Why Survival?

M

milani74

Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
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First off, I like watching a lot of the "survival" shows on Discovery. But I am increasingly becoming annoyed by how much the term "survival situation" is used during some of these shows. Why not an emergency, lost, or stranded, or some specific recreated predicament like being trapped under avalanche? Or why mention survival at all and just mention how old trappers or indigenous people gathered food, provided shelter, and lived?
Is being in a "survival situation" have it's own set of outdoor standards to you, or is it a coined term that has sprouted out of the fairly recent commercial market that has developed from TV?
 
KuRUpTD said:
Then you might want to question the name of this sub-forum.
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Point taken. To be honest, I didnt think even think about that. But the question still stands, does being in a "survival situation" have a set standard to you? Is it only if you find yourself lost in the wilderness? Or can it happen when your in a car accident?
 
TV has proven to me more educational than some methods. I think survival can span a range of situations. I wouldn’t get tied down to the definition of TV survival, even though some of the episodes can be entertaining.

A simple hike, drive into a National Forest, fishing up a very remote creek, etc. can all turn into a survival situation. Maybe not the 2-3 day situation, but even 24 hours can be life-threatening depending on the season and weather.

You bring up a good point about using the term “survival”. It’s a good eye-catcher and serves its purpose for entertainment. I don’t disagree with you on the premise; however, a simple situation can turn into a life-threatening survival situation.

Good discussion Mike,

ROCK6
 
Who would buy a Lost Knife or Stranded Knife....Survival Knife has that cool factor !:D


In all seriousness I think that the word Survival just hits a chord with most people and makes everything be it a program, book, knife whatever sound far more exciting !


Let's face it the ' Stranded forum ' sounds like it might be for people who can't get a taxi home on a saturday night !:p
 
The very best survival show unarguably, hands down, bar none, without a doubt was Spike's Surviving Disaster with Cade Courtley. I am still PO'd at Spike for canceling the show and it was a huge hit. You can still watch episodes on their website I believe. It had a great line up of great scenarios other than wilderness. It was full of no nonsense to the point real advice to save your life without the stupid show boat crap like Bear Crap Girls does that will get someone killed. I can't stand that queer Limey Bastid. Does anyone else despise that little freak like I do?
 
No need to turn this into a bash-bear thread.

Survival is when you need to survive a situation you do not want to be in, at least in my opinion.
 
In a discussion forum like this, we tend to define our terms carefully. We argue endlessly about the meaning of terms and the activities behind them.

Television is a commercial medium. It depends on rounding up an audience for as broad a topic as possible, to bring in the largest number of viewers. So all these outdoor shows will share the word "survival" which sounds more exciting than "let's go for a walk, old buddy".

Then the photogenic survivalist will hike, climb, fish, camp, and make it home -- alive, hurray! The producer has had a chance to show scenery, a few animals, product placement gear that you can buy for your very own next walk in the park, -- and you've had a few ads slipped in every twenty minutes or so, also.

It's a catch-all term because everyone using the same term grabs the same demographic. If Outdoor Survival had to compete with Outdoor Fishing and Outdoor Sailing and Wilderness Car-Camping, you would divide up the audience and everyone would go broke.
 
Utopia-Trivia guided by media & Net for a better way to transformers your untrue to true & viceversa.
 
ROCK6 said:
It’s a good eye-catcher and serves its purpose for entertainment.
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Bang on. TV loves the term survival. Why? Because it allows the producers to dream up exotic/adventure scenarios and put even more drama into the mix. How many viewers want to watch a guy sitting in a tree stand for six hours, shiver a bit, come down, start a little fire warm up with a little subtitle pop up saying - that hunter just saved himself from hypothermia.

No, they want hunter in middle of Africa with his jeep stalled out and he forget the ammo to his elephant killer. This just after he gave restaurant owner in the closest town the double finger as he stiffed them for his meal. Meanwhile, turns out the restaurant owner's brother-in law is a game warden with a gold tooth and a penchant for using landcrape pruners to de-finger bad guys. Hunter realizes he thankfully has his Rambo knife of molecular steel and that cutting edge cable saw and water proof matches safely protected in their cellulose packaging since 1986. Now all he has to do make a shelter and keep the lions at bay. Crap....Here comes Mike Hawke and his wife Ruth....He can here her voice well above the lion growls even though they are actually 2-miles away. Damn it, what to do now. Escape, evasion, intrigue......Check it out next time on the Ultimate Mega Survivor Hunter only on Discovery Channel!
 
