4WD TV shows

Warrie, agree, the background music can be bloody annoying at times, if you skip over most of the advertorial stuff, there is some good information to be gleaned, but an awful lot of BS and bravado to fast forward. Some of the scenery is fantastic, but will not be able to visit as I don't have a film crew in tow. I do feel sorry for the inexperienced 4x4 who watches them and thinks that you need every thing shown. Safe travels.

My only gripe with these shows is that they publicise some pretty magic, pristine and fragile locations. The end result is - the hoards descend on a place that, because of it remoteness and inaccessability, was privvy mostly, to those that respected such places and took care of them. The destruction we have all witnessed includes wholesale cutting down of shady or significant trees, creek bank destruction, (challenging the new 4by as shown on the ads on TV by ignoring the main entry and exit and trying to get up the fragile creek bank), hundreds of unburied toilet droppings in camp site surrounds, loss of cover vegetation, eg loss of covering grass moss etc from burnouts or overuse. Erosion - dont get me started!! The locations include fragile high altitude camps on crystal clear creeks - muddied by extra traffic, and even remote gnamma holes in the Great Western Wooldand of WA - Dont mention the coastal gems we can no longer access. Yep maybe I've eaten a few sour grapes BUT - where does the promotion, destruction, pollution and overuse of Australias fragile ecosystems end. Teewah Beach and Double Island point are already having visitor limits enforced due to hooning behaviour, rollovers and a few deaths over the last few years... It is very difficult for those of us who saw Australia from the 60s through to the early 2000s and to see these changes - while a newer generation cannot see what has been lost among this new normal. Yes I know social media has a lot to answer for too...I just have to call this out.

Or online sites with clickbait like ........ " Ten Incredible Secret Camping Spots " ........

Not secret anymore, and probably not nice anymore. Sad.

Cheers
J

All too often the 'headlines' designed to attract viewers or readers have little or no substance to back them up.

It is the modern formula, nearly always associated with commercial enterprise, whether this is to satisfy sponsors, or getting an income from the number of 'clicks'.

Getting folk 'in' , or creating a 'product' for others has for many become more important than providing substance. Although not implicitly a bad thing, the overall result, I feel, is that many of todays blog & vlog offerings become increasingly indistinguishable from each other. The headlines which scream out 'Epic this' or 'Awesome that', & worse the headlines which ask a question 'Did we survive the XYZ track?' or ' Did we reach XYZ without getting bogged?' etc which when viewed are pretty ordinary with an attempt to liven them up with dramatic music.

Then there are those who present stuff as though it's never been done before, but now they are the experts to coach all the wannabes they think are their audience. But at least they have a naieve freshness about their repetition.

I say these things as a blogger myself, no doubt at times having fallen into some of the same traps. But I do like to think that I have avoided the worst excesses of some, & provide more substance & difference to many. It's not always easy to find something different to write & often feel I have failed, but feedback continues to be positive. Audience numbers remain modest, I think because to read my scribblings takes a bit more commitment than to view an exciting headline with little to back it up. I may be wrong but I feel a sense of pride in remaining non commercial & not getting caught up in the 'shouting' to be noticed. Somehow this helps me to feel that I manage to retain my integrity. Whether any good or not is another matter. At the end of the day it is as much for me as for whatever audience reads it. Writing is a good way for me to process experience.

That said, I am in awe of the occasional videos that some make. When you see some good film making it really stands apart from the rest, not by virtue of technology, but through the skilled use of the technology combined with the thoughtfulness & perception of the film maker. I have often thought how good it would be to emulate the better producers of such material, but the workload would be far more than I could manage, even if I had the skills to do it.

It's like coffee. Owning an espresso machine doesn't make someone a barista.