than 1 crap, 1 crawfish, and a tiny fish in all the seasons. DEAR PEOPLE, TRAPS DON'T WORK.

One dude brings a bow and arrows and he is a bad motherfucker with that thing. He kills big game with it and knows how to make jerky so he eats like a king the whole time. However, everyone who brings a bow, even this guy, is a fucking moron for one reason:

I've literally seen a guy with a bow standing on the edge of a river, staring at massive fish, going, "Damn! Why'd I bring this bow! I should have brought a fishing pole." YOU STUPID ASSHOLE YOU CAN SHOOT THE FUCKING FISH WITH THE BOW.

Most of the time the rivers are shallow and not moving, so he wouldn't even need a line on the arrow, just stand over the fish, shoot it, and walk over to pull it out. Wouldn't even lose the arrow. Could reuse it and do that all day long. Nope. Just stares at the fish.

Every contestant is terrible at gathering food. I think they're all told to follow the pattern of: shelter, fire, food. So they strictly do that, but shelter and fire take energy which requires food. It should be gather food and eat constantly, not wait 2 days to get some.

I've seen so many of them go, "Oh look, yams. Oh look, a snake. Oh look, fruit." And just walk right by it instead of snagging it and eating it or taking it. Whoever is teaching them this pattern is an idiot. Food acquisition is constant.

Speaking of fruit: Dear Naked and Afraid, please tell these idiots that you can cut down a banana tree with your bare hands. It's soft like very weak celery. Over and over they'll be looking up at huge clumps of bananas going, "Well darn that's high up." Cut that shit down!

The show is also getting monotonous so they're trying out weird formats. Threesomes, 4 people, XL, but the problem is not the number or mix of people, it's the people. Every show is mostly full of fitness douchebags with zero science background.

Because most of these people have no science background they tend to be totally clueless about simple shit like all the above. I'd like to see a VS format: Fitbros vs. Nerds "Team 1 is a former Marine and a Alaskan homesteader." "Team 2 is a Botanist and a Civil Engineer."

The competition is then whichever team comes out of the challenge with the *most* weight on their bodies. They weigh before, then after, and whichever team weighs the most wins. I think you'd have a much more interesting show, and a couple common outcomes:

I think a lot of times you'd have the nerds do better at shelter building, fire, and food acquisition, but having less experience at survival making more deadly mistakes like lopping a leg off with a machete. If they avoid injury they'd have more weight retained.

Meanwhile I think the Fitbros would do better at shelter billing and killing shit, but would end up losing more weight but a higher chance of avoiding injuries due to experience in survival. It'd definitely make for a more interesting show.

A final note: I definitely couldn't do that shit, even with the small amount of military and survival training I have. I'm making fun of them but it is a fucking hard challenge. I just think the contestants tend to be stupid and it's obvious from their lack of research.

Like, not building up their barefoot walking skills, or not knowing how to shoot a fish with a bow, or not knowing that...traps need fucking bait, all show that really they're sort of mediocre survivalists and kind of not very bright but get on the show b/c of past training.