The fact that it generally refers to a lost in the woods kind of situation is just because that's what people think of when you say survival nowadays. When a term is commonly known then why would you call your show something else? Saying it's a survival show means we all instantly have an idea of what it's about and then we'll probably watch it, basically it's just marketing, but what's wrong with saying survival situation anyway?

If you're in a life threatening situation that you're trying to survive, is that not a survival situation? You could say that person is stranded on an island or that person is trapped under an avalanche but either way their goal is to survive whatever life threatening situation they've gotten into, and so calling it a survival situation is just a nice easy way to group them all together.

Then there are shows where the people in them aren't surviving, they're just showing you skills that could help you survive, should those have a different name? Maybe. Shows where the host is teaching you how to survive (to some degree) I can understand being called survival shows. When they're showing you how to live in the woods for a long time with minimal equipment should that be called survival? Not really, because you're not learning how to survive a life threatening situation, you're learning to live in the woods. Some of those skills could be used in a survival situation but that's not really the point of the show. These shows could be called wilderness living skills shows but that's not catchy at all, so they tend to be called survival shows as well just so they have a group of people to market it towards. I think that's why the term bushcraft came about, it's kind of a cross between survival and wilderness living skills so there's a group of people to market it towards but it can still be seperated from real survival shows.
 
I thinks it's mainly about the psychological impact of the statements.

"A stranded situation" conjures up images of annoyance and struggle (most of us have been stranded to some degree or the other at one time or another)...but yes a stranded situation can quickly become life or death under the right circumstances.

"Survival situation" takes the mind straight to the life or death aspect of it by-passing all else.

Hell, being peacefully asleep in your own bed can suddenly become a "survival situation" during a natural/unnatural disaster or something like your country/home being invaded.

.
 
G'day Milani


milani74 said:
....Or why mention survival at all and just mention how old trappers or indigenous people gathered food, provided shelter, and lived?
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I reckon that urbanisation has had a role, in seeing the change in emphasis from something that "just about every country kid knew how to do" to become "preparation for survival situations".

It seems to me that as more peole are living in cities and available outdoor time shrinks, nature seems to have taken on more of an adversarial role, something that needs to be taken head on and survived :confused:




milani74 said:
....Is being in a "survival situation" have it's own set of outdoor standards to you, or is it a coined term that has sprouted out of the fairly recent commercial market that has developed from TV?
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I have no idea.

I'm still getting my head around the whole "survival" concept :D



Kind regards
Mick
 
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SouthernCross said:
I have no idea.

I'm still getting my head around the whole "survival" concept :D



Kind regards
Mick
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Lol, survival skills are those used to save one's @$$...whether they be bushcraft, CQC, or talking just right and keeping your woman happy....if it keeps you alive it's a survival skill :thumbup:
 
I'm not entirely sure I understand the OP question.

But I'll take a shot: Because having a general term is helpful. "Survivorman" is a pretty good show title. Imagine if it was "How to find water in the desert and make a fish spear and find edible plants Man". That's the good reason.

The bad reason is that people get lazy in their speech and writing and end up being inexact.
Nifty terms often get overused until they become almost meaningless.

This brushes up on a pet peave of mine: People who liberally sprinkle their conversation with four letter words. It isn't really the vulgarity, it's the fact that they often use one word to meen about 10 different things over the course of a few minutes. When a word can mean anything at all it means nothing at all.
 
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All of the "survival" shows are character driven. It's more interesting and exciting for the average television viewer to see a particular character go survive in exotic locations and circumstances. Lost hunter scenarios and such have been tried in said shows, but it's more exciting to put the character in some tropical hellhole somewhere.

A survival documentary is a different show entirely.
 
milani74 said:
But the question still stands, does being in a "survival situation" have a set standard to you? Is it only if you find yourself lost in the wilderness? Or can it happen when your in a car accident?
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a "survival situation" can happen anywhere. on a boat, on a plane, on a train, in a car. it does not matter where you are! with a hurricane, earthquake, fire, panicked mob, flood, or even a bear, it can happen anywhere!

if you want to avoid those situations, don't go stupid places, hang with stupid people or do stupid shit! however that only improves your odds, it is not a guarantee at avoiding a tough spot.

much of it is "common sense", unfortunately, that ain't so common these days.

too many people don't ask themselves "what if?"
 
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