Alaska frontier reality shows

[whitehall]

There are about half a dozen of them. My wife likes to watch them for some reason so I do too from time to time. Pop reality seems infatuated with the concept but something bothers me. It would cost me a small fortune here in Virginia to hire a backhoe or a dozer for a day but these Alaskan people who allegedly are barely above subsistence have large machinery at their disposal. I saw a snowmobile stuck in a drift within a day's walking distance from the owner and a freaking helicopter came along to lift it to safety. They own boats and barges bigger than $50,000 houseboats to wrangle half a dozen head of cattle and they get to poach salmon and violate fish and game laws that would put us in the clink here in the lower 48. If it wasn't for the fact that they only get 10 days of summer (just kidding) I might try it.

 

[fncceo]

You get that 'reality shows' aren't real, right?

 

[whitehall]

You get that 'reality shows' aren't real, right?

They are as real as politics.

 

[fncceo]

You get that 'reality shows' aren't real, right?

They are as real as politics.

More real than politics ... but, unlike politics, they can be made very cheap and very few characters on TV have access to nuclear weapons.

 

[whitehall]

You get that 'reality shows' aren't real, right?

They are as real as politics.

More real than politics ... but, unlike politics, they can be made very cheap and very few characters on TV have access to nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons?

 

[fncceo]

You get that 'reality shows' aren't real, right?

They are as real as politics.

More real than politics ... but, unlike politics, they can be made very cheap and very few characters on TV have access to nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons?

Rise high enough in politics, you get access to nuclear weapons ..

 

[blastoff]

There are about half a dozen of them. My wife likes to watch them for some reason so I do too from time to time. Pop reality seems infatuated with the concept but something bothers me. It would cost me a small fortune here in Virginia to hire a backhoe or a dozer for a day but these Alaskan people who allegedly are barely above subsistence have large machinery at their disposal. I saw a snowmobile stuck in a drift within a day's walking distance from the owner and a freaking helicopter came along to lift it to safety. They own boats and barges bigger than $50,000 houseboats to wrangle half a dozen head of cattle and they get to poach salmon and violate fish and game laws that would put us in the clink here in the lower 48. If it wasn't for the fact that they only get 10 days of summer (just kidding) I might try it.

I’ve wondered about how they can afford a lot of their equipment too. Now at least they’re making money off the shows but some of those homesteads and presumably some of the equipment seems like they had before they became TV personalities.

Dunno how much they get paid but recently thinking about this subject I Googled up some of the Storage Wars folks and several had estimated net worths of 2, 3, 4, etc. millions, which I find hard to believe they’ve come by from buying abandoned storage lockers.