onposting

Last summer, I wrote a story for, let's say, a mid-tier Hearst magazine about "survival influencers." Basically, there is a small sect of YouTubers who've made a career by decamping into a provocative corner of the global wilderness — the Canadian prairies, the Australian badlands, the Alaskan archipelago and so on — where they boldly challenge the turbulent elements for content. Usually they're only equipped with a video camera and a basic trundle of subsistence gear, which means I have watched these young men go to incredible corporeal extremes to grind out views. (One dude methodically demonstrated how one can boil a slimy, but calorie-rich, "fish head soup"