What I think about when I watch reality TV show Alone

I was speaking to a mate a while back about Murakami’s What I talk about when I talk about running and how it had a big impact on him when he first read it. And when he revisited it more recently, it fell a bit flat and didn’t spark the same flames as last time. But it got me thinking and so a new series is born. Read the first story in the series here.

I could win this. I’m so sure I could win it. If you’re unfamiliar with the greatest show to grace the internet in recent memory, Alone is, technically, reality TV. But it's genuinely unlike any other reality show I’ve ever seen. There’s no melodrama, choreographed outrage or voting. No judges, except Mother Nature, no pomp, no splendour, no film crew. It’s a self-recorded survival show where ten people are dropped on their own into some of the world’s harshest wilderness and whoever lasts the longest wins.

So why do I think I’d win it? For starters, I’ve watched all 9 seasons (plus Alone: Frozen – not the Disney crossover I was expecting) from the smug safety of my couch and I’ve picked up on two crucial insights and learn what I believe is enough to win it.

So ten people are dropped into an isolated location in some hostile wilderness. We’ve seen people pit themselves against Alaska, Canada, Patagonia, and there’s an Australian season coming soon apparently. Each person is allowed to take 10 items as well as a huge case of camera equipment to record their every move. It’s mostly GoPros and acts as a pretty great advertisement for them becasue when there’s no rain, snow, or mud on the lens, the footage is great. So that’s 10 items to try and take care of food, shelter and warmth for as long as possible. And why would someone volunteer for this when the world hasn’t quite yet devolved into the Hunger Games timeline?

The last person standing wins half a million dollars (USD which at the time of writing is still worth a lot). One of the most brutal details of the show is no one knows how many other people are still left in the game. So mentally, they’re fighting against indefinite isolation alone in the wilderness. And despite all the deep dark under-the-bed fears of what will make them tap out (they have a radio to call for an extraction if they wish to quit) — bear, wolf, honey badger or rabbid rabbit attack, broken bone, head injury — being alone with their thoughts turns out to be one of the biggest challenges. That and gastrointestinal distress. This show made me realise the scariest thing in the apocalype isn’t zombies or roving gangs of miscreants, it’s the squits.

In each new season of Alone, the contestants have watched, studied and learnt from the previous seasons. Food collection progresses from scavenging berries, fishing and snaring small game to bow hunting the biggest animal they can find (then ultimately falling back to wiping out generations of squirrel, grouse and rabbits) and trot lines (a fishing net left in the water overnight to catch fish). And if there’s a season that hypes up the presence of bears, you better believe there’s a tonne of talk about taking down a bear with a bow and arrow.

I first discovered Alone during the early months of the Covid pandemic as conspiracy theories and sourdough prolifereated and the phrase “anti-masker” replaced moron in conversation. There was something deeply calming and satisfying watching people earnestly engaged in a genuine struggle against real hardship.

Whole-body sorrow at slowly starving towards medical (or self) extraction turned to emotional relief as they secured a morsel of food no well-fed well-rested person would take a second look at in normal life. Insects, moss, seaweed, mussels, anything with caloric value was downed with glib gratitude. And if they caught something with a heartbeat, you could bank it’d be seasoned with a good dose of tears. Sometimes gratitude, sometimes remorse at having to kill to survive. Maybe because every meal reminded them of how hungry they were.

I’d win even though I’ve never lived off the land and every contestant is deeply interested in and usually obsessed with survival skills and bushcraft – often hunting their own meat and growing everything else. Most say they entered to challenge themselves, not for the money. And prophetically, Alone reveals itself to be less about human versus nature and more about an auto-psychological battle.

I’d win Alone because it’s 85% mental fortitude, 20% physical endurance (really just starvation tolerance and I’ve done a few weeks of time-restricted eating and it basically cured my chronic bouts of the hangries) and the rest is pure intuition and bush smarts. I’m not a survivalist, I’m no hunter, I can’t even fish. I’ve tried my hand at spearfishing and, ironically, was like a fish out of water. But the cold renders that irrelevant for Alone sucess. I tried setting snares one time with my country cousins and we caught exactly nothing. I’ve never killed a large animal with a bow and arrow. I’ve never killed anything with a bow and arrow. In fact, the only animals I’ve killed, aside from a recent and ongoing cull of backyard Cane Toads, would be considered roadkill. The first time I’d heard of gill nets, trotlines and all the various technical names for the different shelters contestants build was in the show. Still, I’d win.

After the first two seasons, two insights reveal themselves. Insights that put me in pole position. The first may rub people the wrong way and if it does, it’s probably why you won’t win Alone – family is weakness. Your loved ones are holding you back and stand directly between you and your goal of winning Alone. There is a correlation (verging on causation) between contestants who mention how much they love (and soon miss) their family and how quickly they tap out. Familial love is a psychological Trojan horse. Those contestants bursting with love and emotion for their families believe it to be their source of strength but wait for nightfall and that horse bursts open and the Trojan’s soldiers – Despairius, Guiltius and Longingus – pop out and raze their resilience to the ground. They crumble, weirded out by dreams of delicious horse meat, and they tap out to run into the loving arms of the reason they lost.

The second is harder to qualify but segues nicely from the first – tame the mind, tame the wild. There’s a degree of projection here as I keep trying to train my mind to be as equanimous as a stoned monk, but those who keep it positive and keep their mind and emotions under control, last longer. There’s a performative edge to just about every contestant’s footage in their early days alone. But as time goes by and their physical and mental decline accelerates, their true selves and self-talk reveal themselves.

Some people are gentle, loving, and understanding with themselves when they err. Others rue, berate and stew themselves. Fighting for survival in the slowly freezing wild, emotional meltdowns equal caloric churn. And when the bulk of your diet is moss, berries, and a watery broth made from spiteful intertidal mussels, you need to conserve energy any way you can. Their situation is hard enough and if they give voice to their negative thoughts, they start the self-destruct sequence. 

These people aren’t mentally weak – they’re just starving. And a bit like working at a bar and watching someone write themselves off across a Saturday night, you watch contestants’ mental decline as they slowly starve towards death and psychological ruin. There’s a fine line between baseless self-belief and delusion and Alone’s taught me that if you don’t keep your self-talk positive, you’ll lose or die cyring. 

That is why I could win Alone and that is what I think about when I watch Alone.