Zed A. Shaw, Painter

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.